Posted on 12/31/2009 2:33:46 PM PST by AuntB
SAN JUAN — Previous attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform have collapsed under opposing demands from warring factions.
But when an immigration reform bill was introduced earlier this month, it drew broad support from a wide group of parties, said Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes. Ninety-three U.S. Representatives have thrown their name behind the bill and business leaders, agriculture groups and others are in favor of reform.
“There is a diversity of support that we’ve never had before” for immigration reform, the Congressman said Wednesday during a meeting with members of La Union del Pueblo Entero at the organization’s headquarters on Business 83 and Cesar Chavez Road. “This is going to be a national effort but we need all the support we can get.”
Hinojosa, one of 92 co-sponsors for the immigration reform bill introduced into the House of Representatives Dec. 15, asked members of LUPE to take an active role in pushing for reform next year, telling them, “We can’t do this without you.”
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, creates a streamlined path to legalization for the nation’s estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants.
The bill seeks to legalize undocumented immigrants by requiring them to register with the federal government, pay a $500 fine, learn English, pass background checks and meet other requirements. They then are eligible for a six-year visa and then a green card.
The bill also sets out tougher penalties for employers who hire illegal workers, creates rules that require foreign investors given U.S. visas to create jobs in this country and adds restrictions on hiring foreign workers.
Multiple immigration reform bills are expected to be filed by early next year in advance of President Barack Obama’s pledge to take up the contentious issue next year.
But the rallying cry behind the effort has already begun.
Martha Sanchez, a community organizer with LUPE, the San Juan-based immigrant advocacy group, said she is asking all supporters of immigration reform to take an active role.
“We wanted this to be a grassroots effort,” she said. “The people who need this need to be involved with it.”
LUPE has taken an organizational role in connecting colonia residents and others who are interested in reform to ways they can help.
The group is setting up phone banks to call members of Congress asking them to support the bill, Sanchez said. It’s also hosting a community forum in mid-January and sending representatives to a state convention on reform in February.
Juanita Valdez-Cox, executive director of the group, said a concentrated push for immigration reform could prevent the effort from failing again.
“We know it’s a long haul,” she said. “But even if it’s a long haul, we need to be in it.”
The bill introduced is CIR - ASAP HR 4321 It will do away with the successful 287g program and do nothing to secure the border.
Where are our GOP leaders against this?
The only republican in office I can find speaking against this so far...
Hunter Reaffirms Opposition to Amnesty December 15, 2009
Washington DC – In light of immigration reform legislation introduced by Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) to provide citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, Congressman Hunter reaffirmed his opposition to any comprehensive reform effort that grants amnesty or fails to put border security first. In January, Congressman Hunter will be joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to introduce the BRIDGE resolution – a legislative initiative that outlines several guiding principles for comprehensive immigration reform.
Civil War 2
Did I say crazy? Call it *beyond* crazy.
Here is one that may well be back in office some day speaking on the subject:
AJM: Very good. You’re probably aware of this one. It’s been announced in the news with several stories coming out of the Pelosi camp and the Obama administration that they are going to revisit amnesty in the next few weeks. They are working diligently on the next amnesty plan and I’m sure they’ll have some of the same republicans involved with this – namely Lindsey Graham and McCain and some of the other same cast of characters. So this thing actually has a lot of support when you toss in those republicans. What is your opinion on this and what should we do to fight it?
DH: I think there will be a large backlash against this. Especially among rank and file democrats during this high unemployment period. I’ll never forget a construction worker, an American citizen coming up to me one time, a member of the Hispanic community, and said “please don’t let”–what was known in those days as Kennedy/McCain- “this thing pass”. This guy explained that it had taken him years to get to the point where he was making $35/hr. And he said “if you open the floodgates, I’ll go down to $15 an hour, and my ability to take care of my family will diminish”. He said that in so many words.
Especially when you have a massive unemployment rate, the idea that we are going to open the floodgates is insane. That’s what you do when you entertain amnesty. We’ve seen the number of crossings, illegal border crossings increase when the President even TALKS about it, talks about amnesty. It’s human nature. The people that came over in the 80s, when we gave amnesty to some 3 million people – and we incidentally at that point, we said ‘now THIS IS IT, this time we really mean it and we are gonna enforce our borders’. And people knew we didn’t really mean it; so about 12 million more came pouring in subsequent to that admonishment that we were now going to enforce the borders in a serious way, and that there would be no more amnesty.
So when you announce an amnesty there will always be a new wave people coming over illegally, human nature being what it is, anticipating that they – the new wave- will catch the next amnesty. So at a time when jobs are very, very difficult to find, especially blue collar jobs, the idea that we are opening the floodgates again is something the American people will not accept.
And I know the democrat strategists are looking to… thinking they are going to pickup a new, huge voting constituency. I don’t think so. Last hired is often first fired. And there are lots of folks in the Hispanic community like the guy who approached me, the construction worker, who are worried about their jobs and the rate of pay.
AJM: So you think the backlash will stop it once again?
DH: I think so.
AJM: Because the last one we weren’t in a recession, the economy was booming and we still managed to stop it. But it took a lot of vocal leadership, people like you congressman, frankly, being probably the premier spokesman against it. It definitely rallied the troops. Talk radio finally got on it, and even a lot of democrats opposed it.
DH: I think we’ll get more now. I think the economic dimension will play out strongly at this point.
AJM: I sure hope so. Even the Reagan model, which you voted against by the way, the 1986 amnesty, there was the promise of border enforcement. I can’t imagine that these democrats writing this next bill will…..they’ve already gutted your Secure Fence Act several times over. What’s your take on getting some real border enforcement? Are we going to have to wait for the next Republican in office?
DH: I think it is clear that this administration does not want a secure border. And it is always difficult to understand their point of view. But it is clear from their initiatives, and the lack of interest in completing the border fence. The way most of the amnesty initiatives have been framed, proponents always promise that enforcement will go hand in hand with the amnesty. But I think at this point all the political proponents of amnesty have lost their credibility.
We had a Secure Fence Act, which was watered down massively. We got some fence up, some 100s of miles of some barrier, which has been good. Incidentally, we sealed up Smugglers Gulch in San Diego with the double fence. And when we did that, the crime rate in the city of San Diego, by FBI statistics, after we built the fence, fell by more than 53 percent. The apprehensions went down by more than 90 percent!
The point is that fences do work. And another point is that the then governor of Arizona, Governor Napolitano, swung back and forth between saying “fences don’t work” – saying “if you show me a 12 foot fence, I’ll show you a 13 foot ladder”, and in the next sentence she would lament the fact that we (California) were sealing our border so the illegal aliens were now going to her state of Arizona and crossing.
ALL: (laughs)
DH: She not only tried to have it both ways, but literally she tried to have it both ways in almost the same sentence (laughing).
In fact, in Yuma, Arizona, the one sector that they fenced there, as I recall, apprehensions went down from almost 138,000 in that sector to 3,800, after they did the fence.
AJM: That’s amazing. But you know the problem with Napolitano, don’t you? She got a promotion, a promotion from governor; she’s the head of Homeland Security. What a disaster.
DH: Yeah. I’m aware of that. The same person who discounted the fence, and resented the fact that we had one. So no, she’s not going to lead with a construction program.
AJM: That’s for sure. But do you have any words for your own party? My recollection is that the Secure Fence Act, the watering down of that, actually took place in the hands of Kay Bailey Hutchinson and John Cornyn.
DH: Yeah. We had the two Texas senators, with the Texas border literally on fire with the smuggling of people and narcotics, fold. And I don’t know where they got their direction. The President (Bush) had essentially the same position – they didn’t want to fence Texas. You had at one time I recall, some 600 unsolved murders in Nuevo Laredo. That’s the drug town immediately across from Laredo, Texas. Massive smuggling. Yet inexplicable disinterest on the part of Kay Bailey and John Cornyn. Good members of congress, strong on defense, generally folks that I agree with; but also the governor, Governor Perry was not an advocate of the fence.
I think they were all talking to the landowners who probably liked the idea of having a fairly large pool of people coming across the border to work inexpensively.
My point to the President, and to the Senators during the conference on this fence, was that a landowner on the border, or a rancher on the border, does not have the right to determine unilaterally what the immigration policy of this country is going to be. And just because that means that he gets some inexpensive people, he’s NOT the guy to be sorting out the people who may at one point be terrorists, or who may be the drug people, and determining who comes into the United States. The policy of the United States is deeper and is more important than the desires of a landowner to have some inexpensive labor coming in to his ranch from Mexico.
AJM: I’ll agree with that. I want to reiterate the fact that they’ve been catching a lot of non-mexicans, what do they call them, OTMs – Other Than Mexicans. A lot of Chinese coming…
DH: That’s always been the case. Everybody in the world knows if you want to get into America illegally, you use the southern border of the United States to do it. You don’t come through LA International Airport anymore. They understand that. That’s a MAJOR problem. So what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to elect a bunch of conservative Republicans in this next race. Obviously, we need to take Congress back!
And I think that’s possible. The swings, the nature of politics is to surprise. And I think we can have a surprising resurgence in the House races in this next election.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2391044/posts
ping
bump
H.R. 4321: The Amnesty Mob's 'Greatest Hits'
The best thing about that site is its Action Page where you can fax your reps from their site. They don't require money but they will ask to help out. I do.
That would be the final straw for destroying the country as we know it.
If you factor in cap and tax, obmacare,the left's penchant to take over corporations,they would then control a significant part of our economy/govt. and politics forever.
IMHO,It would mean the absolute destruction of the US as we know it forever.
This is a terrible legacy to leave for our kids and it must be opposed with everything we have.
“They want a budget for “civil rights” as big as DHS’s...
SEC. 137. OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES AND OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL.
There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary for the Department’s Office of Inspector General and the Department’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to be comparable to those of other Federal agencies and commensurate with the size and scope of the DHS operational budget.”
Good catch, raybbr, there are all sorts of little surprises in this thing.
LUPE ping!
f you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
With this admin you know how screwed we are, then there is yet another idiot named Janet, who we know was a useless Gov on this issue
There have been seven illegal alien amnesties passed into law since 1986:
·The 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act blanket amnesty for an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens
·1994: The “Section 245(i)” temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens
·1997: Extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty
·1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America
·1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti
·2000: Extension of amnesty for some 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed eligibility under the 1986 act
·2000: The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which included a restoration of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty for 900,000 illegal aliens]
Guess what? None –not one—of those amnesties was associated with a decline in illegal immigration. On the contrary, the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has more than tripled since President Reagan signed the first amnesty in 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then acquired automatic US citizenship.
There have been seven illegal alien amnesties passed into law since 1986:
·The 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act blanket amnesty for an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens
·1994: The “Section 245(i)” temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens
·1997: Extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty
·1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America
·1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti
·2000: Extension of amnesty for some 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed eligibility under the 1986 act
·2000: The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which included a restoration of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty for 900,000 illegal aliens]
Guess what? None –not one—of those amnesties was associated with a decline in illegal immigration. On the contrary, the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has more than tripled since President Reagan signed the first amnesty in 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then acquired automatic US citizenship.
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