Posted on 10/04/2010 1:59:28 AM PDT by jdirt
If you care about illegal immigration, how bout calling your Senators and ask that they co-sponser this bill?
Senator Hatch Drops a Helpful and Thoughtful Border Security Bill
By Janice Kephart , October 3, 2010
Amongst all the chit-chat by the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and President Obama about it being time for Congress to "step up and do something on immigration," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has. That being said, I'm pretty sure Sen. Hatch's bill does not reflect this administration's checklist of priorities, but it should. Why? The bill is thoughtful and provides remedies to problems either swept under the rug by this administration or exacerbated by Obama administration policy changes.
The Hatch bill, "Strengthening Our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America's Security Act", provides a host of "plugs" to current immigration failures that would go a long way to helping America take the reins on a soaring border security problem. At the moment, the administration tells us that a sealed border is not possible and that another terrorist attack is likely inevitable. The capitulation evident in these comments indicates that there is little interest in doing what we can to secure America. Sen. Hatch knows this is not true, and his bill reflects a commitment to law enforcement and protection of natural resources that is refreshing. In his floor statement when he introduced the bill late in the day on September 29, 2010, he set the tone as follows:
We can make progress by starting with the laws that already exist. My bill would enhance our core immigration and enforcement laws for both legal and illegal immigrants. . . . There is much work to be done before the border is properly sealed. I continue to work with and support my colleagues whose states are located along the Southwest border. They know what resources we need to deploy to secure the border.
While Utah is not a border state, we still share the same concerns of our neighbors along the border. However, our problems result from a residual effect of a porous border and a breakdown of our immigration enforcement system.
For years, I have been saying most immigration problems could be solved if we would enforce the laws on the books. Unfortunately, the current Administration continues to explore ways to exploit current law and score political points.
During the past several months, the Obama administration has been holding behind-the-scenes talks to determine whether the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally grant legal status, on a mass basis, to illegal immigrants via deferred action and parole. If the Administration is successful, it would be the equivalent of back-door amnesty for millions. For this reason, my bill specifies that an alien may only be paroled or granted deferred action on a case-by-case basis – not en mass - the way these laws were intended to be used.
Drug Cartel Activity on Federal Lands. Sen. Hatch requires the Director of National Drug Control Policy to develop a "Federal Lands Counterdrug Action Plan." The plan would set forth the Government's strategy for preventing the illegal production, cultivation, manufacture, and trafficking of controlled substances on federal lands by Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and other criminal elements. Marijuana cultivation on federal lands receives an aggravated penalty. In addition, organized crime figures become ineligible for a U.S. visa and mass amnesty is not permitted. This combination of closed loopholes eliminates the possibility of organized criminals obtaining a visa in the hope of receiving amnesty once in the United States.
The concern over federal land abuse by the drug cartels is well-founded. For the past year, the Center, through my series of films, has been addressing this issue in my mini-documentary series as follows:
•Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 3: A Day in the Life of a Drug Smuggler (September 2010), which focuses on drug cartel travel methods through Arizona's federally owned land using both hidden camera and my footage of the most violent drug corridor in Arizona. •Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 2: Drugs, Guns, and 850 Illegal Aliens (July 2010), which features footage of both illegal-alien entry as well as gun- and drug-smuggling, all on federal land. •Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border: Coyotes, Bears, and Trails (July 2009), which raises questions about environmentalists' focus on stopping a border fence, when endangered species and vegetation have already been proven to suffer significantly where no fence exists. Abandoned vehicles, drug drops, illegal groups trekking and camping, along with the predictable human waste and immense litter left behind, have destroyed fragile Arizona ecosystems. ID theft. Sen. Hatch is the first Senator to provide a badly needed upgrade to statutory language enabling federal prosecutors to go after identity thieves fully under the aggravated identity theft criminal code, using language changes I proposed in Fixing Flores: Assuring Adequate Penalties for Identity Theft and Fraud. In addition, victims of Social Security number identity theft — in this context likely by illegal aliens or document mills selling to illegal aliens seeking U.S. jobs — will be notified by the Social Security Administration within 60 days that their number was used in an attempt to gain employment. This simple procedure would enable victims to curtail potential harm done by fraud, especially children who are often unaware of the fraud until they reach the age of majority.
Exit tracking. Sen. Hatch mandates a departure system for foreign visitors, otherwise known as an Exit system, based on the successful pilots I also emphasized in my opening remarks at an Exit symposium held by the Center in June 2010. Our key findings included:
Congress, and those involved in the Exit symposium, tend toward agreement that Exit can be valuable for both immigration enforcement and security purposes. However, these objectives can be in conflict (although they need not be). All agreed that the purpose of Exit must be clearly defined. The group also agreed on the need to break the Exit problem down into manageable pieces, especially given the universally acknowledged challenges at the land border.
The most manageable point to begin Exit implementation is likely airports, as shown in the most recent June 2009 pilot programs at Detroit and Atlanta international airports. Airlines refused to participate in the pilot programs, reiterating the emerging agreement that Exit, like entry, is primarily a government function. Both programs successfully used border inspection personnel to take biometric Exit data, at the jetways (in Detroit) and TSA checkpoints (in Atlanta).
I highlighted the operational value of an Exit system in The Complete Immigration Story of 9/11 Hijacker Satam al Suqami.
287(g) and Secure Communities. Hatch's bill requires that local and state law enforcement participate in either Secure Communities (aimed at properly identifying and removing convicted criminal aliens in prison) or 287(g) programs (whereby trained law enforcement are able to query immigration data upon arrest of a criminal alien) as a condition of receiving reimbursement for incarceration expenses under the State criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAPPA) — a solid incentive to achieving full participation. The value of these two programs is a force multiplier for better assuring a legal immigration demographic but also, and arguably more important, a safer United States.
The potential worth of 287(g) to enabling law enforcement to make good decisions during routine traffic stops - as was missed with three of the 9/11 hijackers and more recently in 2009 with a young visa overstay who sought to blow up a large building in Texas (see Dallas Would-Be Bomber Hosam Smadi: The Case for 287(g) and Exit Tracking) — is essential. (The value of 287(g) remains despite the fact that the Obama administration no longer permits immigration queries on routine traffic stops). Secure Communities is a pivotal program for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a tool that should not be voluntary. Sen. Hatch here has taken another seemingly obscure but significant issue — that of securing all communities across the United States against recidivist violent illegal criminals — and given communities a reason to comply: do so, or we take away your incarceration funding.
Thank you, Sen. Hatch. Your proposed legislation is thoughtful, and helpful. Sometimes it takes the courage and experience of a senior lawmaker to get a "tough" issue right.
But Hussein says to make every illegal who will have been here long enough to be naturalized by November 2012, a citizen!
Actually he said ‘those who have been here 2 years’, just so we don’t ALL figure out his true motive.
The only way to stop the illegals is to change our welfare system, which in many cases are controlled locally by the kin of the immigrants or maybe the illegals them selves in the border states
But of course no one wants to change the welfare system because most people has a family member living high off the hog on social services so if they change it then these people would have to take care of their own and their illegal offspring.
There will always be people who need help, but our welfare system has become ridicules, lets get back to the basics, beans, potatoes and other staples, not a blank check.
Most people on welfare today eats better than the average working person did 50 years ago, if they were starving how did they get so fat? so the tax payers buy their food and they spend their money on toys, 4 wheelers, computers, cellphones, etc. not to mention giving their money to the drug lords.
An illegal coming to the united states the first time, especially if they have a relative in the social services would feel like they were going to the big rock candy mountains, do you blame them? they have not been spoiled rotten like the welfare generation in this country.
Hatch or no one else is going to try to over haul social services because they know which side their bread is buttered on, by the very people who are hollering about the illegals.
I wonder why this buffoon (Hatch) doesn't demand that the LAWS already on the books be enforced?
You are so right!! Hatch is just as chicken as all the others.
We all know by now of the semi-newly created 'Northcom', the United States Northern Command, that's stationed right here in the good ole USA. They're also called the Pentagon's 'Homeland Defense Agency' (pretty neat, huh.)
Well, don't be shocked Sen, but how about we use IT exactly for that? Like we send some units down to 'Injun Country' to ferret these maggots out.
In a few months the Mexican Drug Cartels would be history. There'd also be no coyotes smuggling illegals by the truck load and no 'assault weapons going south' (/s). The Border would be sealed tight as a drum. And if things shift to the Gulf and/or West Coast we get the SEALS involved. And it doesn't violate the Posse Comitatus Act as they won't be doing 'Law Enforcement work' and arresting US Citizens.
Any ‘Rat enabler like Orrin Hatch, who wrote and performed a song praising his ‘dear friend’, the late Fat Teddy K, is NOT to be trusted.
Exit tracking system?
We need an Entrance Tracking System first and foremost.
Hatch is like McCain — they both seem to just be waking up to the fact that we even have a border and even have trouble on/near it.
The best solution for the border problems is to retire all those old codgers who have been on Capitol Hill for a decade or longer and have done nothing but create more problems than they have actually resolved.
Same old D.C. scam a hack wants to have a bill passed but knows it won’t happen but it keeps the people in line,see last thirty years.
Utah is, surprisingly, one of the states that doesn't do real id for its drivers licenses
"On February 16, 2007, Utah unanimously passed a resolution that opposes the REAL ID Act. "
If Hatch really gave a damn, why is he only submitting this bill now, just before election and lame-duck session? Why didn't he or other Republicans put this in at the beginning of this year? Submitting it now guarantees nothing will come of it. Hatch, you're playing Politics again.
Orrin isn’t up for re erection till ‘12 however, I’m thinkin he wants to be aligned with the new conservative appearance that the other rinos are now dawning.
What we did to ole Bob Bennett may be guiding some of his actions...
911 Tape Released in Mexican Pirate Attack on U.S. Couple
Published October 03, 2010 | FoxNews.com
FOX NEWS.COM
A Colorado tourist was shot in the head and thrown from his jet ski as his wife frantically tried to dodge bullets and escape from Mexican pirates marauding on a U.S.-Mexico border lake, according to a transcript from a 911 call released Saturday.
Search teams over the weekend combed the U.S. side of Falcon Lake for David Michael Hartley, 30, whose wife told police he was shot in the the head Thursday after being ambushed by gunmen on boats.
The gunmen are suspected pirates who have turned Falcon Lake, a water-skiing and bass fishing hotspot down the border from Laredo, into uneasy waters for fishermen and boaters. There have been at least five reported run-ins with pirates on the lake this year, though prior holdups had never been deadly.
In a 911 call made to deputies on Thursday, Tiffany Hartley, 29, describes how her husband was thrown off his Jet Ski after he was shot in the back of the head. Hartley told authorities that she was forced to leave her husband in the water as pirates in three boats fired shots at her.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/01/search-teams-seek-man-shot-mexican-waters/print
re-election or not, Hatch is playing politics.
Ping!
Actually America IS at war. The politicians refuse to accept the truth of this so the American people are much more ulnerable than they even suspect.
We have to fight with the only weapon we have....the vote...Nov 2, 2010.
Do you really believe we’re going to go around and round up 12 million people and ship them back?
I’m not asking if we should, I’m asking if you think it’s even possible?
I don’t. The problem is and has been a failure to enforce the border. The idea of the US running around knocking down doors to nab people isn’t going to fly. I live in So. Cal and have to deal with the problem daily. It’s a major issue and nothing bothers me more than the immigration problem. The crime issue, the cost on social services, etc, etc. But the idea that we’re going to deport people is not going to carry the day in my opinion. At least not in the sense of some proactive initiative to root people out.
I’m sure I’ll get blasted for these comments. Blast away.
It would actually be better if we did it to all of the 20-30 million illegal invaders.
No welfare
No education
No medical care
No police service
No legal representation
No job
No citizenship status for any children born here
No driver's license
No Spanish-language anything
A one-way cattle-car ride to the border and an encouraging cattle prod on your behind while facing south
Well, this is the way it is. We are victims of our representatives because they will pass amnesty and there is nothing we can do about it.
Of course they won’t call it amnesty, tell that to the people who are waiting patiently to come here legally.
If they were put at the back of the line, the illegals here now would never get citizenship in their lifetime because of all the Latin Americans waiting. So they will basically get special treatment because they broke the law. Also if we counted all the Latin Americans here, we would find that the quota has been met for the next several 100 years.
furthermore if 100% of all representatives and senators voted for amnesty, there wouldn’t be anything we could do about it, there is nothing we would do about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.