Posted on 07/26/2002 11:47:27 PM PDT by Jagdgewehr
All politicians pander. Dick Gephardt took it to a new low this week.
During an appearance at the annual meeting of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic organization, the House minority leader promised to introduce legislation bestowing permanent residency status upon millions of illegal immigrants.
"Our proposal will bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows," said Gephardt, "and into the light of accountability and greater cooperation in our fight against terrorism."
Of course, the Missouri Democrat knows that his proposal has less than a zero chance of winning approval in the House. But that's beside the point as far as he is concerned.
His aim is to dissuade Hispanic voters from defecting to the party of Bush and Hastert. So that Democrats can make good on Gephardt's prediction that they will pick up as many as 40 House seats in November.
Under the House Democrats' plan, illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for five years, who have held jobs here for at least two of those years, would be able to apply for defacto amnesty.
The Gephardt Democrats also are considering a provision that would allow current undocumented workers who have lived less than five years in this country to qualify later.
Which means that foreign nationals who have violated this nation's borders, who have broken its immigration laws, would be rewarded with permanent residency status.
Including 115,000 foreign nationals from Middle Eastern countries living in the United States illegally (or quasi-legally in the cases of those seeking refugee status or political asylum).
Which is why it frightens that the man who is a handful of seats from the House speakership would dare suggest that proffering amnesty to illegal immigrants will somehow help the United States fight the war on terrorism.
For Gephardt's amnesty program not only would apply to the 3 million Mexican illegals, but also the 5 million or so non-Mexican illegals here in this country.
Like the four Pakistani nationals working aboard a grain ship docked near New Orleans who deserted the vessel earlier this month and high-tailed it to Texas. If the illegal immigrants – young Middle Eastern men, just like the Sept. 11 hijackers – manage to avoid apprehension for so many years, if they secure employment (using fake identification), they would eventually be eligible for permanent resident status under the House Democrat proposal.
But that matters not to the party of Gephardt. For they are too busy trying to wrest control of the House to worry about the national security implications of their amnesty plan. Which leaves it to House Republican leaders to quash the Democrat minority's proposal, even at the expense of forfeiting Hispanic votes.
While many in the Mexican-American community may view illegal immigration as no threat to national security, the majority of Americans feel quite differently. Even before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, two-thirds of Americans were opposed to giving amnesty to illegal immigrants. Opposition surely has grown since then.
Not because Americans are racist. Not because they are xenophobic. But because they recognize that the nation's liberal immigration policies make us all vulnerable to terror. Granting permanent residency status to undocumented aliens only exacerbates the nation's immigration crisis.
We need look no further back than 1986, when Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted legal status to 3 million illegal immigrants. The law was supposed to ameliorate the illegal immigration problem. The numbers of undocumented foreign nationals stealing into the country were supposed to decline.
Just the opposite occurred.
In fact, the population of illegal immigrants in this country more than doubled during the 1990s, according to the Census Bureau. And those illegals are just biding their time, waiting for the Gephardt Democrats to grant them legal status.
National security demands that the United States get tough – not soft – on illegal immigration. The safety and well-being of the American people should not be jeopardized by pandering politicians.
This may be true, but for millions of poor people south of the border and around the world, they don't know that. Gephardt with his big mouth has just encouraged more to come in here with the hopes they'll be amnestied.
But that was the plan all along, wasn't it Dickie?
I suppose that we can still close the doors (BTW there is strong support for closing doors even in the immigrant communities), but it is time to forget about cleaning the house, it is simply impossible.
Republicans have to make it no-issue, and the matters to be discussed should be qualifications for amnesty. E.g. it seems to me that 2 years working out of 5 years is way too generous.
Not if we made a real effort at enforcing employer sanctions. If there's no jobs, illegals will have no reason to stay here.
At least Gephardt is being truthful that he wants to let in the welfare types and hand out citizenship to parasites. The last thing taxpayers need is millions of people who don't work 3/5 of the time.
Amnesty is nothing but a joke ---it invites people to pour over the border, they never really had to work or live here because the "proofs" requested in amnesty mean nothing at all ---the "undocumented" can't prove anything.
Then why does it keep being proposed?
I know it has hurt Dubya, and now the Democrats want to anger 66% of the population?
"Not if we made a real effort at enforcing employer sanctions. If there's no jobs, illegals will have no reason to stay here."
At some level jobs are here, any government enforcement which is going against the economic force would not produce any result (war on drugs is another example), second amendment goes both ways - it is equally impossible to round up a few millions of armed citizens, put them in cattle cars and ship them toward the Arctic Circle and to round up a few millions of armed non-citizens, put them in cattle cars and ship them toward the Tropic.
So, we should not waste our time with pipe dreams - it is much cheaper to absorb a few millions of people who are already here than any cleansing alternative. What we should be consentrated on is put into the same legislation measures reducing immigration pressures in the future - I would think that the most important part should be a guest worker program allowing people to come and go with a job market fluctuations.
Not necessarily..
Require police officers to check a citizens status during the course of their day, make it easy for them to do so and severely punish anyone employing an illegal.
Cut off from employment and facing arrest and deportation at every turn they will have no reason to remain here and will be financially unable to do so.
And, of course we could start taking out in trade with Mexico the increased burden of ilegals on American society. That would give Fox a kick in the pants.
can they? .....
The can and they do...in fact if they have an address, the blank ballots are mailed to them. Ain't that some $hit???? Joseph Farrah from Worldnet Daily interviewed a family that did some work for them and the daughter of the immigrants refused to vote because she knew what they were asking her to do was not legal and she also suspected it was a way to find and expel illegals. She actually recieved her blank ballot in the mail. I'll see if I can find the story on the WND archive.
"Require police officers to check ..."
Yea, and we will win this war the same way we won war on drugs 15 years ago and by Christmas we will have no illegals in our midst.
I hate to see Republicans painting ourselves in the corner with non-issues.
I hate to see Republicans painting ourselves in the corner with non-issues.
We haven't won the "war on murder" either alex, but we can make things pretty uncomfortable for people who do it.
First, I'm not a Republican..
Second, 66% approval is hardly a "non issue"
can they? .....
They do in California. This much, I know.
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