Posted on 08/20/2002 12:25:19 PM PDT by gubamyster
August 20, 2002
The Republican National Committee's mail-order fund-raisers often contain a comprehensive multiple-choice survey so that prospective donors can give their opinions on topics of national importance. One issue, however, is conspicuously missing from the list: immigration.
The omission isn't an oversight; it's a deliberate policy. The National Republican Congressional Committee has been advising its candidates not to mention this issue in their speeches or campaign literature.
House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., gave Republicans the opportunity to seize this issue when he addressed a radical left-wing Hispanic group, The National Council of La Raza, in Miami on July 22.
He announced a Democratic Party plan to introduce legislation to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Nothing is more unpopular with voters than amnesty (which Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., called "sheer lunacy"). If the powers that be in the Republican Party don't realize this, they are out-of-touch with the grass roots.
The shyness of the Republican Party and the Bush administration about immigration explains why they manifest a deafening silence about Rep. George Gekas's bill called Securing America's Future through Enforcement Reform. The Pennsylvania Republican's bill is completely in accord with public opinion polls, showing that the majority of the American people want government to reduce the number of legal immigrants, to stop the irresponsible issuance of visas, to deport illegal aliens and to use U.S. troops to guard our borders (instead of the borders of Eastern Europe).
Title I, called Securing the Border, would increase the number of INS investigators and enforcement personnel, lengthen criminal sentences for alien smuggling, beef up the Border Patrol and use U.S. military troops until the Border Patrol reaches full strength. It would stop granting visas in countries that refuse to cooperate in combating alien smuggling.
Title II, called Screening Aliens Seeking Admission, would tighten the visa program to reduce the risk of aliens using fraudulent passports, require in-person interviews before issuing all visas, and bar any alien who is a member of a terrorist group or supports terrorism. Most people don't understand why this isn't already the law.
Title III, called Tracking Aliens Present in the United States, would establish a comprehensive entry-exit control system with registration and fingerprinting (which the INS has promised for years but never implemented). At least 40 percent of illegal aliens are visa overstayers. Several of the 9/11 hijackers had overstayed their visas.
Title IV, called Removing Alien Terrorists, Criminals, and Human Rights Violators, would authorize the INS to deport any alien who was inadmissible in the first place or is suspected of being a terrorist. This title would reverse several court decisions that accord unreasonable "rights" to terrorists claiming asylum, and would prevent the courts from releasing criminal aliens into the community.
Title V, called Enhancing Enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act in the Interior, would protect Social Security cards against counterfeiting and fraudulent use. This title would increase the number of INS investigators, as repeatedly requested by the INS, and double the number of INS detention beds.
Title VI would eliminate excessive review and dilatory, abusive tactics by aliens in deportation proceedings. It would also exclude aliens who knowingly make a false asylum application.
Title VII would clean up the problem of voting by illegal aliens. It would require verification of citizenship for voters and applicants.
Title VIII, called Reforming Legal Immigration, would repeal the infamous Diversity Immigrant Program which admits 50,000 immigrants a year, mostly from the Third World, including countries that sponsor terrorism, and helped the Fourth of July LAX murderer win U.S. residency. It would reform the abuses in the refugee program and in the extended-family visa program, and reduce the number of legal immigrants by 20 percent.
This would still leave immigration nearly double the traditional level. The INS is unable to cope with its current backlog of 5 million applications.
Gekas, chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, will start hearings on his bill next month. He should then add one more section requiring the INS to screen out aliens with diseases, such as the West Nile virus, malaria, Chagas disease, intestinal parasites and tuberculosis.
The BBC reported that the current epidemic of the West Nile virus (a central African disease) was probably brought to America for the first time three years ago by an imported exotic bird. The Centers for Disease Control reported that 16,000 foreign birds passed unscreened for West Nile virus through JFK airport in 1999. Where are the environmentalists when we need them?
B.S. We did that strategy in 1988 - and all it got us was socially-liberal Bush Daddy. We did that strategy in 1992 - and Bush Daddy refused to back us for backing him. We did that strategy in 1996 - and Bob Dole wouldn't even campaign in return for us backing him in spite of his liberalism on social issues. Enough. The elites of the GOP have to see that they can't take social conservatives for granted the way the Democrats take blacks for granted.
The elites of the GOP have to see that they can't take social conservatives for granted the way the Democrats take blacks for granted.
There is something to be said for dignity. I will not vote for the GOP that will do exactly what the Dems want them to do.
When we start losing elections, there will be a shake-up.
The history of the GOP is not a good one. With the exception of the Coolidge era, the Goldwater blip, and the Reagan years, the GOP is nothing but a bunch of elite statists, that loathe the concept of freedom for average people. Voting for that is just as bad as voting for the party that loathes the concept of self-reliance.
When America decides that enough is enough, I'll take notice. The GOP is not the cure for what ails us. Conservative rage is.
Agreed - and every dissident down here in Red Nation who I talk to feels that way.
The talk is open; we're not voting for Jorge in 2004 - out of outrage over his stance on immigration. None of his spinmeisters can show us any difference between Jorge and Gephardt or Hitlery on immigration, quotas, or any other social issue but guns and abortion. Dissidents talk openly of how he disses the only significant demographic group to have voted for him - Red Nation's nonminorities. We don't even care if Hitlery wins; we feel that will be the last straw forcing the sheeple down here bought off with superficial debt-ridden prosperity that's now collapsing to get with the program.
Don't foreshadow your opinion onto most Texans' opinion. By the way, have you not noticed the bilingualism popping up all in your stores and restaurants, the Mexican flag being flown everywhere you go? Are you that disconnected from the issue?
Sorry but that opinion is widely held. We have a very different situation in Texas from California. We don't lure them here with welfare. California has made its own bed by being the premier welfare Mecca in the country.
Are you a victim of political correctness?
I can't believe that people actually act like the U.S.' problems are hard to solve, when, in actuality, all it will take is a consensus to get things done.
We don't even care if Hitlery wins; we feel that will be the last straw forcing the sheeple down here bought off with superficial debt-ridden prosperity that's now collapsing to get with the program.
I have been a member of FR for 54 months, and the issue which prompted me to start posting was the absolute apathy of the sheeple in the face of The UNIBANGER's crimes. That apathy was driven by the stock market bubble and the insane valuations of the day.
Fast Forward
Now, 4 years later, we are still apathetic, and that is due to the sense of prosperity. The "prosperity" is nothing more than debt, and that debt will come due.
The sight of 50 million yuppies shaking in a dark corner of their house, wondering where the next payment is coming from is one that is going to destroy what we now have. The economic clock is going to be turned back, in a big way. W is going to get the historical blame (unjustly, but Clinton is not to blame either). The stock bubble is going to continue to unravel, and then the housing bubble is going to grind American's savings to absolute zero.
The days of my job are numbered. I have to make it on the short, and then retool in the recession.
When America is prosporous, America is apathetic. Hopefully, the converse is true, and we can finally throttle the powers-that-be into establishing a Free Republic.
If trends continue, I look at the grammar schools and think that being "short USA" is a good place to be. I am certain that our best days are in the rear-view mirror.
Apparently, differences of opinion and unpopular speech are not welcome.
Bush has tacked left big time since taking office but some pundits see that as taking issues away from democRATS. I don't like what I'm seeing either and have stated so in this forumn, but your dots don't connect to HOLE and GW taking orders from some unseen person or persons.
Do you want to clarify, or do you just want to drop it?
For some reason, these individuals think that it is not racist to flood all white nations with "immigrants" from the third world. Yet, it is racist to want cultural and ethnic preservation? Funny, what is the action? THat's right, forcing one group onto an unwanting other group, thus they're the conspirators and the true racists.
Please, can you tell me in what way you consider Michelle Malkin, the daughter of Philippino immigrants, a hardliner on immigration?
She is a hardliner against Illegals. Illegals are not immigrants. When you confuse the two, you speak the Democrats' talking points, and play into the hands of the Left.
Furthermore, do you think that diverse societies are strong and stable, or that they last? If you do, then your foresight isn't where it needs to be.
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.