Bush Proposes Tracking System for Noncitizens

Washington post ^ | January 26, 2002 | Mike Allen and Bill Miller

[ThJ1800]

Since you were so good as to list some of your ideas, and I liked some of them, I wanted to respond to your post.

No welfare whatsover in ANY form to aliens.
This is a good idea, however, as a Feder article(read a few days ago) mentioned, only 21% of immigrants are using federal handouts, which means the other 79% are not. Getting rid of those welfare measures for immigrants would only touch that 21%.

Stop the instant citizenship on babies born here.
This would require a constituional amendment repealing Article 1 of the 14th Amendment. So, I doubt that it will ever happen.

Take away the reason to live here illegaly.
That would be work. What I think needs to be done is that the US should work out some type of deal with Mexico to get around many of the laws which prevent US companies from seriously investing in Mexico.

3. NO visas to nationals from terrorist nations.
Excellent idea.

[Edward Shaw]

The Florida Dept. of Motor Vehicles is screwing up by making, in the name of the war against terrorists, at least one perfectly respectable non-resident alien from an ally nation, England, turn in his driver's license in exchange for a three month temporary permit, thereby causing his insurance company to cancel him, and probably causing at least one well-off, retired, decent, well-liked, winter visitor to consider, at this point, an alternative to Florida.
On the bright side, with a little digging, his younger friends are coming up with a way around it, without much help from the Florida DMV.
All this is taking place about a half-hour from the stupid flight school where the operator was caught training illegal Arabs a month after 9-11, the date some Taliban pilots who had trained in the exact same flight school months earlier committed the attack in New York.
What are our kids supposed to think of us?

[Victoria Delsoul]

"Mark S. Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which argues for reduced immigration, said the elements of Bush's plan were not bad but were not enough."

Well, you can't say GW isn't doing anything. Give him some time.

OK, flame away! LOL.

[Sabertooth]

OK, flame away! LOL.

You tracking me?

[itsahoot]

The "entry-exit tracking system," to be developed by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service,

Well, that says it all about the success of this operation.

[itsahoot]

saying Bush was for illegals getting unemployment benefits
and the article didn't say he was for this at all.

maybe not, but he restored food stamps to them....

[itsahoot]

What is the argument against "not" collecting these taxes?

If you can explain to me how paying a $100.00 in federal income
tax will offset the expense of 5 kids in public school then
maybe I can agree.

[itsahoot]

We need the workers but they are draining our health care, police,
and social security systems so why not change the system to make
them here legally so they can GO BACK to where they came from.

I have a better Idea, how about enforcing the law against
hiring illegals?

[willa]

Stop the instant citizenship on babies born here. This would require a constituional amendment repealing Article 1 of the 14th Amendment. So, I doubt that it will ever happen.

Ooops - thanx for pointing that one out. I enjoyed your reply.

I think that one problem with career politicians (which is all we get to vote for anymore) is that they lack common sense. They haven't developed any that comes with working in the real world. Consequently their solutions are always the same - spend more taxpayer $$ which usually creates additional problems for them to solve.

[GOPJ]

You are so right on every point, thanks.

I am not especially impressed by measures lilke the implementaion of biometric technology and national ID cards, while willfully continuing to fail to deport the illegals.

If I'm going to give up some of my privacy, I'd like to see the real alien and terrorist problems actually adressed.

The security measures at our borders and airlines taken since 9/11 are window-dressing. The government in many ways has failed to be serious about the Terror War on the domestic front.

[Sabertooth]

I understand your fears about biometrics etc. being a potential tool our government can use against its own citizens. But if you pursue this road to its logical end, you will realize that virtually anything the government does to take action or strengthen itself against this our enemies abroad has this double edged sword aspect about it. This aspect has long been used against any form of immigration controls by neo-cons and open border libertarians.

I never said the government couldn't ask wartime sacrifices of citizens, with the understanding that once the war is over, things go back to normal.

But I'm not comfortable with the way things have been handled...

No formal declaration of war... without out a formal declaration, there can not be a formal end to the war. Endless war is not acceptable, decisive victory is the only option. One aspect of victory, by definition, is that wartime sacrifices

Telling me that these new measures are now facts of life in perpetuity is also not acceptable. They're necessary to fight the Terror War? Fine, with certain conditions: win the war and give me back my privacy.

Why is the first response to ask sacrifices of citizens. many of which are pointless busywork, rather than effectively enforcing our current laws against the illegal activities of millions of aliens in our country? That's where much of the threat of terror exists, yet political feet are continually dragged. Such responses are profoundly reminiscent of gun control laws, which penalize the law-abiding and coddle the criminal.

Taken to its logical conclusion, it would mean that we trust our own government less than any force which opposes it, and therefore wish to keep it weak in a position relative to its enemies. This is ironically the same position the most radical anarcho-libertarians and neo-con advocates of world government take.

Not only is your premise false, as seen above, your conclusion is illogical in any case... Our US Constitution is primarily designed to protect our rights from abuses of our own government, true? It is the vigilant guardianship of our rights and privacies against our government which makes it more trustworthy than others.

We were not entrusted by our Founding Fathers with a Republic so that we should lightly cast it aside.

This nagging libertarian distrust of reasonable powers of government has always been IMO the weak chink in our armor which immigrationists have always exploited when really pressed with a serious change in the status quo. It is hard to really sound serious about opposing immigration and controlling the number of non-citizens in this country when it sounds you are one step away from renouncing your citizen ship yourself.

What you call "reasonable powers of government" were undreamed of by the Founders, and came into being largely through nudge and wink Constitutional end-arounds by the three branches of government.

Let's be clear: distrust of government is the American Tradition... even the Federalists recognized this.

As for me being "one step away" from renouncing my citizenship, that nonsense is in the ears of the beholder. I'm not even leaving the Republican Party.

The "change in the status quo" I'm looking for is a serious commitment by our elected officials and their minions to seriously and conscientiously enforce the immigration laws already written... laws they swore to honor and uphold. The seriousness with which they took their oaths can only be termed "Bad Faith."

Is it possible to sound serious and suggest that enforcing the law against those who imperil our security is somehow unrealistic?

Yet that is the drum I hear beating, and I won't march.

[185JHP]

Something that would pop 48 hrs. after the visa expired,and cause a distinctive color to appear on their skin, that didn't itch or cause a rash, might pass Congressional scrutiny...

[maro]

An interesting twist....