Tancredo doubts he can block amnesty-extension bill

Denver Post ^ | March 8, 2002 | Bill McAllister

[sarcasm]

Friday, March 08, 2002 - WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Tancredo takes credit for thwarting the Bush administration's last effort to offer partial amnesty to thousands of illegal residents, but Thursday the outspoken immigration foe said he may have been outmaneuvered by the White House.

President Bush has struck a deal with the House leadership to place legislation that offers an extension of amnesty on its consent calendar before Bush heads to Mexico for a state visit next week, the Colorado Republican said.

That action should ensure quick House passage of legislation that Bush has repeatedly sought from Congress. It would allow an undocumented person to receive legal standing, such as a valid green card, by filing a declaration with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

It presumably also would require the person to have been in the United States by a certain date and have filed a declaration with the INS from an appropriate sponsor, such as a relative or employer, and pay a $1,000 penalty.

"The terms are still up in the air," said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration, a group that has been allied with Tancredo. "We've heard to the effect that the president wants something to bring down to Mexico."

The initial Bush proposal, designed exclusively for Mexicans, once was high on the president's legislative wish list, but it was delayed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. However, as the president noted Wednesday in a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he now is pushing for the extension of the amnesty program known by the section of immigration law that covers it, Section 245I.

The president hailed it as a way to reunite family, separated by the border. "If you believe in family values, if you understand the worth of family and the importance of family, let's get 245I out of the United States Congress and give me a chance to sign it," Bush told the chamber members.

Tancredo, the head of a congressional caucus on immigration issues and proponent of halting virtually all immigration, said he had blocked a previous attempt by Bush to push an extension of the amnesty program through the House. But this time, he said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., had agreed to place the issue on the suspension, or consent, calendar, making it difficult to defeat the proposal.

The Senate might be more favorable to the bill than the House, expanding the numbers of individuals who can apply, Tancredo said.

[Marine Inspector]

It says for the PURPOSE OF THAT SECTION which is the section that allows for the arrest of illegals after the fed have ok'd the delegation

WRONG, it's this section

INA: ACT 288 - LOCAL JURISDICTION OVER IMMIGRANT STATIONS

[Twodees]

I refer to the daily photo thread as the "daily W swoonfest". Those people would crawl across a mile of hot asphalt parking lot to slobber over W's Mexican made cowboy boots.

[VA Advogado]

Hey Avocado, resorting to personal attacks?

No, debate with a person who doesn't understand the consitution is fun. I would hate to resort to personal attacks. It might scare him away. Now Twodees. . . . where did he go after being backhanded again with real facts.

[VA Advogado]

Your fatuous arrogance not withstanding,

Translation: my correcting Twodees and the Marine Professor regarding congress' excluse powers to regulate immigration not withstanding,

[VA Advogado]

INA: ACT 288 - LOCAL JURISDICTION OVER IMMIGRANT STATIONS

You're right. Different section, same result. That gives the state LEOs jurisdiction over a federal office when a state law is violated. Immigration is not state law. You know that. I KNOW you do.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

Word is out that Uncle Sam is stupid and is a soft touch.

Sad LOL. Well spoke, that. Peace, friend.

[Twodees]

[All we have is the power to vote them out of office]

I think it was HL Mencken who said that if things could be changed by voting, then voting would have been outlawed long ago. Until we break the monopoly held on the electoral process by the "two" parties, voting will have little effect. I guess you noticed that there was almost no difference between Bush and Gore in the campaign. Bush sold his candidacy by demonstrating that he could get Gore's agenda passed better than Gore could have.

We have to somehow get candidates onto the ballot who aren't slaves to the existing political order. I think that starting at the county level is the only hope. If we have only 10-20 years left, then working within the established system will fail us.

[FITZ]

Scary to see so many willing or unwilling eugenicists on FR.

That is the goofiest thing I ever read. Eugenicists??? No one on here cares how much the Mexicans breed if they stay in Mexico. The problem is there is a Mexican president now who feels it's his right to export any Mexican citizen he doesn't want to the US. Maybe he's the eugenicist?

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

Just like they may have jurisdiction over a post office when a state crime has occured there. Immigration laws, which are ONLY promulgated by congress by way of the consitution, ARE NOT VIOLATIONS OF STATE LAW.

Danevogado, I really don't care about this particular question, since regardless of who is administering the law, it is being purposefully administered badly so as to flood us with illegal aliens.

However, Marine Inspector and others have already debunked your claims about what the Constitution says, which you have ignored. And yet you go on citing the Constitution as though nothing happened.

There is a big difference between what current laws on the books say and what certain central-government worshipping people say, and what the Constitution actually says. No state would attempt to enforce its own borders in a manner consistent with the Constitution, even if it thought it would eventually win in court, because the central government has a stranglehold on funding which the states have become dependent on: highway funding, education funding, money for various welfare programs. It doesn't pay to go against the centralized power in Washington, so in practice the states will comply; but that's the result of a century or two of power struggles designed to circumvent the meaning of the Constitution.

Your problem is that you constantly confuse Realpolitik with what the Constitution actually says. Just because a law citation or a federal regulation says it is so, does not make it so.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

A sane person, not familiar with our "government", would assume that every member of America's Armed Forces is a citizen of our nation. Nope. No need to be citizen at all.

IIRC, some son or otherwise close relative of a honcho in a Middle East terrorist pit was actually an officer in the US military. Seems he left for home shortly after 9-11.

[Twodees]

Thanks. I've gotten this clown to show his ignorance of the Constitution a few times before now and it hasn't helped his crdibility. He knows this and usually tosses out one worthless cite before lapsing into the liberal, "you're a mean racist KKKer, so there" routine.

[FITZ]

regarding congress' excluse powers to regulate immigration not withstanding,

It seems that power has been turned over to President Fox of Mexico. I wonder what he knows or what he's paid someone to have been given the authority to dictate US immigration policies. If every last Mexican isn't given a place in the US, it's considered eugenics.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Do you think it would still have been better if Robert E Lee had finished off Mexico in 1846 and made it a US state? What would life be like for us if we had done that?

[Marine Inspector]

Immigration is not state law. You know that. I KNOW you do.

That is correct. Immigration is not a state law, but your original argument was that the States could not enforce Immigration Law, and they can. The can also shut down the Border crossing station at their will.

If Governor Hall decided tomorrow morning that she had had enough illegal immigration, and she convinced the state legislature that they had also had enough, she could deploy the state national guard to the borders and close them down.

INS would not stop her, and Bush and his gang would have a hard time stopping her also.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

Bush sold his candidacy by demonstrating that he could get Gore's agenda passed better than Gore could have.

As a bonus to Bush, at least around FR parts, he receives resounding huzzahs from the mouth-breathing faithful. For passing Gore's agenda.

[FITZ]

I think it would have been better if Lee had won out on that. For one it was well before we have this massive welfare system and political correctness, they'd all be speaking English by now. They wouldn't have been made corrupt by 70 years of PRI government. Look at what becoming part of the US did for Texas and California. The rest of Mexico would have done much better if it had been taken over. It seems it's now Fox that is determining all the rules ---back then it would have been Americans.

[Sabertooth]

Name that tune...

Kiss My Vote

We're a nation strong with immigrants
     Who know about fair play;
But you prefer the other ones,
     Without an honest day.
I know that you will call me names
But I will not be shy…
          Hey go ahead, kiss illegals,
          And kiss my vote goodbye.

I don't care if they're from Mexico,
     Canada, France or Spain.
I don't care if they swam a river,
     Or got here in a plane.
I'm not giving up my country,
No matter how hard you try…
          Hey go ahead, kiss illegals,
          And kiss my vote goodbye.

Put down your economics,
     Your demographics too.
Uphold our laws and borders,
     As we elected you.
But if you're thinking otherwise,
We'll know for sure you lie…
          Hey go ahead, kiss illegals,
          And kiss my vote goodbye.

You lightly take your promises,
     But we will not forget.
Double cross us once again,
     Your sun will surely set.
The time has come to send them home,
And I have told you why…
          But go ahead, kiss illegals,
          And kiss my vote goodbye.

And if you' think it can't be done,
     Then step aside, we'll fight.
It's amnesty or honesty,
     Surrender or be right.
So listen, you politicians,
And hear our vengeful cry…
          Deport your dear illegals,
          Or kiss our votes goodbye.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

It seems better late than never for many in Washington. It's looking more and more like they want us to merge with Mexico. IMO, it's too late. A poor nation of 100 million and growing, with corruption as much part of the culture as having babies, there's no way we could sustain them. The states with high numbers of illegals are financially straining now, and there's no end in sight. The border has to be locked down, illegals deported, and maybe, maybe a limited guest worker program. But only with the stipulation they go back home, their children are not automatic citizens, and they obey the rules of the country. Unfortunately, unless we get a Tancredo or someone like that in office, it's not going to happen.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

This type of thing is happening all across our land, and all this pent up anger is going to explode upon the scene one of these days, and it won't be pretty.

When it does happen, expect the border states to become literal battlegrounds. Unfortunately, as you point out, the chaos will not be limited strictly to the border states.

It is the prospect of this impending meltdown that has me seriously pondering a move north from Texas.