Posted on 03/08/2002 1:24:33 PM PST by 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.
This does not represent the normal "wheeling and dealing" we're told must "inevitably" result in "compromise" for the good of the country. Unless all these congressmen are incredibly uninformed, this represents sheer intimidation in one form or another.
I stand by my history of honesty and integrety.
Had I ever told a lie or mistruth on FR Joe Hadenuf would have already blabbed it to you.
Hear from JR yet? Calling me a liar is going to cost you 100 FR Bucks.
All for a good cause, right.
Have a nice night.
Go Robert Byrd. Whatever is slogging through that senile old pork barreler’s brain I hope it is something that will stop Bush's Alien Nation Creation Act.
And VERY foolish.
First line...lie.
Who are you working for, Mr. 78,483?
I don't know Joe. He has to know. I believe he just doesn't give a flip.
This administration, like others, lives by polls. They know that the polls say that 70 to 80% of Americans are opposed to immigration and leaky borders. They admit that their switchboards have been overloaded with calls. But yet they passed 245(i).
I can usually form an opinion on any given subject. Even if that opinion is wrong. But I can't on this one. I am totally confused. I think you can throw free trade, globalization, oil, and everything else out the window on this one. There has to be something else here that we are not seeing, and I don't know what that something else is.
We just have to keep fighting this thing. Win or lose, we can say we did our best.
The problem is that this isn't going to kill it. Look for them to slip it in by attaching it some afternoon to another piece of legislation. That's about the only way they can do it--to get it done when there isn't even 24 hrs. for anyone to raise a protest. Puting it on any published schedule allows the various watch groups to catch it.
Remember, the rest of the bill had already been passed last fall, and wasn't needed. That's why they used a duplicate bill in the House. So I'm thinking they'll attach it to something else.
GWB is definately the problem. No question about that. He has a strong MoJo working in Washington. Why?
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