I attended the Spring Conference of Tennesseans for Reform of Immigration Policies April 3rd. TN State Rep. Donna Rowland was speaking when I arrived.
The Fight on the State Level: “This year, if we’re successful in getting the Driver’s License issue to the floor where it will pass, we plan to defeat the ones who’ve been saying that we’re using this as a wedge issue during an election year. Folks, it’s not a wedge issue, it’s a voters’ rights issue. It’s a matter of what is right to do. The one question I ask over and over again: What part of illegal don’t you understand?” Applause.
“To quickly update you on where we stand, I want to thank you for the phone calls and hard work, and tell you how unhappy a certain Chairman is with this group. (Laughter) Everyone knows it’s what we need to do. There are some who don’t want to admit they made a mistake. The reason this bill is not passing right now has nothing to do with whether it will or won’t pass. There are those that don’t want to admit that they voted wrong in 2001, and those who don’t want to admit that we have a bad public policy in Tennessee. It is our job as legislators to pass public policy. It is because of the actions of other states (and in our case with the Driver’s License bill) and other nations that we have to pass this bill. We have to set the tone of public policy in Tennessee and what we expect from our citizens or their peers.
In regards to the Driver’s License Bill we all know that it is stalled in the Budget Subcommittee. What you might not know is that that committee is called “The Black Hole”. We have an official response from the governor that his opposition to the bill is due to a $152,000 estimate of lost revenue.”
The lady’s volume dropped lower than my little memo recorder could follow. She went on to describe weak alternative bills and dubious tactics the Democrats have thrown in her path. Part of the runaround involves how a “special” calendar was created to deal with it (which does not resemble Robert’s Rules of Order to me. It does illustrate how bought off and desperately pressured the Democrats are to push this agenda. - NRT). She said they even proposed a certificate illegals can present to circumvent the need for an actual license and compared that ruse to Bill Clinton’s “That depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” semantic gymnastics. Her final comments let us know how further deceptions and outright meanness hurt her emotionally but ultimately steels her resolve to see this through.
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR): The national representative from FAIR, Jim Staudenraus, then took the podium. After thanking the state legislator he got right to the subject.
“In February of 2002 a DMV worker was murdered, Kathryn Smith. She was murdered because she could identify Carlos E. (couldn't make it out), who came to your state for the sole purpose of getting a driver’s license. There’s an ongoing investigation that we don’t know much about. It proved that people will kill for a driver’s license.
We don’t know how big the middle-Eastern fraud ring was. It wasn’t really even fraud because the laws here are so loose you don’t have to break a lot of laws to get a driver’s license. If anybody wants a laugh go to the website of your DMV and download the affidavit that you use to get a license. It’s a single paragraph that says “I do not have a Social Security number, nor can I get one”. Then you sign that and for $15.00…you can board an airplane to anywhere.
You can go to my state of New York, which is mercifully pretty good on this issue, turn in your Tennessee license and get a New York license. The problems here go outside the state.
That license is the key to a lot of other things: moving money…it’s the single most important document. At FAIR the reason we’re so involved in the debate, like the men and women in this body, are devoted to sensible immigration policy. But there are people who don’t want any laws, they don’t want any limits, they don’t want any rules. If they can’t get an amnesty, a guest worker amnesty, whatever, they go around the back door. The back door is the driver’s license.
The reason we really want to win this fight on driver’s licenses is that there’s a lot more involved than this one state. The insult is that the people in Congress are supposed to be setting immigration policy. The opposition, next year for the rest of the country…the people who believe in no borders, who don’t believe in sovereignty, that don’t believe in citizenship: this is their number one priority. They’re pushing their drive all across the country."
He turned it over to Rep. Tancredo at that point. For his (often entertaining) take:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1118483/posts
Good news for the nation.