Posted on 01/27/2005 7:15:50 PM PST by neverdem
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 - The battle within the Republican Party over immigration policy was joined Wednesday as President Bush vigorously promoted his proposal for a guest worker program and conservatives in Congress introduced an alternative proposal to tighten immigration restrictions.
At a news conference, President Bush said again that he considered his guest worker proposal "a priority" even though Senate Republicans left it off their list of top goals. "A program that enables people to come into our country in a legal way to work for a period of time, for jobs that Americans won't do, will help make it easier for us to secure our borders," Mr. Bush said, adding: "I know there is a compassionate, humane way to deal with this issue. I want to remind people that family values do not end at the Rio Grande border."
Party conservatives, however, have strenuously opposed a guest worker plan since Mr. Bush introduced the idea in 2001, even staging a losing revolt over its inclusion in the party platform at the 2004 Republican convention. Many conservatives call the president's ideas "amnesty" - a term Mr. Bush disputes - because his plan includes ways for currently illegal immigrants to obtain temporary worker permits.
On Wednesday afternoon, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, again introduced a measure to block illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses.
At a news conference, he said the committee would not consider other immigration proposals, implicitly including the president's, until his own measure passed. A similar measure was removed from a bill to enact the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission last year. Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, is expected to introduce a driver's license restriction this year.
Mr. Sensenbrenner said his bill was primarily directed at border security, distinguishing it from other changes in immigration policy. "Immigrants are not terrorists, except a few of them," he said. "The legislation that was introduced today is designed to get the bad apples out of the barrel before the barrel was spoiled."
He said a group of House Republicans had written a letter to Mr. Bush urging him to provide full financing for provisions in last year's antiterrorism bill doubling the number of border patrol agents and tripling the number of beds for detaining illegal immigrants over the next five years. The Department of Homeland Security said recently that it was planning a smaller increase in financing, drawing the ire of advocates of tighter immigration laws.
Asked about the president's proposal, Mr. Sensenbrenner said his committee was "going to be plenty busy with other priorities, a lot of which are the priorities of the White House."
In an interview, Representative Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican who supports the president's plan, said a guest worker program would not amount to an amnesty because it would include a monetary penalty for currently illegal immigrants. "The people who want to kick them all out are not reasonable people," he said.
But Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado and chairman of the Congressional immigration caucus, vowed to defeat any program that in his view would reward lawbreakers, even questioning the president's motives. "Could it be just the corporate interests, the money interests that rely so heavily on cheap labor?" he asked
Why aren't we sharing it with everyone else?
You disagree?
they would be smart too........the Prez is not listening to his supporters on this one........he is cozing up to Vicente Fox and the Hispanic caucus......a bad move in the long run I would think
Yes.
Again, from the 84 debate:
REAGAN: Georgie, and we, believe me, supported the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill strongly, and the bill that came out of the Senate. However, there were things added in in the House side that we felt made it less of a good bill; as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill.
Oops...
We are sharing it in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Luckily for them the FR has at least 50 willing tools.
LOL!
I thought we were talking about illegal immigration.
"Do you really know many people who can't compete in the labor market with illegal aliens?"
The above question is irrelevant as illegal aliens are not entitled to be in our country in the first place. But since you asked - although I had already responded to this query in an unambigous declarative statement - YES.
"Do they speak English, have a drivers' license, don't have any arrest warrants out for them?"
Except for the last part, the rest is trivial and not relevant. My father, who is an American born citizen, never had a driver's license, and yet he worked his whole life w/o it.
"Why do employers prefer illegals over them?"
Simple: low wages, cowardice, betrayal, closed-minded, and visionless.
"That's strange."
I doubt it's strange to you. If it is, then you must be a very naive person.
Amnesty for Illegals Could Cost Bush and the GOP Their Base
by Mac Johnson
Posted Jan 10, 2005
Within a week of his election victory, word began to leak from the Bush administration that the President is resurrecting a failed plan to amnesty the millions of illegal aliens in this country. Let me briefly summarize the consequences of President Bush's proposed policy of amnesty for illegal immigrants as it relates to his base of conservative voters: imagine a brick wall covered in long, poison-tipped, stainless steel spikes. Now imagine George Bush running towards that wall as fast he can, downhill.
What this metaphor lacks in nuance, it makes up for in accuracy -- because amnesty is a coming crisis in the conservative movement -- one entirely of Bush's making. Few subjects in American politics are charged with more emotion than illegal immigration. This emotion exists primarily because this is one issue on which our two-party and somewhat Democratic system of government has abjectly failed to reflect the will of the American people.
An overwhelming majority of Americans of both parties want illegal immigration curtailed, as evidenced by polls and the margins with which ballot initiatives pass when presented to a direct vote of the people (such as proposition 200 in Arizona).
Continues at: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?print=yes&id=6249
Recall how much electoral support Bush got from California in the election.
Not saying this has anything to do with how the feds view the issue of illegals, but from the White House's perspective we may be a bit too blue-state for them to give a flying burrito.
humor(?) ping to #368
Many things are said on the campaign trail for political expediency. Reagan also campaigned on reducing the deficit. Try looking at the things people do instead of what they say and you will learn a lot about who they are.
Can you tell me how many businesses were punished for hiring illegals after the 86 amnesty? I would be very interested to read those figures.
What about Arizona? They voted Bush and for prop 200.
Besides, I would hope that the President would not sell out national interest in a fit of pique at California.
It's amazing how many Old Right fringers claim Reagan as their own when he granted illegals amnesty, proposed NAFTA, and rejected other retarded isolationist schemes. Reagan was a rat who became a Republicans like many Neo-Cons.
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McCain?
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