Posted on 04/06/2006 8:33:43 AM PDT by STARWISE
WASHINGTON - In a last stab at compromise, Senate Republicans and Democrats reported progress Thursday toward agreement on legislation opening the way to legal status and eventual citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrants now in the U.S. illegally.
"There's been tremendous progress overnight," said Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada, the Democratic leader, while Majority Leader Bill Frist also expressed optimism that a long-sought compromise might be at hand.
There was no immediate reaction from President Bush, who has made immigration legislation a key priority.
The developments occurred after Frist unveiled a new bill late Wednesday night on the subject as the Senate headed into a test vote on the most sweeping immigration bill in two decades.
In general, the legislation would provide for enhanced border security, regulate the flow of future immigrants into the United States and settle the legal fate of the estimated 11 million men, women and children already in the country.
It was the fate of the illegal immigrant population that proved hardest to legislate, and it has left the Senate on the verge of gridlock for days.
(snip)
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., as well as other key senators met before the vote to review terms of a proposed compromise.
In general, it would require illegal immigrants who have been in the United States between two years and five years to return to their home country briefly, then re-enter as temporary workers. They could then begin a process of seeking citizenship.
Illegal immigrants here longer than five years would not be required to return home; those in the country less than two years would be required to leave without assurances of returning, and take their place in line with others seeking entry papers.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
We're already importing entire countries from Latin America.
I don't see what the possible problem could be.
Aren't you the genius that's all in favor of outsourcing and offshoring every damn sector of the American economy, in addition to erasing our borders?
Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to “terrorize people.” Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.
And that's the beauty of people who exploited illegal immigrants - no one knew the real 'back-end' costs. All this time, growers have been underpaying their direct labor costs by letting taxpayers pick up the balance.
Only problem is, sinkspur, even the dumbest Americans know now that for every 5 cents they save on produce, construction, babysitting, etc. takes another 95 cents out of their taxes to support the ruinous social costs.
Your game is up.
I can literally see the smiles on the streets here in Queens... No Joke!
I'm feeling like a broken record here. I'm not saying that amnesty standing alone is desireable. I'm saying that if granting amnesty to some of the ones already here is the political compromise we have to make to get the needed votes on tightening up the border, that's better than the status quo.
All this "no amnesty under any circumstances" stuff is just childish foot stamping. If the bill we want doesn't have the votes, it doesn't have the votes. That's reality. Whining and taking our ball home isn't going to help anyone. All the folks who insist on no compromise may kill our chances to fix this problem.
We'll see what happens when the THIRD data point is the first Hispanic or African-American Presidential candidate.
LOL........get the laugh-o-meter ready----set it at non-stop hysterical laughter.
Just shows how little you know about agriculture. First of all, Farmer Bill is not eating from the government trough. "Farmers" like ConAgra are. They're the ones hiring illegals. Not the small family farms like Farmer Bill. He can't afford to anyway. He's got other costs to worry about like equipment costs for starters, which are a large part of the farmer's budget.
"Farmers" like ConAgra are pricing the little guy out of the marketplace, even though the little farmer is doing most of the hard labor.
Thanks - I already said I was fine jailing / deporting every criminal / illegal who doesn't want to be a U.S. citizen. So, no, I don't think I'm throwing myself off a cliff.
This bill is not about border enforcement.
Securing our borders is not a primary, secondary, or even tertiary issue in this discussion.
The only concern is to expedite the naturalization of millions of illegal aliens-and millions more from their extended families-with a few, wholly insignificant cosmetic "enforcement" measures attached to a larger amnesty proposal, which will be disregarded the moment this bill-God forbid-is signed into law.
IIRC, that isn't correct. He did better with the hispanic vote than typical republicans, but only in states that were already solidly in the GOP camp anyway.
Twelve million unemployable hispanics are not going to vote for a fiscal conservative party.
The latest poll I saw indicated that 73% of Americans are in favor of some sort of guest worker program. They also want the borders reinforced.
That makes sense. If the House and Senate would choose that approach, a reasonable bill could be produced.
As it is, the House GOP has a "my-way-or-the-highway" attitude, which just means that no bill will be produced this year. All that will have been accomplished is a lot of posturing and raising everybody's blood pressure for nothing.
True, and it's why there is no question which way the GOP will be heading.
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