Posted on 06/05/2006 4:51:21 PM PDT by Spiff
House Republicans vs. Senator Frist’s amnesty plan.
By Rep. Tom Tancredo
The United States Congress stands at a historic crossroads on immigration policy. Two roads diverge. Will the nation get another amnesty program or will it get secure borders to halt illegal entry into our country? House Republicans must choose, because they can’t have both.
The recently passed Senate bill giving amnesty to 12-15 million illegal aliens presents a challenge to House Republicans, but it also presents an opportunity. The House should respond with a strong reaffirmation of the enforcement-first strategy for border control and immigration-law enforcement, an approach strongly favored by a large majority of the American people. If House Republicans abandon that path, they will invite the desertion of their conservative base and the certain loss of the House in the November elections.
Senate Democrats voted 38 to 4 for the amnesty bill, while a majority of Senate Republicans rejected it. The amnesty bill is clearly a Democrat bill that passed with Republican support, thanks to Sen. Frist’s machinations. House Republicans must refuse to drink Bill Frist’s Kool Aid concoction—not even a tiny spoonful labeled “amnesty lite.”
Last December, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4437, a bill that embodies the enforcement-first strategy for border control and immigration enforcement. The Senate bill takes the exact opposite approach. The two bills are polar opposites not only in text but also in spirit and in purpose. For this reason it is impractical and delusional to try to marry one to the other. Despite the advances of modern science, we do not yet have the capacity to marry a snake to a hawk and produce an eagle.
The crux of the problem is that in the deceptively packaged Senate bill, border control is there as a promise but amnesty is guaranteed, immediate, and irreversible. That is the formula that failed in the 1986 amnesty program, and the House must not buy that pig-in-a-poke again. In such omnibus plans, enforcement can be delayed, diluted, and sabotaged in numerous ways. That is why “enforcement first” is not a slogan—it is an urgent necessity.
The American people expect more from the “People’s House” than joining the Senate’s sellout to the cheap-labor lobby and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. If House Republicans do not answer that call to duty, we will deserve neither our citizens’ respect nor their votes.
There is one sure way to derail the Senate’s amnesty bill: The House Republican leadership should tell the Senate we will not go to conference on the Senate bill. The House should simply challenge the Senate to act on H.R. 4437. Until the Senate sends the House an enforcement-only bill, we have nothing to conference about.
A few Republicans in the House have called for compromise by suggesting clever plans that amount to “amnesty lite.” Down that path lies disaster because “enforcement first” cannot be compromised: Either Congress secures the borders before considering new guest-worker plans or we create a guest-worker program on the mere promise of border security. Genuine enforcement cannot be a mere part of a “comprehensive bill,” it must precede any other reform. House Republicans who break ranks with HR 4437 are choosing a path of certain catastrophe—for the nation in the long run and for our party in November.
If House Republicans take the enforcement first platform to the American people in November, they can win. There is no advantage whatsoever for Republicans in agreeing to write a bad bill in conference on the premise that even a bad bill is better than no bill at all. That is the argument we hear from the White House and it is sheer nonsense. The president does not have to face the voters in November, we do. The president lost all credibility on immigration reform in March 2005 when he called the Minutemen “vigilantes” with Vicente Fox standing at his side. It is time for the president to put his attack dogs on a short leash and let House Republicans chart their own course.
Fate has given the House of Representatives the task of rescuing our national sovereignty and our children’s futures from the Senate’s folly. There are signs we may be up to the challenge, but if we are not, neither history nor the voters will forgive us.
—Rep. Tom Tancredo represents Colorado’s 6th district and is chairman of the 97-member Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
I can appreciate that you have a deep and fervent faith. I can even see that you approach this from a deep sense of humanity.
Were this Joseph and Maria and Jose arriving singularly on a jackass, no-one would even notice. But when 1/5th of the population of Mexico arrives uninvited it becomes an invasion.
Yes I agree conditions are deplorable in Mexico for the "poor." But if Mexico is allowed to export it's failure to care for it's citizens to us, there will never be any pressure for them to improve.
Hell could you blame them?
Well we can hope.
You're right. I did let go somewhat astray on my comments, and let it get too personal.
You are, however, still wrong on allowing an illegal invasion of our country proceed unabated.
Build the fence, secure the borders, and enforce workplace laws.
I've never known anyone who believes that America should cease to be a white majority country and I even know quite a few liberals. You and a couple other FReepers are the first ones I've seen who want that to happen.
Your desire to see a majority race lose its majority is the most sickeningly racist thing I've ever seen.
spur...
You're the same guy that was saying RICO shouldn't be used as a back door to immigration enforcement, because that wasn't it's 'original intent'...yet it seems you didn't even read RICO and you just wanted to avoid the fact that it directly implies immigration within it. Oh, yeah I forgot, you're not a 'lawyer'...LMAO
Now you're talking about the Pence plan, and you're hacking away at one of the few voices that speaks for enforcement of our laws!? It seems you just don't like enforcing the law...or you're just unaware it exists. Either way you're promoting a plan you seem ignorant of.
McLame.
"He knows the Senate will not pass HR 4437. "
Why the H8LL not?
Turn it around. The Senate *knows* the House passed a different bill. They know their bill is DOA in the House. They *know* that the vast majority of Americans wants border security and illegal immigration law enforcement. ... So obviously, they should go along with the House or it's proven they are not serious about solving illegal immigration.
... of course come to think about it, anyone who voted for that horrid Senate CIRA bill has already proven their unseriousness about illegal immigration.
The only real and decent compromise is to handle the consensus stuff this term - secure the borders and get employer sanctions set in motion (it will take 18 months to implement anyway), and next term do the tricky stuff on visas etc. There's no better path to real compromise than voting out HR4437 *now*.
I have no problem with any of that. I don't think it will work but let's try it. Having said that, we have a more serious border problem up north. Mexicans may be taking jobs away from American busboys but Canada has the largest extremist Muslim population on the Continent and they are starting to stir again. They don't take Busboy jobs they blow up the restaurants where busboys work.
"But, Tancredo will accept nothing but an enforcement bill. The Senate sent a clear signal that enforcement only is a non-starter."
The Senate needs to rethink their arrogant and elitist obstructionism.
Are you sure you want to go there?
"There are no proposals to to make the immigration department more efficient. To make the backlog go away etc."
OH Gawd... that horrible Senate CIRA bill, with their mucking up of deporation and immigration courts and their fraud-inciting amnesty for 12 million - what do you think *that* would do to back-logs?!?!?
It would add years to it.
HR4437 had provisions to streamline deportations.
Tancredo btw will support a real guest worker plan, not the pseudo-plan in the Senate bill.
I know we have had this discussion before. In my view many of these potential new citizens are going to be conservatives. We got 12 years under these proposals before they are even eligible to be a citizen. In the mena time they have to keep their nose clean nad pretty much trying to stay employed. Those sound like likely Republican and conservative future voters to me.
Yeah they should take a lesson from the Non-elitist House. The House is all for "amnesty" when it comes to FBI raids on crooked congressmen.
Why not?
Because OUR record on Jews during WW2 is a mixed bag at best.
"Its a good thing that the Senate Bill is not an amnesty bill then"
"Give me a break. At least Reagan was man enough to admit that his bill was an amnesty bill, and look at where that got us. The Bush/McCain/Kennedy bill is amnesty, period. Perhaps the Pence bill might be reasonable, but the Senate bill has bleeding heart liberal written all over it."
The Senate bill is *better* than amnesty. Amnesty means they dont get deported ... but we decided to give 'em tax breaks, welfare/EITC, citizenship, and tuition discounts at college.
I dont know if its self-delusion or an act of forced loyalty to keep parrotting the hollow and false claims of the pro-amnesty-that-wont-admit-its-amnesty leading RINOs. Either way, anyone using that line instantly achieves zero credibility - whether its McHagel, or the imitating freepers on board.
You may be absolutely correct in your forecast of the future with the Canadian border.
The sensible thing then,is to solve the Illegal invasion that is ongoing now. Changing a law so that something illegal, and undesirable no longer is, is not a real solution. A real solution can be applied later to solve your forecasted Northern border problem.
Caving in to shamnesty is not a real solution.
"So there'll be no bill. From a GOP-controlled Congress that the voters are looking to for immigration reform."
And the arrogant elitist obstructionist RINOs, who cant find it in their hearts to compromise on a reasonable conservative bill, but are dead-set on "amnesty for 10 million" or no bill at all.
Shame on McCain. Shame on the RINOs. Shame on all those who cast their lot for the worst bill in 2 decades, the Senate CIRA bill. Shame, shame, shame.
May we take the whole lot of them out in future primaries.
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