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.
LOL. You are the last person on FR that should be talking about Jews.
From someone who has practically turned a politician [G. W. Bush] into an object of perfection to be worshiped you don't have much room to talk.
My gosh,you even played the race card.
I voted for him twice but he has disappointed me completely. He has convinced me that our country, our constitution and our sovereignty all have to take a backseat to his elite businessman's vision of globalism.
If this bill passes it will be because he and his rich Republican business friends want it to.
If it does it will be the straw that finished breaking the financial back of what was once a great country.
It might linger on a few years but it will be just another used to be great nation.
Bush may be sincere but he is misguided and there is likely a legacy building element as well.
I understand where you coming from but you know how it is. Just keep that stuff to yourself. It's BS, I know, but why risk getting banned?
Thank you for that. We have always been a compassionate country, relaxing our immigration laws to recieve politically oppressed people. Mostly because their actual lives were in jeopardy.
Think of all the totalitarian regimes we have relieved of their dissidents. The Mariel boat lift out of Cuba being one. Haiti another. Viet Namese, Cambodians, laotians, Chinese, Koreans, Tibetans, Hungarians, Chechzs and Poles to mention a few others.
On top of that are greencard workers and actual legal immigrants. These add up to several million a year. We are at the moment at near or as near to full employment as a country can get. That won't last.
I would like to see the border closed, and secured so the situation will stabilize. With the pressure of new invaders gone, there is a likely chance that attitudes to those already here will not be as antagonistic.
But, if we are to repeat the mistakes brought by the amnesty of 1986, there will be Hell to pay tremendous political upheaval.
Pence's bill is amnesty as well. It is also totally unworkable.
The Senate is not interested in all of that. The Senate doesn't support HR 4437 and the House doesn't support the Senate bill. Pence made a compromise but the Senate won't even support that.
Ain't gonna be any immigration bill passed. Which, like Martha Stewart eloquently exclaimed, is a good thing.
Like I say I am not particularly well versed in things religious. I guess I am a back-slid Baptist but when I wasn't looking at the pretty girl 2 pews over I heard the preacher say more than once something about "lessor ones" and how they should be treated. I sure didn't hear anything about praying for closed borders.
"I am very happy with my Senators, Hutchison and Cornyn. I will definitely work for Kay Baileys' reelection as much as I will work against Chafee's. She has a cakewalk, and does not need much help anyway.
Rhode Island voters, Please support Laffy."
Ditto on that. I got to shake Kay's hand this weekend and thanked her for her "NO" vote on the Senate bill. Her aide noted that everyone is telling her the same thing and there is zero support for the Senate bill's approach among the people.
Well I am sure that he feels you are misguided too. I guess since 70% of the country is now against the war he should just pull our troops out too.
Apparently you've never read it.
Pence's bill takes care of the borders & addresses the "what do we do with the 12-20 million illegals here?" problem.
But it's all moot anyway, since the Senate won't even support Pence's bill.
Well I think the problem with the prior bill was that there was no real border enforcement, no identifer card for employment(Let it be called the mark of the beast I dont care), and also some things had a side effect of ending circular migration when it didnt have too.
I guess that the reason why I feel something comprehensive has got to happen to solve it. Including expanding free trade in this hemisphsere and South America to which I know has become quite a unpopular thing to advocate on here as of late lol.
...say, what's your beef against Tancredo!?...why are you so negative!
You see...Tancredo's point is much bigger that the person itself, it is a NATIONAL issue!
The people of the USA have spoken extremely loudly and HE is just forwarding the message as he ought to do!
No more, no less.
Were you also a delegate to the convention. I was in SD 21.
Because he is a 2 bit huckster. He is milking this issue for all it's worth and is now doing all he can to make sure that NOTHING is done on immigration. He should be praising the Pence bill instead of calling him a sell-out.
I really don't like the Pence bill either.
LOL. Then Tancredo thanks you. There will be no bill and ya'll can bitch and moan for another 40 years.
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