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.
Dude, have you been drinking?
Maybe the Pence bill is the best anybody can get this year. As you can see, however, the unappeaseables will still kick and scream and piss and moan that it's a "sellout." And Tancredo will try to kill it.
I've already told you the Senate doesn't support it. Pence's excellent bill is going nowhere in the Senate. That means that the House will stand firm and kill the Senate bill.
Exactly. The dirty little secret of this entire debate is that a large number of illegal immigration opponents, like FAIR, actually oppose legal immigration as well.
No it will also kill the House Bill since the House cannot pass it unilaterally. SO, what have you gained? I know what Tancredo gains but what about the Borderbots?
I doubt the House GOP will be blamed solely for the lack of any bill.
If anything, I think We The People will vote in a much more conservative House.
I just heard on Hannity that the CA-50 race between Bilbray (R) vs the democrat has just broken wide in favor of the enforcement-first Bilbray.
Ah, I see.
You want the House to conferee with the AMNESTY Senate bill, but you don't want the Senate to take up the House bill.
Just like RINOs who want conservatives to hold their noses and support them, but when conservatives run, feh, they can't win let 'em die.
IT's not what I want, it is what is now happening. Geeze.
"...its an anti immigration movement period."
If a pipe breaks in my house, I shut off the water. That doesn't mean I intend to do without water from now on. It just means I need to get the leak under control before I let any more come down the pipe.
Some sort of moratorium on immigration for a few years till we figure out where we are would not be unreasonable. By then we could put in place something similar to the systems that Australia or New Zealand have, where an immigrant needs to have something to offer TO his new homeland rather than what he can take FROM it.
By your logic, then, President Bush never offered a solution regarding "saving" Social Security, since it was a near-dead certainty at the time he proposed it that it would never be passed.
So there'll be no bill. From a GOP-controlled Congress that the voters are looking to for immigration reform.
And don't kid yourself. Most voters do not distinguish between the House and the Senate. They'll hold the GOP responsible, and the House will go to the Democrats.
But, Tancredo would have his issue, and he'd be sucking gullible FReepers dry of their hard-earned cash for his quixotic fantasy.
The House exposing themselves as rejecting amnesty is a winner for the House. The Senate will expose themselves when forced to vote on border enforcement issues and the rats and rinos in the senate will lose big.
America will reject their white minority schemes.
The House exposing themselves as rejecting amnesty is a winner for the House. The Senate will expose themselves when forced to vote on border enforcement issues and the rats and rinos in the senate will lose big.
America will reject their white minority schemes.
Which is just as well. No bill is better than the bad bill the senate wants. There is no grass roots push for "Comprehensive" reform. It's just another ploy by the WH to shove this crap down our throat.
But you and your three supporters go ahead and keep trying.
We are not buying.
No, by my logic, Tom Tancredo is a one trick pony that knows he has to do everything in his power to keep this issue from resolution.
That's because Busby made a stupid "you don't need any papers to vote" remark, then repeated it. She's too dumb to hold elective office.
As for a more conservative House, that's fine. I'd like that too. But, if there's no bill, the immigration issue is dead for at least two years.
You didn't address my point, so I'll assume you're conceding it.
I just hope the House will not compromise. The bill the senators passed is insane, a sure way to destroy this country. Amazing that so many of our senators are bought off or against this Country.
BTW, the other day I turned on the TV as a press conference was in progress regarding that horrible murder of an entire family in Indianapolis. Just then the conference switched to Spanish. (And Greta cut off the broadcast).
Bush did not "push" to have the Dairy support program removed in 2004 and in 2005.
Beg to differ on your comment; Tancredo follows the wish of the people, who demand to close the border immediately as I do.
OTOH you state that he has not responded constructively enough to the Prez Bush/Senate approach of guest worker program.
Well the American people, myself included can care less about an illegal guest program, courtesy of Prez Bush'es/Senate agenda. That's not the point!
The point is the American people want the Borders sealed shot, and enforce the existing laws against everyone employing illegals! Period!
Give it time to work it out, and we can move to the next stage.
Ping for later reading
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