Posted on 06/04/2007 8:11:22 AM PDT by Zakeet
If President Bush were as intent on cracking down on illegal immigration as he is on insulting conservatives, we’d have a secure border by now.
He attacked conservatives in a speech to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga., for not rubber-stamping his secretly negotiated agreement on legislation that would make the most dramatic change to immigration law in the last 40 years. The president’s tone was aggressive, disrespectful, and dismissive of conservative assertions that his deal amounts to amnesty for illegal aliens. True conservatives, who believe in the rule of law, must tell our nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, “Mr. President, with all due respect, you are wrong. This bill is amnesty.”
The administration’s high-volume rhetoric reveals a desperate attempt to build a presidential legacy. Why else would the administration participate in closed-door drafting sessions lead by liberal icon Sen. Ted Kennedy, then attempt to railroad the bill through the Senate in one week? Conservative senators balked at the prospect of passing a massive bill with no hearings, no expert testimony and no opportunity for citizens to read the bill. The Heritage Foundation posted a searchable copy of the bill on our website so that conservatives could rebut the president’s absurd accusation that critics “haven’t read the bill.”
We have, and it’s clear that the Kennedy-Bush partnership has yielded a markedly liberal approach to the immigration problem: amnesty for the estimated 12 million people currently working and residing illegally within the non-secure borders of the United States of America. But why be surprised? The last two times that Kennedy and Bush collaborated, we wound up federalizing education under No Child Left Behind and creating a multibillion-dollar entitlement known as the Medicare prescription-drug benefit.
According to the president those who dare say the bill is amnesty are trying to “scare the American people” with “empty political rhetoric.” The fact is, these people are working and living in the United States illegally, some as recently as five months ago. If they had been apprehended at the border, they would have been in deportation proceedings. Yet under the president’s bill, they would be rewarded for evading our border control or overstaying their old visa with a newly created amnesty visa. It’s hardly “empty rhetoric” to call the bill amnesty — it’s old-fashioned honesty. And the American people should be scared of a plan that rewards people who have flouted a myriad of immigration laws.
The president claims his plan isn’t amnesty because sanctions apply before one qualifies for a permanent “Z Visa.” The administration calls it a “plea bargain,” yet it seems more like a slap on the wrist when you study the president’s assertions of what constitutes punishment. To qualify, illegal aliens must “admit they violated the law.” Yawn. Then they must “pay a meaningful penalty.” The bill calls for a series of fees that add up to a few thousand dollars to get a Z Visa.
These aliens must then “pass a strict background check,” “hold a job,” “maintain a clean record,” and “eventually learn English.” This sounds like the lawbreaker was given a pardon, not a plea bargain, with minimal penalties. If a man broke into your house, how would you feel if the judge punishes the guy by allowing him to stay at your house, but he has to pay rent, sign an admission of guilt and stay away from your children?
This amnesty deal also is unfair to the people who made the mistake of respecting the rule of law. Any foreign national waiting in line legally to come to the U.S. would have been better off sneaking in illegally and finding an under-the-table job. They would be eligible for this program. The good conservative-minded foreigners who followed the letter of the law are being punished, because they were dumb enough to actually believe the rule of law would be respected.
President Bush accused conservatives of not wanting to do “what’s right for America.” With all due respect, he and Sen. Kennedy are wrong about consequences and effects of comprehensive immigration-reform legislation on America. This bill will forever change America’s immigration laws to the detriment of every law-abiding citizen and foreign national who wants to legally immigrate to the United States.
This bipolar and bipartisan immigration deal has many conflicting and confusing provisions, yet it’s clear that this approach is bad for America. Mr. President, one thing is obvious to those of us who have read the bill. It’s amnesty.
— Brian Darling is director of U.S. Senate Relations at the Heritage Foundation.
I agreed with him that the WOT has to be fought. He just doesn’t see the Mexican border as part of it and we do.
I AGREE!
This makes me sick.
Listen up, GOP'ers: Destructive leadership under GWB I and GWB II are what we get for voting for moderates.
Yep. Last time they promised us border security. Were still waiting. Once we get the border security they promised us, THEN we can talk regularization of illegals.
That’s more than enough to rank Bush at the top of the most destructive president in history and he will be justly reviled for it by anyone who loves this dying nation.
It’s what we get for voting for someone who’s only qualifying point was that he wasn’t a Democrap.
W calls it a fine, I call it selling citizenship.
Bush’s hubris (Iraq, Medicare, Education, etc.), nepotism (Harriet Myers is the epitome), his ensuing love affair with Democrats (Teddy Kennedy, his dad with Clinton), and his love affair with spending other people’s money (he makes previous Democrats look tight-fisted) clearly shows that he should be asked to step down from his presidency before his stubborn lack of foresight sends the U.S. and Western Civilization reeling into the dustbin.
His hoped-for mass amnesty of approximately 20 million low-skilled, left-leaning illegals will be his capstone deathblow, his coup d’grace into the heart of what made America great.
When Brit Hume says on FNC Sundy ‘This was simply stupid politics attacking your own base of support’ the President needs to listen.
If only President Bush would attack Harry Reid in the manner he attacked those of us that elected, then reelected him.....
It will be the end of this country as we know it. The seriousness of this one issue can not be overstated.
Clinton's policies did indeed have negative impact, but the jury's still out on how hurtful they blowback will be re Loral/China/Balkans/BATF/Osama.
While I don't like to downplay the deleterious effects of his admin, Bush has damaged the GOP beyond Clinton's wildest dreams, and isn't done yet.
US citizenship is worth roughly . . . a hundred grand, so if you could get it then sell it, paying $5,000 for it would be a `no-brainer’.
However, one form of the proposed `Z’ visa is a permanent, temporary visa. Even the people drafting the bill recognize that “undocumented immigrants” don’t want US citizenship: they just want to live and work here.
Solution—how about making US citizenship a marketable commodity, capable of being sold? Then we could get new immigrants from, say, Australia who want to be citizens, are presumably prosperous/educated and share our values (coming from a country that has supported us faithfully, almost blindly) but they made the mistake of attempting to comply with our immigration laws, so are now in line behind an illegal Mexican occupation approaching the total population of Australia.
This is the type of Alice in Wonderland thinking our government has led us to . . . thanks Teddy, George!
ping
He is: www.spp.gov
What I don’t get is why we would want to give anybody a permanent visa....oh, I forgot, Kennedy wrote this bill!
Considering that he gave the Chinese the ability to build MIRV-ed ICBMs, I’m not too sure about that.
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I might as well pile on and note that the Chinese have 55 modern subs at this time and unlike the Russians Navy where we could intercept and follow their movements as they left narrow straights out of port we have no real way to do that with the Chinese as they have much better ports..
U.S. Constitution, Article 4 Section 4:
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.
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