I thought I was just speaking loudly.
I'm sorry, your honor.
Posted on 06/14/2007 11:16:52 AM PDT by kristinn
A spokeman for the Bush administration sent an e-mail to Jim Robinson and myself confirming the authenticity of a post on Free Republic this afternoon regarding the immigration bill currently before the Senate as having been posted on behalf of the White House.
The spokesman, Nicholas Thompson, works for the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. The Politico reported yesterday that Thompson and Kerrie Rushton, associate directors in the Office of Strategic Initiatives who work under Karl Rove, would be engaging the blogosphere on the immigration bill.
Thompson's post is on the thread titled Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill, a vanity posted by philman_36. Thompson posted at comment #53.
Thompson's e-mail to Free Republic included a brief introduction and the text of his posted comment:
Hi,
I just wanted to let you know that I just posted a response to the post "Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill."
The White House appreciates the opportunity to respond on Free Republic.
Response:
I would like to point out that the Secretary is authorized to reduce or mitigate penalities against employers who in good faith are trying to comply with the law. Certainly, we understand that not all employers knowingly hire illegal immigrants; this will remain the case, especially before the bill’s new secure documentation requirements are fully phased in. We do not seek to wrongly penalize honest employers who unknowingly hire illegal immigrants, therefore we reserve the right to reduce or mitigate their penalties if the employer can show good faith compliance in following the law.
For those employers who do knowingly hire illegal immigrants, please know that we intend to penalize these employers strongly, and the Administration has already stepped up these penalties in the last couple of years. For example, a 2005 program, “Operation Rollback,” assessed $15,000,000 in civil fines to employers, an amount greater than the sum of administrative fines collected in the previous eight years and was the largest worksite enforcement penalty in US history. In the first quarter of FY07, criminal and civil forfeitures have totaled $26,700,000 for employers.
As a reminder of what’s in the bill, fines for hiring an illegal worker are $5,000 maximum per illegal worker for the first offense, $10,000 maximum per illegal worker for the second, $25,000 maximum per illegal worker for the third , and $75,000 maximum per illegal worker for the fourth. In addition, the bill increases the maximum criminal penalty for a pattern or practice of unlawful hiring twenty-five-fold, from $3,000 to $75,000, and would impose a prison term of up to six months. This represents a significant increase in fines for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Nicholas Thompson
White House Office of Strategic Initiatives
Hear, hear!
How much are my local taxes going up to support them?
There are jobs illegals will do only and soley because the employers get cheap, slave labor for jobs that Americans’ have always done with pride for fair market compensation.
The biggest employer violators are those who do not keep records, pay cash, and are invisible to the ICE agents looking for the Big Headline Busts.
Enforce the D*** laws on the books, and build the wall. Everything else is treason!
Good point. Bears repeating with a little "ping" attached.
:-)
Amen!
What kind of LEADER let’s someone dress down one of his direct reports, and lets it just go on by.
Don’t have Tony speak to it. Have the **PRESIDENT** respond to the MAJORITY LEADER.
Mr. President,
You have failed to uphold your oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” by not securing our borders! You have No credibility on this issue!
Oh yeah. What happened to that?
A lot of people in DC read FR but few will admit it.
PARDON RAMOS AND COMPEAN!
“... from Karl Rove’s office”
Woulda guessed. The guiding light behind this stupid amnesty program, the “architect” who took a sure landslide win against a moron opponent and almost turned it into a defeat, the guy who says we are all racists “who don’t like brown people.”
That's BS. If they were serious about enforcement then why are illegals at almost every place of business that I see?
If a business was open about manufacturing cocaine the Feds would be all over them in the matter of hours. We wouldn't be talking about fines - we'd be talking about how the offenders went to jail and then everyone else stopped because they didn't want to risk going to jail themselves.
Somehow enforcing the immigration laws is impossible although it businesses violate it right out in the open.
They dispatched Snow to Laura today, they send out one of their minions here. Same response to both.
We don’t believe a word any of you say. Your credibility is in shreds. You’d have better luck getting a member of KOS to trust you, then you will a Unamerican bigoted yahoo conservative. yes, we took the insults thrown by the administration and his lackeys to heart.
And to think, FreeRepublic members actually helped save Bush in 2000 and helped take down Rather in 2004. This is the thanks given in return?
I thought I was just speaking loudly.
I'm sorry, your honor.
Give him a chance. He’s probably in a state of shock at the responses he getting. I don’t get the sense there have been a lot of reality checks on this topic in the White House lately.
Just say NO to Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Close the borders. Enforce existing laws. Then lets see what else needs to be done then.
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