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
Absolutely! If they even read any of this....which I doubt...but, it always feels better to be able to express oneself, don't you agree?
Great post.
Well, I hope they know that many of us are ‘behind them’ and hate the injustice done to them
You know...they probably do...but it probably rings hollow as they sit in their jail cells for crimes they did not commit....
With that background it is absurd that I am now bitterly opposed to the President due to his current position of foisting false reform to an immigration legal system that was actually abandoned by he and his predecessors.
This truely vile Immigration Reform Bill brings to mind a quotation from Edmund Burke when speaking of the French he says what we can style for the Senior Senators and now the President:
"It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, to innovate is not to reform.The..." [Senior Senators]"...complained of everything; they refused to reform anything; and they left nothing, no, nothing at all unchanged. The consequences are before us,—not in remote history; not in future prognostication: they are about us; they are upon us. They shake the public security; they menace private enjoyment. They dwarf the growth of the young; they break the quiet of the old. If we travel, they stop our way. They infest us in town; they pursue us to the country. Our business is interrupted; our repose is troubled; our pleasures are saddened; our very studies are poisoned and perverted, and knowledge is rendered worse than ignorance, by the enormous evils of this dreadful innovation."
The President can pardon and commute all he wants for equitable treatment of law breakers. I don't dispute his charity and goodwill. But let us simply enforce our laws before we attempt a plan that will break our nations economy and legal system.
President Bush, make us proud rather than repulsed!
I am utterly opposed to his administration and party until he turns from this path.
Linda Chavez can _speculate_ about bigotry, but her own criminality is a matter of _record_.
Now see how simple that is. And it would work a thousand times better, and not reek of Big brother.
NO—TO AMNESTY.
YES—TO A FENCE. It should have been built yesterday. Where is it?
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We should work up a few graphic ideas on the Border Patrol 2
Right now my mind’s a blank. You will have to think up the ideas.
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Mine is a blank too
I’ll keep it on the back burner
I can picture that!
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I’ll probably see a .gif of that shortly!
Some things can’t become gifs, be thankful for that!! Lol
Nifong?
He apologized today
Then in answer in the hearing said he still thinks “something happened” !!!!!!
How did we go from gifs to Nifong?
I thought he resigned today, resigned and apologized to the families. I saw it on TV but missed the part about ‘still thinking something happened’.
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One of the 3 boy’s fathers saaid on FNC/Greta that Nifong should go to prison
So should the NC Governor and AG and state Supreme Court for allowing this farce to go on
The DUKE racial scam set blacks back 170 years
[The DUKE racial scam set blacks back 170 years]
So have Jackson and Sharpton, lol.
We rate. :’)
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Yes
The “Justice Brothers” as Rush named them
They are a cancer
They enflame all these things
The Black Panthers & Fruitloops of Islam in the courtroom threatening the DUKE players loudly
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Colin Finarty’s father was on with Greta on FNC
Nifong called the DUKE 3 “hooligans” on live TV before even indicting them
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