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
Speak for yourself. Is this Ron or Pat? This administration is far from a disgrace. You, on the other hand, are questionable in your logic.
You people have zero credibility.
You have brazenly refused to enforce the laws we already have, and now you seek to subvert them.
This administration is a disgrace, and it is openly hostile to the people who voted it in.
Do something decent. Resign. That would, indeed, be for the good of this country.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TANKS,,,You Put This Very Well,,,I’m Prone To CUSSIN’...
Some Folks Ain’t Gunna “play” NEW WORLD ORDER/NAU.<note)
.
Worse than sad
It’s deliberate evil lies from the WH
Now they and the dems say “most of America wants......”
From an LA Times rigged push poll !!!!!
—
The latest Rasmussen poll says 55% of dems are for border enforcement - no amnesty!
Republicans over 90%!
And 80% of all Americans are against this Scamnasty Bill
With approximately 12 million "wet backs" in America being illegally employed, if these fines were enforced, why would any American citizen have to pay any Federal income taxes?
These fines alone would pay for our government expenses.
OK is one very fortunate state, and has brilliant citizens. The citizens were the ones who chose those two wonderful men to represent them in the Senate.
I, OTOH, am saddled with Gordon Smith, and the reptilian Ron Wyden. Smith was a conservative, but it seems that now he’s become a politician. I heard today on the Victoria Taft radio show that he now says he’s against the bill. However, I truly don’t think we will know where he stands until the final vote is taken.
May Liddy be as brilliant and gutsy as she was last week!
Free Republic is full of some of the finest minds in the country. If you are typical of the type of people the White House employs we are in big trouble. C'mon, impress us. See if you can respond intelligently to even a few posts.
History is repeating itself. Bush 41's advisor Lee Atwater famously advised Bush 41 regarding conservatives "Where are they going to go?"
Of course that advise promptly led to Ross Perot getting 19% of the national vote and Bush 41 losing his reelection bid.
I sense the same thing with this "immigration reform". Only now it's Bush 43 that doesn't need to work with fellow Republicans and conservatives, and I believe it will end just as badly.
The Rasmussen Report from June 13th showed only 20% of Americans support this legislation. While occasionally it's courageous to fight against the evil majority, most times the 80% are, plain and simply, correct.
Thank God for Oklahoma.
Blah blah blah...I don't want to be responsible for my actions...blah blah blah...I want to break the law and I don't care about what it costs everyone else or what damage my illegal actions do.
So, what other criminals do you hire? Why the hell should anyone ever do business with you. Really. Do you hire illegal aliens in your business?
BUMP
Possibly, since it was a smokey-backroom bill worked out by the elite of the Senate. Those have always tended to slide through too quickly for a reaction to develop. But the Internet has hyper-speeded-up everything, including the ability to generate a reaction. There’s no way the deliberative legislative process will ever be able to outpace the speed of communication in the new era. But still the saturation level is astounding - that it can now move that many people that quickly is mind-boggling. It took saturation TV commercials and talk radio a long time to deep six Hillary-care. It’s taken the Internet almost no time (comparitively) to knock down a backroom deal by the very top of the political elite class. That’s new paradigm-type stuff. A watershed moment.
The credit goes to Pelham, I merely added an addendum to what he said, that resigning would be for the good of this country.
And I have no intention of playing the NAU game, either, unless it's locked and loaded.
The post # still isn’t there.
What happened?
I’d love to see it!
“He’s singing the FREEPER’S SONG
I CAN’T GET NO SATISFACTION”
That’s absolutely PERFECT!
AH! Good to know you are watching the thread!
You have no idea how much it means to us all, SOMEONE in a position of power and influence is at least paying some attention to what we have to say. Granted a LOT of if is meaningless and un-useful, but there are some ideas that have been posted up that are MORE than worthy of attention!
What should be crystal clear, is we are NOT in favor of this Bill in this form. It us patently unfair to those that immigrated here legally at great personal expense, and it is abhorrent to those of us who obey and follow the rules of our society.
Just make it illegal to deduct workers wages as a business expense if Names, ID’s and other identification do not match up with a given employee, and there goes the problem, right back across the border they came from because the jobs they hold will disappear. Believe me, there ARE Americans willing to do the work, they just are not going to do it for the artificially LOW wages the Illegals have created.
Do the RIGHT thing. CLOSE the borders. Make the Jobs disappear. Give us our COUNTRY BACK!!!!
FreeReign:That alone should make a thinking person go back a read the quote.
Hmm, yes, because liberals have never been known to state the obvious once or twice in their lifetime. I suppose I should go re-read Arnold's latest statements that using Spanish speaking mediums discourages leaning the English language then. Clearly my interpretation of that must be off, since he is a liberal.
There you go again.
I never said that just because a liberal says something, that it must not be true. Now you misrepresent what I've said.
Again I urge you to read the full context of the President's "what's best for the country" comment. And of course liberals are going to want to take it out of context. They want us to run from Al Qaeda in Iraq and they will use anything they can against the President.
Yes, we agree on the bill being bad.
I think we should quit while we agree.
Grow up.
I have no idea DC. I posted to Devolve and have never seen a post that didn’t have the “[to#] at the bottom of it. Don’t know how it would happen.
Thanks, The song applies, lol.
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