The omission isn't an oversight; it's a deliberate policy. The National Republican Congressional Committee has been advising its candidates not to mention this issue in their speeches or campaign literature.
"Well, I am shocked! Shocked!"
not.
Posted on 08/20/2002 12:25:19 PM PDT by gubamyster
August 20, 2002
The Republican National Committee's mail-order fund-raisers often contain a comprehensive multiple-choice survey so that prospective donors can give their opinions on topics of national importance. One issue, however, is conspicuously missing from the list: immigration.
The omission isn't an oversight; it's a deliberate policy. The National Republican Congressional Committee has been advising its candidates not to mention this issue in their speeches or campaign literature.
House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., gave Republicans the opportunity to seize this issue when he addressed a radical left-wing Hispanic group, The National Council of La Raza, in Miami on July 22.
He announced a Democratic Party plan to introduce legislation to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Nothing is more unpopular with voters than amnesty (which Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., called "sheer lunacy"). If the powers that be in the Republican Party don't realize this, they are out-of-touch with the grass roots.
The shyness of the Republican Party and the Bush administration about immigration explains why they manifest a deafening silence about Rep. George Gekas's bill called Securing America's Future through Enforcement Reform. The Pennsylvania Republican's bill is completely in accord with public opinion polls, showing that the majority of the American people want government to reduce the number of legal immigrants, to stop the irresponsible issuance of visas, to deport illegal aliens and to use U.S. troops to guard our borders (instead of the borders of Eastern Europe).
Title I, called Securing the Border, would increase the number of INS investigators and enforcement personnel, lengthen criminal sentences for alien smuggling, beef up the Border Patrol and use U.S. military troops until the Border Patrol reaches full strength. It would stop granting visas in countries that refuse to cooperate in combating alien smuggling.
Title II, called Screening Aliens Seeking Admission, would tighten the visa program to reduce the risk of aliens using fraudulent passports, require in-person interviews before issuing all visas, and bar any alien who is a member of a terrorist group or supports terrorism. Most people don't understand why this isn't already the law.
Title III, called Tracking Aliens Present in the United States, would establish a comprehensive entry-exit control system with registration and fingerprinting (which the INS has promised for years but never implemented). At least 40 percent of illegal aliens are visa overstayers. Several of the 9/11 hijackers had overstayed their visas.
Title IV, called Removing Alien Terrorists, Criminals, and Human Rights Violators, would authorize the INS to deport any alien who was inadmissible in the first place or is suspected of being a terrorist. This title would reverse several court decisions that accord unreasonable "rights" to terrorists claiming asylum, and would prevent the courts from releasing criminal aliens into the community.
Title V, called Enhancing Enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act in the Interior, would protect Social Security cards against counterfeiting and fraudulent use. This title would increase the number of INS investigators, as repeatedly requested by the INS, and double the number of INS detention beds.
Title VI would eliminate excessive review and dilatory, abusive tactics by aliens in deportation proceedings. It would also exclude aliens who knowingly make a false asylum application.
Title VII would clean up the problem of voting by illegal aliens. It would require verification of citizenship for voters and applicants.
Title VIII, called Reforming Legal Immigration, would repeal the infamous Diversity Immigrant Program which admits 50,000 immigrants a year, mostly from the Third World, including countries that sponsor terrorism, and helped the Fourth of July LAX murderer win U.S. residency. It would reform the abuses in the refugee program and in the extended-family visa program, and reduce the number of legal immigrants by 20 percent.
This would still leave immigration nearly double the traditional level. The INS is unable to cope with its current backlog of 5 million applications.
Gekas, chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, will start hearings on his bill next month. He should then add one more section requiring the INS to screen out aliens with diseases, such as the West Nile virus, malaria, Chagas disease, intestinal parasites and tuberculosis.
The BBC reported that the current epidemic of the West Nile virus (a central African disease) was probably brought to America for the first time three years ago by an imported exotic bird. The Centers for Disease Control reported that 16,000 foreign birds passed unscreened for West Nile virus through JFK airport in 1999. Where are the environmentalists when we need them?
The omission isn't an oversight; it's a deliberate policy. The National Republican Congressional Committee has been advising its candidates not to mention this issue in their speeches or campaign literature.
"Well, I am shocked! Shocked!"
not.
While I don't support troops at the border, the rest of Gekas' bill merits close consideration.
With the resignation of INS Commissioner James Ziglar, President Bush has a golden moment to silence many his critics and nominate a new INS Commissioner whose views on immigration, Illegal Aliens, and border security more accurately reflect that of the American People. There is no weeping in the Heartland now that the Ziglar the Buffoon is making his belated exit.
The next INS Commissioner needs to understand the best of what immigration brings to America, placing a high value on citizenship, assimilation to our culture, and a love of the English language. At the same time, the new Commissioner's patriotism must place America's security and sovereignty ahead of the trendy ideological and economic infatuations of the Washington Beltway.
There are Middle Eastern terror cels in our country. There are hundreds of thousands of Arab Moslem non-citizens amongst whom they hide. There are eight to thirteen million Illegal Aliens whose presence provides a black market infrastructrue for border crossing, infiltration into the American interior, and forged documents and identification. Millions are draining resources and taxpayer money in unearned subsidies from all levels of government. They fill our schools, our emergency wards, and our prisons. They cost our country billions even as the degrade our neighborhoods.
They engender an atmosphere of lawlessness. Many vote illegally, the worst trampling of our precious citizenship.
Current INS Commissioner James Ziglar, boyhood chum of Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), cared not a whit for any of this. His malfeasance in office reflected poorly on President Bush and the Republican Party. The best thing he will ever do in his career is... leave.
But who now? Who can turn the INS around and make it function in the capacities that it was intended?
Michelle Malkin, the daughter of legal Philippino immigrants, has been tireless in writing of the problems highlighted above. She has documented the failings of the INS from terrorism to Illegal Aliens, knows who the entrenched, open-border bureaucrats are, and would hit the ground running as President Bush's next INS Commissioner.
Articulate and telegenic, Mrs. Malkin would be a refreshing new face in the Bush Administration and the Republican Party, on the same path blazed by National Security Advisor Condileeza Rice.
Information on INVASION here
Can we add people with AIDS/HIV to the list of those we would exclude?
Wait'll I get ahold of a copy of this Republican questionnaire. Where's my black, magic marker? ;^)
It's a very calculated and self-destructive omission. It would be nice to root out the triangulating whiz kids that have rammed this "strategy" down Republican throats.
Ignoring it won't make it go away. Place after place - even far from the border - has overstuffed schools with ever-more trailer classrooms no matter what tax referendum the sheeple pass because of it. This is the point where it affects middle-class families most in quality of life - not just in high taxes. It puts a huge quasi-tax on families in some areas by forcing near-universal middle-class flight to private schools.
However, place after place is also seeing immigration take over local welfare caseloads - even far from the border. Place after place - even far from borders - is also seeing immigration put ruinous burdens on hospitals.
The GOP elites ignore this issue at their own peril - as social conservatives no longer will support a party that doesn't support us; we will vote Buchanan or just not vote for president at all in 2004 if the party doesn't stand by us.
Even on Free Republic, immigration isn't listed under any of the General Interest discussion topics. Almost every issue imaginable is listed, but immigration is not.
"Got a Black Magic Marker...."
"You Got to Change Your Evil Ways"
Choose any number of topicsIt's not under "Hot Topics," either... though it's certainly hotter than anthrax.
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Gonna make a devil outta me.
I've got news for you. The owner of this web site told me several weeks ago that, "immigration is no big concern of mine".
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