Free Republic

Now that Republicans lost the House the road is wide open to illegal amnesty.

Everyone had a good stiff drinkie? Here goes: FoxNews reporting from the White House: White House spokesman Tony Snow reacted to the change in House control by allowing they're disappointed, but that it presents some intriguing opportunities, such as passing comprehensive immigration reform which failed in the previous Republican House."

He supports tax cuts and the war in Iraq. He opposes stem cell research and the Medicare drug plan. He is a master of his movement’s medium, talk radio. Jesus Christ is his personal savior and Ronald Reagan his political idol. Conjure what might be called the perfect conservative, and chances are he would look a lot like Representative Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who in just three terms has turned 100 House allies into a vanguard and himself into one of his party’s rising stars. Or that was the case until this spring when he sought compromise in the...

At Accuracy in Academia’s Immigration Forum on Capitol Hill, Jessica Echard of Eagle Forum discussed guest worker programs. “Everyone has tried to distance themselves from the word amnesty,” she explained. Amnesty would give illegal aliens in the United States immunity from U. S. immigration laws they are currently violating. The bill that passed the Senate would allow guest workers into the United States to work free of immigration restrictions that would otherwise be in place, supposedly for finite periods of time. Echard gave the audience questions and “aspects we need to look at” when it comes to the different guest...

In an attempt to strike a pre-election Republican compromise on immigration, two conservative lawmakers unveiled a plan today that would allow most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States a chance to work here legally, but only after the government certifies that U.S. borders have been sufficiently secured. The proposal -- sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.) and Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.) -- would pressure illegal immigrants to "self-deport" to their home countries within two years of the law's enactment and apply for a new kind of visa that would allow them to return to the...

Taking Mayor Bloomberg's view one step further, Sen. John McCain warned that the American economy would collapse if 11 million illegal aliens are sent packing. "What are we going to do with 11 million people?" McCain asked at a dinner at the New York Yacht Club......... "You going to send 'em all back? Mayor Bloomberg testified at a hearing last week that the economy of New York City would collapse [without illegal immigrants]. I would argue the economy of America would collapse." The Arizona Republican is co-sponsor of a bill....that would provide for a guest-worker program and a path to...

Illegal Aliens: A Few Myths to Keep in Mind . . . Mexico City. Last Tuesday the Pew Hispanic Center announced that 41 percent of Mexicans surveyed in February and 46 percent questioned in May stated they would live in the United States if given "the means and opportunity." Indeed, two out of 10 people interviewed said they were prepared to enter the U.S. illegally. These figures could have amazing consequences because our Spanish- speaking neighbor has a population of nearly 106 million inhabitants.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday vowed to keep working for immigration legislation including a guest worker program, as Republicans held dueling hearings to build support for rival bills. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter assembled employers and sympathetic politicians to testify in Philadelphia about the country's dependence on the estimated 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Meanwhile, House Republican leaders convened a public hearing at a Border Patrol station in San Diego to highlight the need for stricter enforcement along the U.S. border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrants entering the country. Bush took...

Whatever Happened to Mike Pence? by Phyllis Schlafly June 28, 2006 Despite the consistent failure of all guest worker plans (e.g., France), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) is peddling a new plan to import foreign workers who really are guests and really do go home. Pence has turned his back on the 88 percent of House Republicans who voted that we must achieve border security first, because we'll be cheated on border security if Congress passes a "comprehensive" bill. The Pence plan tries to avoid the amnesty label by requiring illegal aliens now in the U.S. to make what he...

Mexican politicians continuously demand more visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and "regularization" of illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. While neglecting to mention that the United States admits nearly one million legal newcomers each year, they also fail to publicize: (1) the extremely high salaries they receive, often—in the case of federal and state legislators—more than their counterparts in developed nations that have substantially longer annual sessions, (2) the generous stipends that they grant themselves, including year-end aguinaldos and end-of-term bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars known as bonos de marcha, and (3) the...

LOS ANGELES - A potentially powerful expatriate voting bloc likely will have little effect on Mexico's presidential race because of the illegal status of many who live in the United States. Thousands of Mexican expatriates streamed into border towns Sunday to vote in their homeland's elections and others were allowed to cast absentee ballots for the first time. Still, many more were disenfranchised by their fear of crossing the border as undocumented residents. "I really wanted to vote, but I don't have papers so I couldn't go to Mexico" to get a voter card, said Adriana Lopez, 27, a housewife...

MEXICO CITY - Mexicans voted Sunday in a tight presidential race to decide whether their country becomes the latest Latin American nation to move to the left, choosing between a shopkeeper's son promising to save the poor and a conservative calling his rival's free-spending populism dangerous. The campaign, which exposed Mexico's painful class divisions, was the first since Vicente Fox's stunning victory six years ago ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Polls predicted a close race between conservative Felipe Calderon, 43, of Fox's National Action Party, and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52, a...

The reason why Mexico is having chilly relations with the United States because we are importing Mexico's poor and the American tapayer is paying for them. Mexico refused to do nothing about the corruption that is pervasive in all levels of government. There is a massive crime wave being committed more and more by Mexican nationals against American citizens. Could this also be another reason why there is a chill between Mexico and the United States?The author of the piece does not touch this.

Elias Torres will pick grapes this season for the first time in 25 years. The vineyard manager usually sends his laborers to do the work. But in the last two months, more than half of his 60-person staff has disappeared, he said, as a result of federal immigration crackdowns. So Torres, a 57-year-old quadruple bypass survivor, will pluck and sweat alongside field workers -- and even the vineyard owners who hire him to bring them in. "This is the worst labor shortage I've seen since I came here in 1961," said Torres, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico, who manages work...

California grape growers are facing a harvest crisis as stepped-up US immigration enforcement limits the labour pool. Nat DiBuduo, CEO of Allied Grape Growers, held urgent meetings with influential US senator John McCain of Arizona and the US agriculture secretary Mike Johanns in June to lobby for change in US immigration laws. 'Border security has been a focal point of immigration reform, and labour is going to be short throughout California,' said Dibuduo, whose 600 growers supply about 100 winemakers throughout the state. 'In recent years we have been using more illegal immigrants for work that US citizens do not...

Prominent Conservatives, Civic Leaders Urge President Bush and Congress to Back Enforcement First on Immigration WASHINGTON, June 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Leading conservatives and civic leaders have signed an "open letter" on immigration declaring that "border and interior enforcement must be funded, operational, implemented, and proven successful¾and only then can we debate the status of current illegal immigrants, or the need for new guest worker programs." The signers include William Bennett, Robert Bork, William F Buckley, Ward Connerly, Newt Gingrich, David Horowitz, David Keene, John Leo, Herbert London, Rich Lowry, Daniel Pipes, Phyllis Schlafly, and Thomas Sowell among others. Hudson...

Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist says he does not support a compromise immigration proposal by Rep Mike Pence, R-Ind., despite the congressman's claim to the contrary. Pence told a Republican Study Group mini-retreat Monday at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., that Gilchrist backs his plan to form worker-placement centers outside the U.S. But Gilchrist clarified to WorldNetDaily his remarks to Pence. "I congratulated Congressman Pence on putting forth alternatives, "Gilchrist explained, "but that does not mean I think the alternatives Congressman Pence proposed are the solution. Quite frankly, I don't." Gilchrist said the "only solution that has any chance of...

SAN BENITO, Texas - Jose Luis Vazquez and Elia Garcia know what they're talking about when they predict that new immigrants crossing the border under the U.S. Senate's temporary guest worker program won't go home. They each came over illegally more than a decade ago. They have children, jobs and houses - a life that would be difficult to dismantle because of a date on the calendar. While the immigration plan would allow Vazquez and Garcia to stay - after paying fines and back taxes, and learning English - newcomers would compete for one of 200,000 temporary guest worker visas...

George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001 hoping he would be remembered in history books as the education president who raised public school standards with his No Child Left Behind Act. It now looks like his legacy will be "No illegal immigrant left behind." The White House Web site is currently advertising, in both English and Spanish, Bush's congratulations (applaudo) to the U.S. Senate for passing what president called bipartisan (bipartidista) and comprehensive (integral) immigration reform (reforma). In fact, this Kennedy-McCain (aka Hagel-Martinez) bill might be the worst and the most expensive bill ever passed by the Senate,...

EL PASO, Texas -- The immigration bill passed by the Senate last month could mean security for many residents of Juarez, Mexico, who cross the border with laser visas meant for shoppers and work illegally in El Paso. The bill would allow border crossing workers, such as those from Juarez, to apply for unlimited enrollment in the guest worker program. Most other guest workers would be limited to working in the United States for a total of six years before having to return home. "I think El Paso would be able to take advantage of it very easily with workers...