Contact Tom Tancredo (R-Co), Chirman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus

Contact Tom Tancredo (R-Co), Chirman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC). He's one of the few elected republicans with his head on straight. Here's their platform:

The United States has lost control over its immigration policy. Over one million persons enter our nation illegally each year and we have antiquated and error-prone systems for knowing who our legal visitors are and for enforcing their visa time limits. Every poll shows that over 75% of citizens support border security and strict enforcement of our immigration laws. They want our immigration policies fixed. Here is my four-point plan for achieving control of our borders and enforcing sensible immigration policies.

Increase Border Patrol manpower from the present 11,500 to 20,000 (HR 3534). Use the U.S. Military until the Border Patrol reaches that manpower level (HR 277). Accelerate the use of new technology and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to identify and help apprehend smugglers and trespassers. Double the capacity of the detention centers for apprehended trespassers. End the “catch and release” policy by instituting fines and jail time for repeat offenders. Require stiff prison sentences for convicted “coyotes” and felons who return to the U.S. after deportation. Accelerate the implementation of the “USVISIT” biometric identifier program for all foreign nationals entering the country through our ports of entry. 2. Establish a Genuine Guest Worker Program

Enact a genuine Guest Worker Bill (HR 3534) to allow any foreign national to enter the US legally to work for up to one year in a job that cannot be filled by a citizen. Require employers to advertise all jobs on an internet bulletin board and for two weeks before hiring a Guest Worker. Require illegal aliens already in the U.S. to first return home and apply for jobs through the legal processes. 3. Improve “Interior Enforcement” of Immigration Laws

Provide adequate resources to the “Detention and Removal” branch of the Bureau of Customs and Immigration Enforcement (BICE) to allow apprehension and removal of all criminal aliens. Enact the “CLEAR” Act (HR 2671) to give local law enforcement incentives and reimbursements for participating in immigration law enforcement. Establish stiff fines and tax penalties for employers who violate the law by hiring illegal aliens, and devote adequate resources to identify and prosecute those employers. 4. Remove Incentives for Illegal Immigration

Employers who hire illegal aliens should face stiff fines and tax penalties (see#2 above). Federal and State agencies should be prohibited from recognizing the Mexican Government’s “Matricula Consular” ID card. States that grant driver’s licenses to illegal aliens should suffer loss of federal highway funds. Children born to illegal aliens should not be given citizenship status (HR 1567). Federal court rulings and other policies that require health and educational services to illegal aliens should be overturned. Amend Social Security Act to deny credits for wages earned in illegal employment or to self-employed engaged in illegal activities (HR 1631). Insist that the Government of Mexico extradite felony criminals who retreat into Mexico. Encourage the Government of Mexico to repeal its Dual Citizenship law.

Here's the other members of the caucus. What's funny is that there' only two democrats in the caucus and one of them's becoming a republican (Hall from Tx): Todd Akin (R-MO) Robert Aderholt (R-AL) Spencer Bachus (R-AL) J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC) Richard Baker (R-LA) Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) Joe Barton (R-TX) Michael Bilirakis (R-FL) John Boozman (R-AR) Allen Boyd (D-FL) Henry Brown (R-SC) Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) Michael Burgess (R-TX) Dan Burton (R-IN) Eric Cantor (R-VA) John Carter (R-TX) Mac Collins (R-GA) Barbara Cubin (R-WY) John Culberson (R-TX) JoAnn Davis (R-VA) Nathan Deal (R-GA) John Doolittle (R-CA) Jim Duncan (R-TN) J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) Phil Gingrey (R-GA) Virgil Goode (R-VA) Sam Graves (R-MO) Jim Greenwood (R-PA) Gil Gutknecht (R-MN) Ralph Hall (D-TX) Joel Hefley (R-CO) Wally Herger (R-CA) Henry Hyde (R-IL) Robin Hayes (R-NC) J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) Duncan Hunter (R-CA) Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Ernest Istook (R-OK) Chris John (D-LA) Sam Johnson (R-TX) Walter Jones (R-NC) Steve King (R-IA) Donald Manzullo (R-IL) Gary Miller (R-CA) Jeff Miller (R-FL) Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) Charlie Norwood (R-GA) Butch Otter (R-ID) Mike Pence (R-IN) Chip Pickering (R-MS) Jim Ramstad (R-MN) Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) Ed Royce (R-CA) Edward Schrock (R-VA) Pete Sessions (R-TX) John Shadegg (R-AZ) Michael Simpson (R-ID) Lamar Smith (R-TX) Nick Smith (R-MI) Cliff Stearns (R-FL) John Sullivan (R-OK) Tom Tancredo (R-CO) Patrick Tiberi (R-OH) Fred Upton (R-MI) David Vitter (R-LA) Zach Wamp (R-TN) Dave Weldon (R-FL) Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Some Say Bush's Immigration Plan Should Heed Lessons From Previous Programs
By Deborah Kong The Associated Press
Published: Jan 10, 2004

As critics begin scrutinizing President Bush's proposal to grant legal status to millions of undocumented workers, some are worried the administration will fail to learn from two previous experiments, one during World War II and the other in 1986.
Bush's plan is a modern-day rewrite of the World War II guest worker program that "tore families apart and stripped laborers of their earnings and their future," the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said after the president proposed his idea Wednesday.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, an advocate of stricter immigration enforcement, accused Bush of "totally ignoring the nation's experience with the ill-fated 1986 amnesty program," which granted legal status to almost 3 million undocumented immigrants.

That program "only encouraged a new wave of illegal immigration," said Tancredo, R-Colo.

Bush's plan would create a temporary worker program for undocumented immigrants already in the United States and for people in other countries who have been offered employment here. Migrants would be able to get renewable three-year labor visas, but Bush said they would not receive special consideration for permanent residence or citizenship.

Immigration experts and critics on both sides of the political spectrum caution that policy-makers should heed some of the past programs' failings by building in strong worker protections and enforcing the law when it comes to employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

The braceros program - named after "brazo," the Spanish word for arm - was the first of the two earlier efforts. Under an agreement between the United States and Mexico, as many as 5 million temporary workers crossed the border to fill a labor shortage caused by the Second World War, said Oscar Martinez, a history professor at the University of Arizona.

But the braceros, who worked mostly in agriculture, didn't have many of the same rights as Americans. "Braceros were at the mercy of the employers," Martinez said. "There was limited government oversight and there were lots of abuses."

Many workers lived in overcrowded camps, and were denied medical assistance and the right to organize, advocates say.

Some braceros are still engaged in a legal battle with the U.S. and Mexican governments, seeking money that was set aside in savings funds to be paid to them once they returned to Mexico.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said lawmakers should remember what happened. "If you want to establish any kind of guest worker program, we've got to make sure that we treat people with dignity," by ensuring "they be given the same wages, the same benefits that anyone else would get doing the same kind of work."

Bush said in his proposal that temporary workers should enjoy the same rights as American workers.

The braceros program had another consequence, some say - encouraging illegal immigration. The number of people caught entering the country illegally increased tenfold from 1964, when the braceros program ended, to 1976, according to a recent report by the National Foundation for American Policy.

It "made many sectors of the Mexican population familiar with the whole process of coming to the United States to work, and going back and forth," said Frank Bean, a demographer at the University of California, Irvine.

"Anytime you have a guest worker program of one kind or another, you end up with permanent migration."

Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, approved during President Reagan's second term, undocumented immigrants who could prove they had been in the country since before 1982 were allowed to apply for legal permanent residence. By 2001, a third of them had become citizens, according to INS statistics.

One of them was Cynthia Alvarez, who was 8 when she and her family slipped across the border from Mexico.

Being undocumented "was like having a very, very short ceiling, walking around feeling that you couldn't think about the future," said Alvarez. Now 32, she's pursuing a doctorate in political science at Stanford University and working in finance.

"The '86 program was a good idea," she said. "I contribute to this country plenty, and I am certainly not the exception."

The 1986 program also increased Mexican migration to the United States, as those who were legalized brought their families. And it created networks that made it easier for others to come, said Michael Fix, director of the Urban Institute's immigration studies program.

But Tancredo said illegal immigration also increased.

"The lesson we can learn is that you do not reward illegal behavior. It only encourages more illegal behavior," the congressman said.

Many people agree that the 1986 law failed in one respect: the lack of enforcement of a provision requiring employers to check workers' documents and penalizing those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

"The bottom line is that the law is not being enforced," said B. Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration.

Unless the new proposal ensures workers aren't exploited and the law is enforced, he said, the new plan "is doomed to compound the problems it sought to resolve."

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On the Net:

Congressional Hispanic Caucus: http://www.chci.org/

It’s unbelievable to see people choose not to vote for Bush at this critical time of war to chance one of those eggheads (being kind) running in the democrat primaries.

I understand your concern. However, the reason I won't vote for Bush again is that I believe he has just asked the entire world to come to America, work a few years then return home (or stay here, whatever) and live on American funded SS payments and medical benefits for the rest of their lives. That is terrible.

The second reason I won't vote for Bush is that I equate his amnesty plan with an attack on America by the Muslim extremists. If Americans aren't destroyed by one we will be destroyed by the other. Dead is dead.

And Bush and his supporters expect you to feel the way you do and they know loyal conservatives have no place to go. Meanwhile, he and President Fox are laying waste to our American way of life. The day Bush was elected we lost America. Of course, had Al Gore won New York would be a wasteland by now. But with Bush's amnesty plan, New York and the rest of America will become a vast wasteland in a few years.

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