Tancredo: Illegals plan will not pass Congress

A leading voice in Congress for tough immigration reform believes President Bush's plan to allow millions of illegal aliens to remain in the country will not pass, but he fears his colleagues will open the door wider.

"I don't think that's going anywhere," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said of the president's proposal in an interview yesterday on Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily RadioActive program.

"If something comes out of this Congress, it'll be worse," Tancredo said, noting Democrats want to make it even easier for illegals to stay in the United States, and many Republicans would support them.

Bush has proposed sweeping changes that would allow the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens thought to be in the country to remain if they have a job and apply for a guest-worker card. The immigrants could stay for renewable three-year periods, after which they could apply for permanent legal residence.

Responding to a caller, Tancredo said he is aware citizens who fiercely oppose Bush's plan will not find support in the Senate.

"There isn't a member of the Senate you can look at as a stalwart on this issue," the congressman said. "Not one."

Tancredo said lawmakers wonder: "Are there enough people who would say this is their number one issue; or would the economy, jobs, education and all the rest still take precedence?"

He said most of his colleagues think "if they can finesse it, if they can just get by it, give lip service to, 'Yes we've got a problem,'" that is enough.

In fact, he believes he is so isolated in his position that Tancredo-for-president movements are beginning to crop up across the nation.

Laughing, Tancredo said, "You think to yourself, now if [the administration doesn't] look at that and think, 'Man, there's got to be something out there, because, who in the heck is Tom Tancredo?'"

The White House apparently is aware of the opposition, Tancredo indicated, noting the president confined the issue to a 40-word paragraph in his State of the Union message and received a tepid response from his audience.

"I looked around and it was only the sergeant-at-arms and the Cabinet who applauded," he said.

As WorldNetDaily has reported, a number of Americans say Bush's plan is giving them physical symptoms of anxiety, and some are even contemplating leaving the U.S. out of a sense of betrayal.

A recent ABC News poll found 52 percent of the nation opposes an amnesty program for illegal immigrants from Mexico, while 57 percent oppose one for illegal immigrants from other countries. Both results are roughly the same as when the administration floated the idea two-and-a-half years ago.

When WND asked its readers what they thought about the president's speech, the top response in the daily poll found over 31 percent of respondents saying "I agree with most everything except his plan to legalize illegal aliens."

A group called Tennesseeans for Tancredo is calling for a Tancredo write-in candidacy on the Internet, declaring on its website Americans need to "make noise, collect signatures, build a grass-roots movement that attracts citizens from all walks of life and all political parties."

"A lot of people think my politics are crazy, but I'm not delusional. I don't think I'm going to be president of the United States," Tancredo told the Rocky Mountain News last week.

He said he supports the president on most issues besides immigration and believes he would have little effect on the president's chances, the paper reported.

Last week, he launched "Team Tancredo," a political action committee to raise money for candidates who oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants.

He told Farah's audience yesterday: "We're going to go after every Republican and Democrat incumbent. We're going to run primaries against them. Help me fund it."

"Speakout: Many Hispanics Support Tancredo "

By Carmen Diaz, Corine Flores, Marlene Guerrero and Oralia Lopez, Special to the News September 30, 2002

Some critics of Rep. Tom Tancredo say he is attacking Hispanics. They're outraged he questioned the blatant continued presence in the U.S. of an illegal immigrant family.

We're outraged, too, but not by Tancredo. We're outraged that Hispanic activists and the media imply that all Hispanics favor sanctuary for illegal aliens. Hispanics demand legalization for Mexican illegals, Hispanics demand safe border crossings, Hispanics demand free tuition for illegals, we are told.

Absurd! We four Hispanics - and millions of others - want no such thing. We want borders brought under control and immigration reduced to historical levels. We want illegals sent home. We want politicians and others to stop pandering to self-appointed Hispanic "leaders" by working for mass amnesties or other forms of "regularizing" for illegal aliens.

The very core of our system of government is majority rule. Yet, we blatantly ignore the vast majority as a tiny minority of a minority manipulates the system and as politicians pander to this voting bloc while implying the ludicrous - that 35 million Hispanics think exactly alike.

Hispanic "leaders" don't speak for Carmen Diaz and Marlene Guerrero. We entered this nation legally and respect its laws and are determined that it not go down the same paths to overpopulation-driven poverty and environmental degradation as our native Honduras and Peru. Studies show the opportunity to emigrate keeps such countries from dealing with their own population and political problems.

Immigration and high immigrant fertility rates are driving a U.S. population boom that could mean our children will, by 2050, live in a nation of up to half a billion people. We are angry that politicians subvert the wishes of Americans who, through our replacement-level birth rates, show we want to stabilize our population growth rate.

Immigration - at five times historical norms, rates higher even than during the Great Wave of 1880 to 1915 - is sending our population exploding even as we struggle to come to grips with water shortages, sprawl, species extinction, failing schools, social problems and inadequate infrastructure.

Hispanic "leaders" don't speak for native-born Corine Flores and Oralia Lopez with roots deep in Texas and New Mexico. We work in the hospitality industry where employers brazenly hire illegals at substandard wages, telling us to accept similar pay or not work at all.

They and others then hide their shameful practices behind the insulting cliché, "Immigrants take jobs that no one else wants." We in fact want such jobs, but we need to earn enough to feed our families. Worse, illegal aliens compete for what little affordable housing there is.

A Sept. 27, 2001, Zogby poll showed that 70 percent of Hispanics said a dramatic increase in border enforcement is needed. The 2001 Zogby poll showed a majority of Hispanics thought an amnesty for illegal Mexican immigrants was a bad idea. A March 2000 Wall Street Journal poll I showed three times as many Hispanics viewed immigration as "too open" as "too closed."

We are a nation of immigrants, but we are not a nation of illegal immigrants nor of unfettered immigration. Until 1965, legal immigration averaged 200,000 a year. Now it exceeds 1 million, plus hundreds of thousands illegal aliens added yearly to our population. American workers cannot compete where unfettered immigration serves as a government subsidy to business to keep wages depressed.

Hispanics, like other Americans, do not want to live in overpopulated misery, in a nation lacking opportunity or border security. Those issues, not safe harbor for illegal aliens, are our concerns. On immigration matters, Congressman Tom Tancredo speaks for us and many millions like us.

Corine Flores is a retired housekeeping professional residing in Santa Fe, N.M. Marlene Guerrero is a naturalized United States citizen from Honduras and a spokesperson for Colorado Alliance for American Immigration Reform. Oralia Lopez is a Texas native residing in Colorado and Carmen Diaz is a naturalized citizen from Peru residing in Colorado.

I didn't say I would write in anyone. I was merely commenting on the idea that the President proposed this plan merely to start a dialog on the illegal immigration problem. A good number of people who want to support the President 100% seem to only be able to do so by veiling his bad proposals as some sort of hidden genius, unbeknownst to all but him.

I'm not saying you are doing so, mind you. I just disagree with the idea that he is doing it knowing it won't pass. I believe he really wants to have this plan in effect. It's another 40 billion for AIDS in Africa type plan. He is detached enough from the week to week struggle of most Americans (as are most of those in D.C.) that he doesn't seem to think twice about proposing a plan that benefits him personally/spiritually, but would be a burden to those of us who have to pay for it.

BTW, we do need your wall. Ask 'em to supersize it.

Petition signed...BTW, I received a solicitation phone call yesterday from "Tom Reynolds @the NRCC" wanting to know if they could count on me for another contribution again.

I told him that he caught me in a good mood and how happy I was that he called. Then I unloaded on this poor guy...Hee...hee.

Some of the points made were the following...

While I appreciate President Bush's leadership on the war on terrorism, tax cuts and tax policy,etc,etc; I was opposed to the President's proposed plan on illegal imigration without any provisions for tough inforcement of the existing laws concerning illegals. Furthermore,I would support the President's re-election...dispite my passion and strong feelings of opposition on this matter. However, I would let Tom Reynolds convey my passion on this to the President; that I would not be making any more contributions to the NRCC, but rather I would send my money to Tom Tancredo and other conservatives of my choosing instead. I refuse to support the RINOs in Congress and that the Republican conservatives need to grow a bigger set of gonads.

I concluded my conversation to the caller by saying " the best way to get someones attention is thru their pocketbook" and that I hoped that the President and Tom Reynolds get the message loud and clear.

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