Posted on 12/01/2005 12:31:48 PM PST by libertarianPA
WASHINGTON - From building a fence to keep them out to passing a law to help them stay, members of Congress have lots of ideas on how to respond to President Bush's challenge to take on the problem of illegal immigrants. There's a will to act but so far not much consensus.
The first stab at the problem could come in the next two weeks, when the House may vote on legislation to strengthen border security. That's the easiest of the three legs of immigration reform. The others, enforcing workplace hiring rules and setting up a guest-worker program that might incorporate illegal immigrants, are far more divisive.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to bring up a border security bill in February, and use that as a starting point for broader reform. "We must boldly address the challenges of border security first," Frist, R-Tenn., said this week as Bush toured the Texas-Mexico border to stress the need for both tougher border controls and a guest-worker program.
The House bill will likely come from Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., with the focus on tighter borders and some elements of workplace enforcement. His spokesman, Jeff Lungren, said it could contain a proposal by Rep. Ken Calvert (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., to expand a program for verifying employee records with the Homeland Security Department and the Social Security Administration, and another by Rep. David Dreier (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., to make Social Security cards more tamperproof.
But there are lots of other proposals to choose from. The Homeland Security Committee this month approved a bill by its chairman, Rep. Peter King (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., that would add border patrol agents, make use of new monitoring technology including unmanned aerial vehicles and end the "catch and release" practice for non-Mexican illegals.
Dozens of other border security bills have been introduced, many by conservatives and border state lawmakers fed up with the government's failure to stop the flow of illegal immigrants.
Rep. Virgil Goode (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., is seeking $2 billion to build a fence along the border with Mexico. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who has made a crackdown on illegal immigrants the theme of a longshot presidential bid, is among several who would change existing law to allow use of the military for border enforcement. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., has an extensive bill that would let state and local police enforce immigration law.
"I expect it to grow," Lungren said of Sensenbrenner's bill.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that fencing didn't make sense in deserts. "A wall across the border would be phenomenally expensive," he told reporters, and "it wouldn't be particularly effective."
Congress already has taken several steps this year to tighten border security, including making it easier to deny admission to people linked to terrorism and setting national standards for obtaining drivers licenses. A Homeland Security Department spending bill this October provided money to add 1,000 border patrol agents to the current 11,000.
In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has put together a more comprehensive bill that picks and chooses from various sources. It models border and interior enforcement provisions on a bill backed by Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, employment verification from a bill by Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), R-Neb., and a guest-worker program put forth by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
"I do not necessarily endorse every provision" in the package, Specter wrote in a letter to Senate colleagues, saying it will "serve as a starting point for discussions."
The Cornyn-Kyl and McCain-Kennedy bills are the top contenders on the guest-worker issue. Cornyn-Kyl would require people in the country illegally to return to their home countries to apply for a new temporary worker program. McCain-Kennedy would permit illegal immigrants to obtain work visas for up to six years, after which those not applying for permanent residency would have to leave the country.
Angela Kelley, deputy director of the pro-immigration National Immigration Forum, applauded the Senate for more directly confronting the issues of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and the demand for low-skilled workers that draws them to this country. "In order for this to work, you've got to get the people who are the subject of this legislation to participate" in the outcome, she said.
As a base bill on border security, the Senate could turn to a proposal by Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to hire more inspectors and patrol officers and ask the National Guard and a volunteer force of retired law enforcement officers to help monitor the northern and southern borders.
But as in the House, there are a variety of choices. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, would also give state and local law enforcement a greater role and create a "volunteer border Marshall plan" under which state-licensed peace officers would join border patrols on temporary missions. Sen. Larry Craig (news, bio, voting record), R-Idaho, would allow migrant farmworkers to stay legally and earn points toward legal status.
"The current immigration system isn’t “broken” or “failed;” it's just unenforced. Not unenforceable, mind you, just ignored. Americans don’t want so-called “immigration reform, they want strict enforcement of immigration laws, an end to illegal immigration and amnesties, and an end to the rampant lawlessness engendered by politically-correct refusal to enforce our civil laws.
There's free food, subsidized housing, reduced mortgages, food stamps, free medical and education, reduced tuition and suspension of out of state tuition fees--all of this is your reward for breaking the law, but only if you aren't already an American. If you're an American, forget about it; you have to pay your way through life. This is your reward for obeying the law.
Americans have to pay full price for their education, medical care, homes, and on top of that, our taxes go to pay for criminals--that is what illegal aliens are, make no mistake: they are criminals--who get all of that for little or even for nothing. This makes it possible--even easy--for them to work for $10 an hour or less. How many of us could afford to work for peanuts IF our homes, medical, food and education were all paid for? I know that the bulk of our bills are student loans and medical; take away those bills and you take away 90% of our debt. And I know too many people my age in the same boat...so calling it a national epidemic is probably an understatement.
After all, we're the real Americans...that means we have to pay for things that immigrants--including/especially illegals--get for free so long as they have a pulse and a sob story."
ping
The only lack of consensus is in Washington D.C. (District of Criminals)
Outside of DC everyone wants them gone.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Support our Minutemen Patriots!
Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!
I would never subsidized a company not to outsource. Outsourcing is good. I just want the workers to come here legally.
And removing the Taliban and Saddam's regime weren't "phenomenally expensive?"
The Medicare Prescription Drug Program isn't "phenomenally expensive?"
The highway bill isn't "phenomenally expensive?"
Since when does the Govt. suddenly care about expense?
If we really desire to build a linear border barrier, all we need do is construct the first segment(s) along the border areas most prone to being breached by illegal aliens and drug runners.
Chertoff is a political lackley who wants as much to do with as little as he can. Tighter border security is as alien to him as Central Americans are to the USA.
Expense only counts when it is spent toward/on the American taxpayer.
sheesh, don't you get it by now? ;)
Subsidize? Those felon businesses hiring illegal aliens ought to be given a month to clean themselves up or risk being closed.
We're going to hand out American citizenship to the whole world, and that will solve all of our immigration problems.
It's only 'phenomenally expensive' when you're looking for an excuse to do nothing about the problem.
Mexico says it opposes a U.S. plan to build more fences along the border in order to control illegal immigration.Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said his country "does not believe physical barriers are the solution".
Mr Derbez insisted his country's position over physical barriers was not only in relation to the United States.
"Mexico voted against the fence Israel built in the Gaza Strip, and against the fences Spain built in Melilla and elsewhere," he said.
If Mexico is AGAINST IT, I'm FOR IT!!
Wow, the Bush Administration has found Government spending it doesn't like. This is a first. Medicare drug benefits pale in comparison to how phenomenally expensive a border fence would be.
A barrier wouldn't be particuarly effective. Well, the Secret Service seems to think physical barriers are effective and important, as there are no particular shortage protecting President Bush.
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