Posted on 04/24/2006 7:13:42 PM PDT by Revel
Apr 24, 6:11 PM (ET)
By JENNIFER LOVEN
(AP) President Bush makes remarks at a 'John Porter for Congress' luncheon in Las Vegas, Nev. Monday,...
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) - President Bush had a blunt message Monday for fellow Republicans focusing only on get-tough immigration policies: He said sending all the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants back to their home countries is not the answer.
"Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic - it's just not going to work," Bush said. "You know, you can hear people out there hollering it's going to work. It's not going to work."
With Congress coming back from a two-week spring recess to a long election-year to-do list and tensions flaring nationwide over immigration, Bush urged lawmakers to adopt a middle-ground policy. He called a Senate bill, which creates a way for illegal immigrants to work legally in the United States and for many to eventually become citizens, an "important approach."
"It's just an interesting concept that people need to think through," Bush said of the bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which stalled before the congressional break.
As for Bush's comment on deportation, a Time magazine poll in January found 50 percent of the country favored deporting all illegal immigrants. But even Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., one of Congress' most outspoken advocates for tougher immigration laws, does not advocate mass deportation.
Well aware that November elections could end GOP control of Congress, Bush is walking a fine line on the emotional immigration issue, between his party's conservative base which wants a clampdown on illegal immigration and business leaders who believe the economy needs immigrants to fill jobs.
All sides are exerting pressure.
With armed citizen patrols popping up in border states, leaders in Arizona and New Mexico have pleaded for better policing of U.S. borders while other communities complain about the pressure that burgeoning immigrant populations are placing on local services. At the same time, tens of thousands of Hispanic and others - a potentially important voting bloc - have taken to streets across the country in the past few weeks to demand more immigration-friendly policies.
Reflecting that debate, when Bush turned to the audience assembled by the Orange County Business Council for questions, three of the eight queries he took were on immigration, including one from a woman who asked for his solution to emergency rooms crowded with poor people seeking routine care. Southern California's Orange County is a heavily Republican swath of sprawling Los Angeles suburbs that has been known - even parodied - as white, rich and conservative. But minorities now make up a majority of residents.
Bush said community health centers are the best place for the poor to get primary care. "There needs to be a campaign to explain what's available for people so that they don't go to the emergency rooms," he said.
He sought to highlight the contributions of immigrants to American society, and lamented the harsh - and sometimes deadly - conditions that many people face trying to illegally enter the country.
"One thing we cannot lose sight of is that we're talking about human beings, decent human beings that need to be treated with respect," the president said.
The House has passed a law-and-order immigration bill that would erect fences along the Mexican border and treat people who sneak across as felons to be deported. An alternative Senate measure would set up a temporary guest worker program, like the McCain bill, but require all illegal immigrants to leave the United States before they could apply for the visas.
As he has before, Bush stopped short of directly endorsing the McCain bill. The White House will go no further than to call it an attractive vehicle to keep negotiations moving.
The bill, also sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would boost border security but also create three-year visas for guest workers. Those who have been in the country longer than five years would not have to return home to apply for the visas. It would also allow for the workers to apply for legal permanent residency after paying a $2,000 fine, learning to speak English and working six years.
In an apparent, though indirect reference to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Bush said the McCain measure had been derailed by "needless politics." Republicans have been blaming Reid, D-Nev., for blocking the bill because he failed to reach agreement with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. on a procedure for voting on amendments sought by GOP opponents of the legislation.
"President Bush likes to point his finger on immigration and many other issues. Isn't it about time we moved beyond that?" Reid said Monday on the Senate floor. "The Senate can move forward on immigration if the president will stand up to those in his party who are filibustering."
Bush's immigration speech, and a later event at a Las Vegas casino that raised $400,000 for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., ended a four-day stay in California. Bush is to meet at the White House Tuesday with a bipartisan group of senators on immigration.
I have a dream. Mass deportations.
Well I never understood why if we need these workers so much then why can't they get legal guest worker permits and come here legaly. The whole argument for allowing illegal entrants to this country to stay here goes down the drain then.
..as long as politicians make major decisions, he's right...but come November, we get to make major decisions
He's right on mass deportations. The McCain-Kennedy bill is utter swill and needs to be tossed into the slop bucket.
As for educating these people to go to free clinics, why? They've learned that you can just call for an ambulance if you don't have a car and just get a free check-up. Just take the whole family in. Many a Spanish radio station recommends this very concept.
Then they show up in the ER and yell at doctors, nurses, hospital staff, medical students, and residents because they don't know how to speak Spanish. I've seen it happen on numerous occasions.
This is about the tenth thread on this today. Congress has to allocate funds for mass deportation and they aren't doing it so it won't happen.
BS!!! Take away their free healthcare, education and other welfare half will leave. Instaed they all tell their friends and family to come!! Sand Nazis are the biggest threat and we still invite them here!!
"This is about the tenth thread on this today. "
That's news to me. I guess I did not have the time to sit here all day and watch them go by. I did a search on a couple variations of the title and did not come up with anything.
Isn't it odd. I's not OK to go to Canada to buy cheap medicine but it is OK to get cheap labor from Mexico. Both are illegal but only one is OK.
Very odd, indeed.
We can now go to Russia and pay for a ride on a MIG, but we can't go to Cuba or have their cigars.
I remember when I supported Bush 100% but he mostly lost me when he said it's OK for people to invade us. What does he care? He has his ranch (thanks to taxpayers and a little stadium deal) and security for life. And good for him but he might consider what paying for all the illegals does to us working stiffs.
We've become a nation of contradictions. We can't buy Cuban products but we can buy Chinese products made by political prisoners.
..they always get the message, it's getting them to get off their fat a$$'S TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING!!! Social Security Taxis Immigration Homeland Security Security Leaks ....all issues that they all point fingers and DO NOTHING I actually thought for the longest time that GW had a spine and with controlling the House and Senate...SOMETHING out of the list above would have been taken care of.....nothing.
Reality: NO, IT'S NOT!!!
Bush doesn't get it.
The American people are not interested in hearing him tell us it's not going to work. The American people are interested hearing how he is going to make it work.
Amnesty is a non-starter. Sooner he gets that dialed in, the better.
At what, 10 cents a day and loss of God-knows-what for being 'tardy'?
We are living in 'interesting times', that's for sure.
How about a million MINOR deprortations over the course of the next decade? And a SECURE BORDER?
Thanks for posting. The only good thing that I can report about this list is that Alexander has voted along with Sessions on each occasion. Not that the two have much in common, but Sessions is the guy I find myself most agreeing with in the Senate.
Red herring. Cut their benefits and they will leave faster than they arrived.
Not gonna happen. Read my lips. It's a new world order.
The 'ruling class' is not listening to We The People anymore.
He sought to highlight the contributions of immigrants to American society, and lamented the harsh - and sometimes deadly - conditions that many people face trying to illegally enter the country.
"One thing we cannot lose sight of is that we're talking about human beings, decent human beings that need to be treated with respect," the president said.
so now we're supposed to feel sorry for them because they face harsh conditions trying to enter illegally?
and we're supposed to treat them with respect?
utterly and completely laughable...what a joke
That's about the most serious charge you can make.
Let me get this straight... we've been fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistant and who knows where else (secretly) and it's somehow unrealistic that we can protect our country?!
I WANT MY VOTES BACK! Bush's a sellout!
Check this out. The illegals at a flea market catch wind of a rumor of an INS raid and they scatter leaving their children behind. That's family values for ya.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1620767/posts
No, massive illegal immigration is unrealistic!
Anchor children. Ever try to run with an anchor?
Unrealistic? BS!
IKE did it, so can Bush!
and if he can't handle the job; he needs to resign and let Cheney do it!
This kind of stuff will hand all the power to Democrats IMO.
I don't like seeing Republicans doing this at all.
GWB has no respect for the American people or he wouldn't expect usto put up with the disease, crime, hospital failure, etc. cause by the masses of illegals. If he respected the American citizen he wouldn't expect us to pay for all of the benefits that illegals receive completely free in this country.
How about a little respect for American citizens Mr. President!
silence....that is what I thought *shrug*
W has Carteritis. He thinks everyone outside the beltway is an idiot.
Unrealistic? BS!
Ike did it, so can Bush!
and if he can't handle the job; he needs to resign and let Cheney do it!
I, being a mere particle, don't know better.
And I'm making it. And to prove my point, they won't hear it.
one hurts big bidness (big pharma)
the other helps big bidness.
I think big pharma got behind on paying their protection money.
I suggest the prez mandate that every illegal bring with them one barrel of oil.
WHY NOT? Well then how many illegals can we deport?
I so heartily agree. It seems that the republicans are compulsively self-destructive.
It is almost perversely curious. Why would anyone in politics do this?? Their poll numbers are tanking, they know the will of the American people (from other polls), their internals must indicate that the principle reason for their dropping poll numbers is the loss of their conservative base. Consider, the poll here on FR indicates that only 40% of FR members will vote GOP. 40% on Free Republic!!!!! (Moreover, the sample size was large enough that the precision is quite small).
Finally, I don't buy the argument that polls mean nothing or the truly imbecilic comment that Bush isn't running again. Even if you allow for the biases, the numbers are well below the bias error. And there is an associative effect. If Bush is down, he takes the rest of the republican party with him. Consider Nixon and the 1974 and 1976 elections.
80 percent, if the figures I have read are correct. I can't remember there being that strong of a consensus on any single issue in the whole time I have been following politics.
If it bothers Bush and the fat-cat industrialists who like cheap illegal alien labor, tough titty.
this is one issue that a wide majority af Americans agree on and he needs to realize that.
for cryin out loud you've got black militants going to the border to be alongside the minutemen.
oh and welcome to Free Republic...
Amen...In my small feeble opinion the President is finally show his true colors...Getting the nation to rally around 9/11 was something most decent politicians could do, but to face real issues that doesn't have a clear antagonist takes a wise mind and skillful strategy and the President has rarely shown he possesses both of those characteristics...I hate to say it on here, but I knew the exposure of the Presdient was coming...
Don't feel like the Lone Ranger on that one.
I've just been reviewing several of the threads that I've been keeping open and responding to tonight and most of what I am seeing today would have been 'zotted' had it been posted months ago.
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