Posted on 05/18/2007 1:28:42 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Senators and the White House clinched a deal Thursday on bringing 12 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows and securing US borders, which could enhance President George W. Bush's legacy.
The pact would provide a path to permanent residency and citizenship for illegal workers, establish a merit-based points system for future immigrants and also establish a temporary worker program.
The bill, which emerged from exhaustive round-the-clock talks, and will be debated in the Senate next week, will provide 18,000 more border patrol agents, and scores of radar and camera towers on the US border with Mexico.
It is aimed at defusing a fiercely polarizing issue in American life and fast-tracking reform before American politics is consumed by partisan rancor in the run up to congressional and presidential elections in 2008.
"I really am anxious to sign a comprehensive immigration bill as soon as I possibly can. Today we took a good step toward that direction," Bush said after lawmakers announced the sweeping agreement.
Earlier, Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, flanked by key Republicans including presidential candidate John McCain, said the deal was true to America's "humanity and our tradition of a nation of immigrants."
"Politics is the art of the possible and the agreement we just reached is the best possible chance we will have in years to secure our borders, bring millions of people out of the shadows and into the sunshine of America."
The Senate's Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid confirmed debate would start on Monday, but expressed reservations about the pact, hammered out by top senators and key members of Bush's cabinet.
"I have serious concerns about some aspects of this proposal, including the structure of the temporary worker program and undue limitations on family immigration," Reid said.
"We need to improve the bill as it moves through the legislative process."
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, which must also pass the bill, echoed Reid's sentiments.
"While the bipartisan Senate agreement starts the process, I have serious concerns about some elements of this proposal -- the bill must be improved in the Senate," she said.
Republican and Democratic aides said the deal was intended to move the US immigration system to a merit-based system, rather than prioritizing claims for extended families of immigrants.
"It is intended to reflect the labor needs of the United States in the 21st century, rather than the 19th century," a senior Republican staffer said on condition of anonymity.
If it becomes law, the bill will set up a seven-part immigration system.
Immediate changes will see the hiring of 18,000 new border patrol agents, the construction of 200 miles of barriers and 370 miles of fencing, and the construction of 70 ground-based radar and camera towers on the Mexican border.
The US Homeland Security Secretary will be required that such enforcement measures were in place, before the new temporary worker program and arrangements for those living in the United States illegally can begin.
Those illegally in the United States before January 1, 2007 will be able to pay a 5,000 dollar fine and get a non-immigrant 'Z' visa which will allow them eventually to become eligible for a green card or permanent residency.
Criteria for green card allocation will also change, moving more towards merit-based immigrants on a points system from family-based immigration.
Points will be awarded for proficiency in the English language, graduate and post graduate education, excellence in science, technology and mathematics disciplines and for expertise in an area of high labor demand.
The deal will also raise the number of H-1B visas, used by American universities and companies to find skilled workers like scientists, medical experts and computer programmers, from 65,000 a year to 115,000 a year.
In years of especially high demand, that figure will rise to 180,000 a year.
“Workers needed, Americans need not apply, 1-800-SENATE”
we would do better if we replaced congress with Mexicans. At least they are not afraid to protect their country.
I also saw that pelosi and reid are against this bill. Also, the local director of LULAC is speaking against this bill, so I don’t know what kind of Trojan Horse this bill is turning into.
The Republican Party does lose my vote in future elections if they pass this bill.
Bye, Bye American Pie
Too strict for Pelosi and Reid - they want to grant citizenship to OBL and all the Jihadis in the world who support the defeatocrat agenda.
An Open Letter to the President - sent to president@whitehouse.gov anyway
Dear Mr. President,
Your stand on the current immigration bill is extremely disappointing. You have expressed the desire to show compassion for people who don’t break the law once or twice, but keep doing it over and over. That is a liberal position, not a conservative one. What are laws for in the first place? The Bible says “Thou shalt not bear false witness”. Document fraud, identify theft, these count as false witness and there are laws for punishing that kind of behavior. Yet you do next to nothing about it.
Everything about your approach and the Senate’s continues to run counter to the will of this nation. It is fair to ask, just what the hell are you doing?
When you get on board with the conservative view, then the problem will get solved over time. Until then, the position you continue to support will incur the wrath of the people here, as well as essentially violate certain biblical teachings. From one perspective, compassion without repentance only ends up being the devil’s work.
Moreover, you give the impression that you don’t see the obvious contradiction between what we ask our troops to do in protecting this country, yet continuing to do next to nothing to seal the borders.
So, I am requesting that you recognize the massive deceit that underlies illegal immigration and act much more vigrously to build the wall, enforce existing laws, and change the whole tenor of the administration’s position to one of getting tough on ILLEGAL immigration.
Sincerely,
“I imagine this is the death knell for the Republican Party...”
Yup. We are heading for a one party country.
I don’t believe anymore that this is “total sweeping amnesty”. It’s not pretty, but it’s possible the only current illegals who get to stay will be those who have been here 4 years and have worked 90% of the time they are here and have paid taxes and learned english.
If you believe the talking points, a majority of the illegals won’t pass this test, and will have to go home.
I think I could live with a bill that faithfully enacted the talking points, IF they were amended to build the entire fence authorised last year.
The fear I have is that the talking points don’t accurately reflect the bill as it is written now, OR what will become of it when Reid/Pelosi get their claws into it.
I do think we need to compromise from the “no amnesty” position, because when asked the way MSM will ask it and frame it, a majority of americans don’t actually want to purge the country of all 12 million people currently here illegally.
My opinion of course is that we don’t, and that we want to pick and choose from the 12 million the 5 million or so that are the BEST of the bunch. That means those who pay their taxes, have been here 5 years or more, know english, are integrated into society, and have held a job 90% of the time, and pay a fine and pay back any government service money received.
That actually sounds a lot like what the talking points are describing, but I have written all my representatives telling them what I want and to oppose this plan and get one that is more like what I want. That’s how nervous I am, I might be telling them to vote against a program I might support.
I sent e-mails, I called but the main offices were “full”, so I called their state regional offices and left messages.
I recommend everybody call their home offices, since they will all be home this weekend anyway.
We can do nothing less than demand impeachment proceedings against the president, and begin to remove from office those senators and congressmen that support this.
America is already 1/3 foreign born. You add the 60 million or so illegals and their families and suddenly the demographics of this country are changed so that native born citizens are the in the minority, the people who should be preserving our American culture of liberty will become insignificant in numbers.
I’m glad you are against it, since there are no provisions for supervision of any of the so called principles in this shell game.
It is insulting.
Good, then I hope they sink this bill cuz as sure as hell our "supposed" camp won't.
The talking points say that almost every provision of the bill is on hold UNTIL those things are done.
A sticking point I have is that the first thing, the “probationary z-visa”, is issued immediately. I understand it’s how you get the illegals into the light, but once you do that, you can’t deport any of them or crack down on their employers. So I’m upset that the “probationary z-visa” seems to have such a long lifetime, it should expire quickly, and we should be allowed to evaluat the probationary holders and kick them out if they don’t pass the criteria.
It looks but I’m not sure like the probationary holders can simply remain probationary indefinitely, and only those applying for a regular z-visa would be subject to the new harder rules governing who gets to stay.
I do think we all need to see the actual bill, and I think distrust is warranted.
My fear is that the democrats know a large segment of republicans are very wary, and the democrats might leak misinformation about the bill to make us all oppose it very vocally, in order to turn off hispanics so when the bill passes the democrats can take full credit for it.
So I would take “gleeful” comments, AND “concerned” comments, from democrats with a large helping of salt — don’t trust them to say the truth about this bill EITHER way, they could be playing the republican base for an effect that will hurt us in the next election.
It already gets raised every year, so it’s not anything truly new, it’s just codifying it.
Properly administered, the h1-b program is NOT a problem. I don’t see a wealth of unemployed capable engineers, maybe they are all living places where there are no engineering jobs and don’t want to move? We can’t hire engineers locally to save our lives, my wife was talked out of a 15-year retirement and given an excellent deal to work as little as 10 hours a week with full flexibility in schedule, and that was for a civil engineering job.
I think Ted Kennedy may be praising the bill in order to upset the conservative base to make them do things that would turn off hispanic voters.
In other words, republicans could be played on EITHER side of this bill — so we need to ignore what the democrats say and look the bill over ourselves.
The first thing I have to ask myself is, did Senator Kyl really suddenly turn evil, or is there something to this bill that he knows that I don’t yet?
There is a certain arrogance that suggests that NO politician can be trusted, that we listen to informed people ONLY if they say exactly what we already believe, and even the people we most trust we don’t really trust for a second.
I think on this bill, if Duncan Hunter himself came out MOnday and said he thought this bill was an “acceptable compromise”, most of his supporters would turn on him rather than take his statement as a sign to rethink their own position.
BTW, I don’t expect him to say anything good about this. I don’t know if that will be because it’s really bad, or because he knows that his statement wouldn’t be accepted and would torpedo his chance at President. Which is too bad, because if this bill isn’t a complete disaster, the base is going to have to hear if from a LOT of trusted people to overcome their natural distrust.
It is and they don't have a clue.......
We are threatened with a much worse bill than this because republicans quit the party in 2006.
At the moment, the republicans are at least SAYING they are fighting, and at the moment this bill is at least a BETTER bill than the one last year, which may not be saying much but it suggests republicans might be the only thing standing in the way of much worse.
Quitting the party is something you can certainly do, but it won’t make things any better regarding immigration.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.