Posted on 05/18/2007 9:02:38 PM PDT by Politicalmom
At last. After months of closed-door negotiations and podium-pounding promises of sweeping immigration reform, the Senate and White House
announced this week they had managed to set aside partisan politics to give the American people the plan they've been begging for.
The result? A ludicrously unworkable scheme that rewards lawbreakers, shakes down taxpayers and ultimately will satisfy few.
Except, of course, for 12 million or so illegal immigrants currently in the United States and those who employ them. They're going to love it.
One might think so, though with the sense of entitlement we've come to know so well, illegal immigrants interviewed by Associated Press reporters this week said they find the bill's key provisions too pricey, too inconvenient and not at all to their liking. How's that for gratitude?
Not only would the bill immediately forgive illegal immigrants' trespassing and start them on the road to citizenship, it reportedly eliminates a former requirement that only illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for some time -- those who are rooted to this country by years and families -- are eligible.
Until this year that was a particularly important requirement for President Bush, who inexplicably continues to insist this latest plan is not amnesty. Bush, new best bud Sen. Edward Kennedy and other supporters of the bill are so insistent on this point, I had to check my trusty Merriam-Webster, where the word is defined as "the act of an authority (as a government) by which a pardon is granted to a large group of individuals."
The Encyclopedia Britannica more elegantly defines amnesty as "a sovereign act of forgetfulness for past acts granted by a government to persons who have been guilty of crimes."
OK, let's break it down. The bill, if passed, would bestow immediate legal status (a pardon) on millions of people (a very large group, indeed) who have entered this country illegally (who broke the law to get here).
How is that not amnesty?
Another disturbing feature of the plan is its jaw-dropping cost. Policy researchers with The Heritage Foundation and, according to news reports, the Center for Immigration Studies, estimate the cost to legalize millions of low-skilled illegal immigrants at about $2.5 trillion.
A couple of trillion dollars is apparently a minor point to those who seek to make illegal immigration an issue of race and of fear, as if a country built on the backs of hard-working legal immigrants could arbitrarily slam its doors in the faces of those huddled masses yearning to breath free. Not so.
Like it or not, the first priority of our immigration system must be national security and consistent enforcement of immigration laws. To reward lawbreakers with the gift of amnesty would only encourage further law breaking and is patently unfair to those immigrants striving to live here legally.
In announcing the immigration deal, Kennedy hyperdramatically insisted the bill is our "best possible chance" to secure our borders and bring millions "into the sunshine of America."
This bill is our best possible chance? Hardly. Faced with this bill, I believe the American people will decide that our best possible chance could, and must be, a great deal better.
Deportation, that be : )
How about this guy?
An open borders sleeper troll for 7 years : )
Lynch every traitor voting for this!
Yawn, huh?
Those of us who are fully awake recognize the obvious. There has been no attempt at immigration reform, only attempts by our government to beguile the idiots into believing that amnesty is imigration reform.
EXACTLY!
Well, we ain’t gonna let then get away with their Orwellian naming schemes. It’s Officially the McCain Kennedy Suicide-Amnesty pact.
The illegal aliens are a blessing to the home building industry and construction industry, both of which have very strong lobbies in DC and state capitals. The mortgage industry and banking/funding industry rides the coat tails of the building boom - both of which also have strong lobbies in DC and state capitals. The agriculture industry prospers from the aliens along with the agri-chem industries like DuPont and Scott, ADM ect. - all of which have strong lobbies in DC and state capitals.
The fact is that the lobbies are so deep into our senators and congressmen’s pockets that they have been running the country for at least the last decade, if not longer. Bush’s “blind” investments also prosper from allowing the border to remain unprotected and he is as guilty as the rest.
At a time in this nation when all legal citizens from the coolaide liberals on the left to the radical far right can speak with the same joined voices and scream “Shut the borders down !!” it is apparent that our senators and congress have betrayed us in favor of what the lobbys can give them. Our joined voices and votes count for nothing.
There will be a rude reckoning in the future.
Nancy Pelo'clown'ski announced this when she grabbed the freaking gavel!
And the IDIOT Repubs laid their fat butts on the benches.
Now look where we are.
The Cons in Washington are PUNK-COWARDS!
/BAH!
It's all lies, this can't be true! Bush & Co have told us many times the illegals won't leave on their own!
/S
Fifty-six percent (56%) of American adults favor an enforcement-only approach to immigration reform. Only 29% are opposed.
However, support falls sharply when “a path to citizenship” for illegal aliens already in the United States is added to the mix. Just 42% support the more “comprehensive” approach while 44% are opposed. This proposal was similar to a “grand bargain” announced by Senator Arlen Specter earlier in the week.
There is little cost. A few raids, some big fines to employers and the jobs dry up. People return to their countries. No millions spent because they self deport.
This new bill will cost 2.5 trillion and effectively ruin the USA. It will result in a civil war with the collapse of the economy.
If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck adn it qucks like a duck, it’s a duck.
Under this disaster of a bill, those who broke our law and entered our country illegally get to stay legally rather than have to pay for what they did, while those who are trying to come here legally still have to wait in a mountain of delays and red tape.
No matter how you slice it, that’s amnesty. You know it, I know it, and the 60-100 million illegals who will pour in here if this bill is passed know it.
We stopped the Dubai Ports deal; we can stop this.
The phones ahve rung off the hook, the district offices are getting calls, there is a flood of email. We’re being heard. And if they don’t have any other use for us (which they appaerntly don’t), they still need our votes.
No, it wouldn't. That is simply liberal disinformation.
The American people want deportations. We want tough measures (including jail time) for the employers of illegals. Instead, we get amnesty. These politicians hvae committed suicide with this bill.
The amnesty to thousands of illegal aliens, not too many years ago, so encouraged those thinking of criminally invading the USA, that this new amnesty is aimed at 20 million illegal aliens, as well as allowing each of them to legally bring in 25 family members each. This amnesty will make native born American citizens and nationalized legal immigrant citizens, a minority in our own country.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Should be easy with a lot of them. There are 9.5 million social Security numbers in teh system that don't match the name. I woudl bet that virtually all of those are illegals.
Should be easy with a lot of them. There are 9.5 million social Security numbers in teh system that don't match the name. I would bet that virtually all of those are illegals.
“It’s Officially the McCain Kennedy Suicide-Amnesty pact.”
Well stated, my FRiend!
Couple that with some prison time, or they'll just write it off as a business expense and apss it along to you and me.
Couple that with some prison time, or they'll just write it off as a business expense and pass it along to you and me.
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