First Grant Amnesty, Then Deny It

Real Clear Politics ^ | June 5, 2007 | Rich Lowry

[gpapa]

Supporters of a lax immigration policy love to hurl the charge of "Know-Nothingism" against their critics. But, oddly enough, it is the Senate immigration bill that duplicates a key element of the 19th-century Know-Nothing platform. Those long-ago nativists wanted to make immigrants wait 21 years to become citizens. The Senate bill effectively creates a comparable waiting period.

[kinoxi]

The bill gives pretty much every illegal alien here immediate legal status in the form of a probationary Z visa. That's the amnesty.

Why sweep the floor when you can just redefine 'dirty'. What is the meaning of is anyway?...

[edcoil]

It also guarantees them a home here without becoming a citizen. It also continues to have everyone else pay their bills as they transfer their money home.

[kinoxi]

They still pay no taxes?

[spyone]

Can anyone please provide a list of the services illegal immigrants are eligible for?
ie. schooling for children....

[edcoil]

Visa’s don’t come with SSN.

[nosofar]

Why sweep the floor when you can just redefine 'dirty'.

There's something to be said for just making everything legal. No more worries about law enforcement. Think of the money we could save by not having to hire any police, border guards, coast guard, customs agents, etc. The crime rate would fall to zero, since nothing would be a crime. :)

[kinoxi]

This legislation, although I have not read it all, seems to fall somewhere between anarchy and communism in it’s intent.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

Can anyone please provide a list of the services illegal immigrants are eligible for? ie. schooling for children....

This article is not directly on your point, but may be useful to you. Even here I believe she is underestimating by a large amount the total costs to taxpayers. The burden on healthcare system for unpaid medical services to uninsured illegals is huge.

**********

Immigration bill will raid pockets of U.S. taxpayers, by Phyllis Schlafly

The big majority of these illegal immigrants are low-skill, low-wage high school dropouts. An in-depth Heritage Foundation study by Robert Rector estimates that the average low-skill household receives $30,160 in taxpayer-paid benefits from all levels of government.

Heritage estimates that the average low-skill household pays only $10,573 in taxes at all levels. Each household, therefore, lays a net cost on U.S. taxpayers of $19,588 per year, which added up to $564 billion in 2004.

In addition to public schools, low-income Americans are the beneficiaries of more than 60 federal means-tested aid programs, including Medicaid; Earned Income Tax Credit, a cash handout that averages $1,700 per year per household; food stamps; Section 8 housing, public housing; Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or TANF; school lunches and breakfasts; the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, nutrition program; Social Services Block Grants, or SSBG; and legal services.

Most Americans are unaware of the enormous government transfers from taxpaying Americans to those who pay little or no income taxes.

About 45 percent of illegal immigrants work in the underground economy, thereby avoiding all income and employment taxes. And, because Mexicans send $23 billion a year of their earnings in remittances back to their home country, they pay little sales taxes for purchases of U.S. products.

In addition to the heavy costs that the bill would impose on current U.S. taxpayers, it is truly awesome to contemplate the burden put on future taxpayer when the amnestied immigrants and their many relatives retire and collect Social Security and Medicare. Heritage estimates that the net retirement costs - benefits minus taxes - could be more than $2.5 trillion, which is five times the cost of the Iraq war.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=20978

[claudiustg]

-—They still pay no taxes?-—

Taxes? I don’t have no taxes! I don’t have to pay you any stinking taxes!

[kinoxi]

I need to look into gettin me one of them there Z visas...

[Cacique]

CALL! CALL! CALL! CALL! AND KEEP CALLING TILL THE LINES FRY!

WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!

Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti illegal immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them. This is a bipartisan issue not a Conservative or Liberal issue BUT AN AMERICAN issue.

STOP AMNESTY NOW!! WE CAN DO IT!!

The best way to stop Shamnesty

[Tennessee Nana]

The illegal aliens are not eligible for any services...

They just get them anyway using fraud and phony IDs...

[devolve]

From the Desk of ...			Representative Steve King 5th Congressional District of Iowa
Biting the Hand That Feeds You
	May 5, 2006
On May 1st, the activists who brought you thousands of Mexican flags flying in marches down the streets of our cities are now bringing you "Nothing Gringo Day". With help from the Mexican government, Mexican unions, Mexican political groups, and through the Spanish language radio and newspapers, the call has gone out to make America experience a total boycott, both here and in Mexico. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Just the word "boycott" sparks the image of noble dissent in the face of economic or social oppression. I think of American colonials bucking British economic interests in retaliation to the Stamp Act. Or perhaps the ostracizing of Irish landlord Charles Boycott, the namesake of the verb for all tyrannized people. If not tyrannized, at least disgruntled. If not disgruntled, maybe just bored. Yet, isn't the key to a successful boycott an economic or social upper-hand? The cost must be felt if the offending party be forced to reform. For example, how does boycotting a movie you had no intention of going to affect the box office? More people probably see a boycotted movie due to the attention than if it had simply been ignored. President Carter thought he was on to something when he kept American athletes out of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. That showed 'em. That particular boycott neither got the USSR out of Afghanistan nor brought down the Berlin Wall. It just caused our own athletes to suffer. The May 1st anti-Gringo-fest is also being billed as "A Day Without Immigrants" which is a misnomer on a couple of counts. First, the threatened boycott fails to conjure the image of a Norwegian refusing to buy his May 1 lutefisk at the corner Fareway. Second, the pro-amnesty groups are insistent on confusing legal and illegal immigration. Let's not start mixing our apples and oranges. The issue before Congress is illegal immigration. Perhaps the May 1st boycott should give America a glimpse into "A Day Without ILLEGAL Immigration." What would that May 1st look like without illegal immigration? There would be no one to smuggle across our southern border the heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines that plague the United States, reducing the U.S. supply of meth that day by 80%. The lives of 12 U.S. citizens would be saved who otherwise die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens each day. Another 13 Americans would survive who are otherwise killed each day by uninsured drunk driving illegals. Our hospital emergency rooms would not be flooded with everything from gunshot wounds, to anchor babies, to imported diseases to hangnails, giving American citizens the day off from standing in line behind illegals. Eight American children would not suffer the horror as a victim of a sex crime. On the negative side, the price of a pound of tomatoes might go up from $0.79 to $0.80. That is unless you have a garden. But I'm guessing that the Mexican drug lords are not taking May 1st off. Neither will the 11,000 illegal invaders that pour over our border every other day of the year. It is a safe bet that the U.S. Border Patrol will have a very busy "Nothing Gringo Day." Since September 11th, it remains true that OBL is the greatest threat to America. I will leave it to the reader to decide if the greatest threat is Osama bin Laden or the Open Borders Lobby. The emerging cheap labor "ruling class" in America is the strongest supporter of amnesty for illegals. Their anti-American "new servant class" has chosen to boycott them; the very definition of irony. On May 1st, Primero de Mayo, Americans will observe, as illegal immigrants celebrate, "Bite the Hand That Feeds You Day."
-30-

[potlatch]

Good post!

[Little Ray]

Worse. They’ll be getting “earned income tax credits.”

[Sybeck1]

Welfare for anchor babies?

[devolve]

.

Thanks potlatch -

That’s a good letter with lots of meat in it