The 'Amnesty' Canard: John Kyl Talks About Efforts to Forge an Immigration Bill

Wall Street Journal ^ | 6/9/2007 | Collin Levy

[Gideon Reader]

Second THAT motion.
Kyl is Kennedy light if he believes the self serving bullshit that he allowed the subject reporter to record.
Saving his ass featured largely in this piece.
There is a clear and unambiguous divide in this country.
What is wanted and needed by the everyman taxpayer, and what is wanted and needed by the “American House of Lords” and to a somewhat lesser extent by the "American House of Commons”.
Regardless, it seems that El Rey Jorge will leave office WITH the defining social legacy of failure to secure the borders and by extension NOT providing the “Homeland Security” that was to be his hallmark.

Go. Go. Go home. Get a crayon and write the wretched history of this very wretched attempt at social engineering and the largest attempt at Amnesty for a Guinness Books of Records number of Federal lawbreakers, ever.

[kabar]

It should infuriate people that secure borders, a matter of national security, is being held hostage by the comprehensive immigration reform proponents. There is no reason to link the two except as a way of pushing their agenda, which can’t stand alone.

[Psycho_Bunny]

You don't even have to do that much with the border.....just increase the Per Infraction fine for employing illegal aliens to half a million dollars.  Problem solved.

[kabar]

Fines mean nothing if they are not enforced.

[Lurker]

He means the current system, in which millions of immigrants are here illegally, and Washington does nothing about it. "This is de facto amnesty," he says.

So let me get this straight. We can afford a nearly $1 trillion dollar hit to the Federal budget to support these people and that's just hunky dory.

But we can't find a couple of billion to hire, train, and equip a sufficient number of Border Patrol agents, nor can find find a few hundred million dollars to build a secure border fence.

Senator Kyl, you're a frigging moron.

L

[moreisee]

“As a practical matter, from a political standpoint, you can’t have enforcement first. Democrats won’t allow it,”

BS. We have current laws to enforce and a Republican Administration that stands in the way of carrying them out. Does anybody really believe the open borders crowd has any intension of following through on the enforcement aspects of this Amnesty? It would be no different than 1986.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I didn’t think I had to spell out the “enforcement” part of my statement.

[kabar]

Unfortuntately, you must. We already have laws on the books that fine employers, i.e., "Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986". "8 USC 1101 note"

"(f) CRIMINAL PENALITIES AND INJUNCTIONS FOR PATTERN OR PRACTICE VIOLATIONS. --<

"(1) CRIMINAL PENALTY. -- Any person or entity which engages in a pattern or practice of violations of subsection (a)(1)(A) or (a)(2) shall be fined not more than $3,000 for each unauthorized alien with respect to whom such a violation occurs, imprisoned for not more than six months for the enitre pattern or practice, or both, notwithstanding the provisions of any other Federal law relating to fine levels.

"(2) ENJOINING OF PATTERN OR PRACTICE VIOLATIONS. -- Whenever the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that a person or entity is engaged in a pattern or practice of employment, recruitment, or referral in violation of paragraph (1)(A) or (2) of subsection (a), the Attorney General may bring a civil action in the appropriate district court of the United States requesting such relief, including a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other order against the person or entity, as the Attorney General deems necessary.

[Psycho_Bunny]

?  Why are you being pedantic?

[kabar]

Because the devil is in the details. Many Americans seem to believe that passing a law solves the problem. It doesn't. Few people are focussing on what kind of resources will be needed to enforce the laws on the books or those proposed. I had lunch yesterday with a former BP agent who served nearly 40 years on the job and with a former Deputy Commissioner of INS. The numbers of personnel assigned to enforcement of our immigration laws against employers are less than 400 hundred.

The entire enforcement system is crumbling. It is going to take a massive increase in personnel to fix things. And it will take years to build up those numbers with trained, experienced personnel. The proposed Senate bill will create a staggering workload that can't be met by the existing bureaucracy, which is alread backlogged. Passing laws without the resources and capability to enforce them is meaningless and we have already seen how that works.

[Mogollon]

"Yet the vitriol doesn't always show up at the ballot box--some of the most hardcore opponents of illegal immigration lost their Arizona races last year."

That is because Arizona and others allowed the illegals to get a ballot and vote!!

Arizona has a law that requires voters to show a valid U.S ID before voting. Illegals did not vote in any significant amount in Arizona in 2004.

[longtermmemmory]

THESE ARE SENATOR KYL’S COMMENS FROM THE 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act COMMENTS.

It was made part of the appropriations spending.

REMEMBER THIS COMPREHENSIVE REFORM IS ACTUALLY SELLING WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE and(!) it actually TAKES AWAY some of the 1996 reforms (IE the “Dream Act” makes ALL minors into anchor babies REGARDLESS OF CITIZENSHIP!!!!!!)

Read and enjoy.

for more on the 1996 reform act go to http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1847498/posts

OMNIBUS CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997 (Senate - September 30, 1996)

---

ion we hope will significantly reduce illegal immigration in this country.

We could have passed this bill in the Senate last week. Unfortunately, partisan politics almost derailed efforts of the Congress, and particularly the efforts of the chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, Alan Simpson, who, under extraordinary circumstances, has worked long and hard to produce a bipartisan, far-reaching immigration bill.

That is because, in the end, the Clinton administration threatened to veto either the omnibus appropriations bill—and shut down the Federal Government—or a stand-alone immigration bill unless some of our reforms were deleted from title 5 of the immigration conference report. It is interesting that the immigration conference report, with title 5 intact, passed the House last week with bipartisan support by a vote of 305-123. Notwithstanding this strong support, in order to ensure passage of this historic immigration measure, important provisions of title 5 have been deleted.

One of the most important provisions dropped from title 5 would have required that sponsors who bring their immigrant relatives into the United States earn 200 percent of poverty in order to bring in extended relatives or 140 percent of poverty when they sponsor their spouses or their minor children. Revised title 5 changed the income requirement for all sponsors to 125 percent of poverty. At that income level, the sponsor could already be participating in several welfare-related programs, including, but not limited to, food stamps, reduced school lunch, Medicaid for pregnant women and children under the age of 6, and the Women, Infants, and Children [WIC] program. In other words, the sponsors may well not be capable of supporting the immigrants they sponsor.

Another provision that was removed from title 5 would have clarified the definition of `public charge.’ Under the House-passed conference report, an immigrant could be deported—but would not necessarily be deported—if he or she received Federal public benefits for an aggregate of 12 months over a period of 7 years. That provision was dropped during Saturday’s negotiations.

The House-passed conference report would have required that public housing authorities verify the status of individuals who obtain public housing benefits. Individuals would have had 3 months to verify their status with a public housing authority or they would be required to vacate the unit. Revised title 5 will give an illegal alien 18 months to vacate the housing unit. In addition, revised title 5 will now give discretionary authority to public housing authorities to determine whether or not they will verify if someone in this country has a legal right to federally-assisted housing. This doesn’t make sense to me since, in my home State of Arizona, officials of the Maricopa County Housing Authority alone estimate that 40 percent of the people receiving housing assistance in the county are illegal aliens. In Maricopa County, there are 1,334 section 8 units and 917 units available. There are over 6,500 individuals on the waiting list there.

There are other provisions in title 5 that shouldn’t have been dropped from the immigration conference report. It is my hope that in the future, partisan politics will play a smaller role than it did on Saturday in efforts to effectively reform our Nation’s immigration laws.

Having said that, I do believe it would be a great disservice to the people of Arizona and the rest of the Nation if this illegal immigration conference report were not to pass the Congress during the 104th Congress.

In Arizona’s Tucson sector alone, the U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended more than 300,000 illegal aliens this year. It is estimated that for every illegal immigrant arrested, four slip through undetected. These undetected entrants are costing Arizonans millions of dollars. In fact, the State of Arizona estimates that it spends over $200 million each year on the medical care, education, and incarceration of undocumented immigrants. That’s about equal to what the State spends each year to run Arizona State University.

With this immigration bill, we have the opportunity to lift this financial burden off the States by forcing the Federal Government to take responsibility for reducing illegal immigration , and to reimburse States for many of the illegal immigration -related costs they incur.

Perhaps most importantly for Arizona, under the immigration conference report, our borders will be better secured. One of my amendments to the bill will

increase the number of border patrol agents by 5,000 over 5 years, nearly doubling the current number of agents. An increased border patrol presence in Arizona will help cities and towns such as Nogales, Naco, and Douglas, which have experienced surges in illegal immigration and border-related crime.

The immigration bill will also require that the security features on the border-crossing card be improved to counter fraud. There will be new monetary and civil penalties for illegal entry. In addition, every illegal immigration apprehended will be fingerprinted. Preinspection at foreign airports of passenger bound for the U.S. will be increased. The bill creates a mandatory, expedited removal process for aliens arriving without proper documentation, except if they have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries. Penalties for alien smugglers will be increased and deportation of criminal aliens will be expedited.

In addition to beefing up our borders, the bill cracks down on those individuals who overstay their visas. Half of those who temporarily enter the country legally remain here illegally. The bill requires that an entry-exit control system be developed to track those individuals. Visas overstayers will also be ineligible to return to the U.S. for a number of years, depending on how long they overstayed their visas.

The immigration bill also provides for mandatory detention of most deportable, criminal aliens and requires that those aliens be deported within 90 days. The bill also authorize $150 million for the costs of detaining and removing deportable or inadmissible aliens and increases the number of detention spaces to 9,000 by the end of 1997.

Finally, this immigration bill will remove many of the incentives for illegal entry. The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that 10 percent of the workforce in Arizona is made up of illegal aliens. H.R. 2202 sets up three pilot projects, to be implemented in high illegal immigration States, that will determine the employment eligibility of workers and thereby reduce the number of illegal aliens trying to get U.S. jobs.

While I may well vote against the omnibus bill to which this legislation is attached and while I am very disappointed about the last minute changes to the immigration part of the bill, I nevertheless believe that part of the omnibus bill should be passed. I am confident that this legislation is the keystone we will build upon in the future.

[Page: S11882] GPO’s PDF

[longtermmemmory]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1847468/posts?page=32#32

Kyle’s OWN WORDS in 1996.

This is the same dog and pony show.

Once in 1986 THEN in 1996 THEN again in 2006 but it was delayed due to conservative dominance.

This is more that just two points, this is a pattern that states in 2016 we are going to have this BS again.

We could even go to 1976 and find more immigration reforms there.

[goldstategop]

Agreed. This notion that throwing our values out of the window for political expediency is one I find offensive. Sen. Kyl wants to enfranchise new Democrat voters. The American people don't.

"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

[goldfinch]

It may be worth the try. Then the pickers would follow the crops. Yes, it would cause some economic pain here, but I'd rather deals with solutions to that than accept the solutions proposed.

It is always the farm workers that get mentioned. But only about 20% of those here illegally are farm workers. A larger percentage works in the building trades. And an even larger percents works in the restaurant and hotel industries.

[LantzALot]

You’re right.