Posted on 06/12/2007 11:17:23 PM PDT by TheThinker
How to Revive the Immigration Bill By Robert Spencer FrontPageMagazine.com | June 12, 2007
With President Bush lobbying Congress to revive the defeated and disastrous immigration bill, authorities have a chance to recast the bill in a way that takes adequate measure of the national security implications of the immigration issue. And now, Lebanon, a nation currently under attack from al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, has shown the way with a measure that the President and Congress would do well to consider adapting for the United States. In an attempt to prevent jihadists from entering Lebanon from neighboring countries, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry and the General Security Department may stop giving entrants from Arab countries automatic entry visas; instead, they would have to apply at Lebanese missions in their native countries – allowing Lebanese officials time to scrutinize their applications and try to determine whether they are involved in jihad activity.
Such a proposal has a great deal to recommend it. Lebanon is treating immigration as a national security issue, as it manifestly is not only for Lebanon, but for the U.S. as well. With refreshing directness, Lebanese officials are considering heading off the problem at its source, or one of its sources, by restricting entry into the country from Arab countries from which jihadists come. Likewise the U.S. also could, and should, institute restrictions on immigration from Muslim countries. This issue has been clouded by national traumas about “racism,” but in fact it has nothing to do with racism, as jihadists with blonde hair and blue eyes are just as lethal, and should be just as unwelcome, as jihadists with dark skin, this is about taking prudent steps to protect ourselves and defend our nation. It is only a matter of common sense to recognize where the great majority of jihadists come from, and act accordingly.
Officials should proclaim a moratorium on all visa applications from Muslim countries, since there is no reliable way for American authorities to distinguish jihadists and potential jihadists from peaceful Muslims. Because this is not a racial issue, these restrictions should not apply to Christians and other non-Muslim citizens of those countries, although all should be subjected to reasonable scrutiny. Those who claim that such a measure is “Islamophobic” should be prepared to provide a workable way for immigration officials to distinguish jihadists from peaceful Muslims, or, if they cannot do so, should not impede basic steps the U.S. should take to protect itself. And Muslims entering from anywhere -- Britain, France -- should be questioned as to their adherence to Sharia and Islamic supremacism. This is not because anyone will expect honest answers, but so that answers proven false by the applicant’s subsequent activity can become grounds for deportation.
Meanwhile, this is not just an immigration problem. The Fort Dix and JFK Airport jihad terror plots uncovered in recent weeks not only underscore the need to fix our broken immigration policies, but they show the need also to deal with the fact that jihadists are already in the country. When twenty-six percent of Muslims in the United States who are under the age of thirty approve of suicide attacks in some circumstances, and two such attacks are uncovered in the last month, this is not an abstract problem. Islamic organizations in the U.S. who refuse to renounce and teach against political Islam should be reclassified as political organizations and made subject to all the controls and scrutiny to which political organizations are subject. And here again, words must be backed by deeds, or can justly be regarded with suspicion.
If national security were our priority, these proposals would not even be controversial. Nor would Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S., if national security were their priority, oppose them either. In fact, they might spur those groups to become more energetic in rooting out jihadists from among their ranks, and from among the Muslim community in America in general. Instead of the platitudes and half-measures we have seen up to now, along with active opposition to anti-terror efforts, we might see them take genuine steps to declare the ideology of jihad and Islamic supremacism beyond the pale of American Islam, and renounce political Islam and any intention, now or in the future, to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic Sharia law.
But instead, the national debate still degenerates all too easily into charges of “racism,” while the real national security issues involved in immigration are shunted aside. A time may come, all too soon, when the American people will wish they had not for so long indulged this luxury. The President and Congress have a chance now to take up the immigration debate anew, and to think like statesmen, not like politicians. A realistic look at immigration as a national security matter would be a good place to start.
Just say NO to Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Have a liberal president who has joined forces with ted kennedy twist the arms of conservatives in congress.
I Like Ike.
Take the Pledge: "I pledge to never, ever vote for anyone, for any office, who votes in favor of the Mexican Invasion Surrender Bill."
Based on the (evil and wrongful) Supreme Court precedent known as Wickard vs. Filburn, Congress could pass a law with the following provisions:
If such a law were passed, illegals could still come here and work. But the Mexicans (for example) would have to take their pay in Pesos--and would have to go back to Mexico to spend it, or even to deposit it in a bank (or do anything else with it.) And they'd have to wait as much as 18 months to get most of it back as a tax refund.
Problem solved.
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.
Tomorrow: How to revive Dracula. We think he was a nice guy so why not?
Actually, those objections had occurred to me. But I'm more interested in making people think creatively about solutions, than I am in any particular proposals at this point. Our choices aren't just between amnesty and Gestapo-like raids by ICE. And yes, the pros and cons of whatever is proposed need to be debated and thoroughly analyzed and considered.
It my be sufficient to simply do the following (which I don't think suffers from any of the objections you raise):
“That would require a Constitutional amendment to exempt them from constitutional protections. Not going to happen nor should it.”
Sure it should. They don’t deserve rights. And If our rights are creator endowed, how does that go for you who don’t seem to beleive in a creator?
You are asking employers who hire illegally to follow the law. If that worked, there would be no need to do it because you could just ask them not to hire illegals in the first place.
If tax witholding works for you and me, it will work for illegals. The IRS is not ICE, and is much better at enforcing the tax laws than ICE is at enforcing the immigration laws.
It may be easy to hire illegals. But it's not so easy to survive a tax audit--especially in the case of employers and payroll witholding taxes. To get a tax deduction for wages paid, you have to report them as an expense.
"Deny standing in Federal Courts to any plaintiffs who are not legally in the United States."
That would require a Constitutional amendment to exempt them from constitutional protections. Not going to happen nor should it.
In 2005, Congress passed a law which stated that ""No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination." The Supreme Court upheld the authority of Congress to pass such a law. Your objection is thus overruled.
We need two bills to be passed with some time between.
1) Border security bill. With fence. Once that project is complete, then
2) Immigration bill. ‘No automatic citizenship or anchor babies’ needs to be included.
They are related, but two separate issues.
The first one should pass with no problem.
Why don't you just say you support continued illegal immigration? Who is going to provide health insurance for the guest workers? The people who are breaking the law hiring them. Sure you can trust those contractor and sub-contractors. LOL
Actually, the precedent until the 2nd Gulf War was to differentiate between Civil Rights and Human Rights, making the distinction that Civil Rights are granted only to citizens and, as explicitly granted, to legal residents.
Civil Rights are those granted to ensure the proper and just functioning of the system; human rights are those granted to those within and without the systen purely out of respect for life. Due process, suffrage, privacy, etc. are all civil rights; they all permit activity which may be directly contrary to the common good, but which are permitted anyway because denying them would likely have indirect consequences far more detrimental to the common good: our democratic system would fail.
Inasmuch as the system does not depend on civil rights afforded to non-citizens, the granting of rights may be done independently of what is good for the system, only what is good for the object of the system. If that is not also good for the non-citizen, they have a recourse which citizens have not: their own homeland. In such a case, those within the system can grant or suspend privileges in a manner consisting purely of what is beneficial to themselves; limited only on divine law which says to do no evil.
We can be so ingrained in Democracy, however, we can fail to recognize that certain actions forbidden by Democracy are evil not because they are inherently evil, but because they are injurious to the Democracy. For instance, it is good that government deliver swift justice. Limits to the effectiveness of government delivering such justice are defensible only inasmuch as they prevent the government evolving into a tyranny. Civil rights which limit the effective provision of justice are not good, but inherently evil, but an evil which is tolerated to prevent far worse evils.
>> Creator is undefined. <<
No, but it *is* capitalized, meaning that “Creator” is a proper noun. That doesn’t mean that “Creator” refers to the Christian god, but it does mean that they personified the creator. “Endowed” also suggests a gift which has been given; we don’t merely “possess” rights, we are “endowed” with them.
Why do we need a bill of any kind on this subject when we don’t enforce the ones we have?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/iz.html
Population: 27,499,638 (July 2007 est.)
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