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This Immigration Bill isn’t just hated by Republicans but by Independents and a lot of Dems so what is the stupid Senate doing even bringing the bill back?

Because of a confluence of special interests like the US Chamber of Commerce, labor unions, and La Raza. Make no mistake about this, this bill is more of a Dem bill than a Rep bill. Both parties have been guilty of not enforcing our laws and not securing our borders. They can make the problem go away by declaring the illegals legal with the stroke of a pen. They are counting on the ignorance and short attention span of the American public to make this a non-issue for 2008. And they will be aided by the MSM who will trumpet this as a great success and a demonstration of bipartisanship to solve a difficult problem.

If you look at the vote in 2006 on the Senate bill,S 2611 you will see that the following senators voted for it: Robert Bennett, Sam Brownback, Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, Larry Craig, Mike DeWine, Pete Domenici, Lindsey Graham, Judd Gregg, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, Mel Martinez, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Gordon Smith, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, Ted Stevens, George Voinovich, and John Warner.

Kyl, Isakson, Chambliss, and Lott voted against it, but they will vote for it this time. This would garner a majority of Reps for the bill if a vote is taken. The Dems want Rep cover for passage. The Dems will vote overwhelmingly for the bill and a slim Rep majority will make the bill truly bipartisan.

The fig leaf the Reps for the bill want is that the amendment process be followed so that all Rep objections can be heard [and defeated]. I am sure that some are getting cold feet because of the public outcry, which is why there will probably be some strengthening of the enforcement portion of the bill.

The bottom line is that the bill is not dead in the Senate and that there is plenty of negotiating going on behind the scenes. I still say that if this bill comes up for a vote, it will pass easily. It is the optics that concern the Rep senate leadership. Some changes must be made to make the bill palatable to the Reps in favor of the bill but not unravel the grand bargain. The fix is in as far as the Senate is concerned.

The only fly in the ointment is that you can't spin reality. As the problem metastasizes around the country, there has been a tremendous grassroots effort in states and local communities to address this problem, which is growing daily. The bill will undercut many of these efforts because the illegals are no longer illegal. They will have legal status, which will exacerbate the problem as they bring in their children, spouses, and parents.

The administration of this bill will be a bureaucratic nightmare, which is why much of it is being pushed down the road after the 2008 election. There are just not enough USG personnel to handle the workload. The chickens won't come home to roost until later and the politicians will be expressing phony outrage and passing more bills, more than likely gutting the Dem concessions to the Reps on the bill. The political elites can only keep this charade going so long. The public can see what is happening in their daily lives and no amount of rhetoric is going to change that reality. Eventually, there will be a huge backlash. The question is, "Will it be too late?"

I pinged you to another thread that said, (if true), the Senate hopes to ram this through before July 4th holiday.

It explicitly spells out their 'end run' game....

My question.

What do we do?

What can we do?

The letters, phone calls, emails, fax....are fine and useful...

..but 'they' seem to have an agenda and will enforce it.

Is a 'march on Washington'... possible?

...workable?....

...make a difference?

..too late?

Thanks for that well reasoned reply. Something that still bothers me was George Allen losing who always was standing with Inhofe and Coburn. Note the ones that were defeated were ones opposing this bill.

Have had a bad feeling ever since the election that there was something really wrong and now it has come home to roost. Bush wasn’t kidding when Tony Snow went running out on election night to congratulate the Dems and talk about working with them on Immigration. I have been disgusted ever since.

NRSC was inept in the last election and NRCC wasn’t much better and forget the RNC — why? How could well oiled machines be so inept not to spot major problems in States and get last minute money and push into those states and save a few seats.

Note: Frist was leaving as Majority Leader and Hastert looked the other way on Jefferson and Foley until he finally resigned late into the election cycle — too late to help. Bush gets rid of Rumsfeld right after the election. Frist twisted arms to get Lott as #2 — this whole thing smells big time.

Now we find out this bill is full of loopholes? If Allen and Burns had not lost, this bill would not be going anywhere.

The public can see what is happening in their daily lives and no amount of rhetoric is going to change that reality. Eventually, there will be a huge backlash. The question is, "Will it be too late?"

kabar, that was an excellent summation and analysys. Very insightful.

Since last year I've been harping on the impossibility of processing 15 million+++ applications without chaos and eventually complete breakdown of the immigration system. I don't mean breakdown like the one we've had for 20 years, I mean stop, finished, doesn't function anymore.

I discovered years ago during my wife's immigration that every pol and staffer on Capitol Hill knows the immigration system doesn't work, and you'll notice that this bill has no provisions or funding or personnel to fix the system.

It would be one (cynical) thing to say that Congress is "fixing the problem" by making all illegals, legal. Presto chango, done. But in fact once those 15 million applications hit the system it will go into complete lockdown. Anyone wanting legal immigration will need to wait a century or two.

And you are also right that the timing of the "triggers" is critical to Congress's ploy. First, all illegals get instant "probationary" Z visa status the moment the bill is signed by George Bush (aka Amnesty). No applications, no paper, no anything will be added to the CIS burden for at least 18 months and well after the 2008 election. But after that the floodgates will open and CIS will drown.

With a broken system, its predictable that anyone in the U.S. claiming Z visa probationary status will be off the hook for at least 5 years. There will be a law immunizing them from arrest and deportation (S.1348) and there will be no expectation of proof since "the system is broken".

We will have de facto open borders since no one will be able to implement the law, and no way to prove that anyone is or isn't compliant with it.