Spokesman for President Bush Posts on Free Republic About Immigration Bill

Thursday, June 14, 2007 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

A spokeman for the Bush administration sent an e-mail to Jim Robinson and myself confirming the authenticity of a post on Free Republic this afternoon regarding the immigration bill currently before the Senate as having been posted on behalf of the White House.

The spokesman, Nicholas Thompson, works for the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. The Politico reported yesterday that Thompson and Kerrie Rushton, associate directors in the Office of Strategic Initiatives who work under Karl Rove, would be engaging the blogosphere on the immigration bill.

Thompson's post is on the thread titled Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill, a vanity posted by philman_36. Thompson posted at comment #53.

Thompson's e-mail to Free Republic included a brief introduction and the text of his posted comment:

Hi,

I just wanted to let you know that I just posted a response to the post "Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill."

The White House appreciates the opportunity to respond on Free Republic.

Response:
I would like to point out that the Secretary is authorized to reduce or mitigate penalities against employers who in good faith are trying to comply with the law. Certainly, we understand that not all employers knowingly hire illegal immigrants; this will remain the case, especially before the bill’s new secure documentation requirements are fully phased in. We do not seek to wrongly penalize honest employers who unknowingly hire illegal immigrants, therefore we reserve the right to reduce or mitigate their penalties if the employer can show good faith compliance in following the law.

For those employers who do knowingly hire illegal immigrants, please know that we intend to penalize these employers strongly, and the Administration has already stepped up these penalties in the last couple of years. For example, a 2005 program, “Operation Rollback,” assessed $15,000,000 in civil fines to employers, an amount greater than the sum of administrative fines collected in the previous eight years and was the largest worksite enforcement penalty in US history. In the first quarter of FY07, criminal and civil forfeitures have totaled $26,700,000 for employers.

As a reminder of what’s in the bill, fines for hiring an illegal worker are $5,000 maximum per illegal worker for the first offense, $10,000 maximum per illegal worker for the second, $25,000 maximum per illegal worker for the third , and $75,000 maximum per illegal worker for the fourth. In addition, the bill increases the maximum criminal penalty for a pattern or practice of unlawful hiring twenty-five-fold, from $3,000 to $75,000, and would impose a prison term of up to six months. This represents a significant increase in fines for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Nicholas Thompson
White House Office of Strategic Initiatives

[donna]

If these are such good enforcement numbers, then we don’t need any new laws, do we?

[oldfart]

The only potential candidate that has a record of standing by the Constitution is Dr. Paul. I admit his chances of nomination are pretty slight but the next best man, Fred Thompson, has a less lustrous record. He’s still a good man and I truly think he has a chance, but he’s been exposed to life within the beltway for too long to escape with no skeletons in his closet. Let’s just hope they’re small ones.

[ClancyJ]

And your views of the immigration bill please.

Try and make a coherent sentence if you can - after all it would have been seen by those actually writing the bill.

But, gee, they are gone. They can catch on really quickly that this is merely a punk trash site - no real doers here.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Go ahead tell the President of the United States you are going to withdraw the support you never gave him in the first place.

Horse feces - I shook Bush's hand when he came to Green Bay in 2000 and was more than happy to vote for him. I supported him in 2004 too.

A lot of conservatives worked their butts off supporting Republicans only to get the shaft from the Rockefeller elitists that are now in control of the party. If this bill passes, I am done with the GOP, I received a donation letter from the mail and I promptly shredded it.

[calcowgirl]

I tried to watch the film but it is virtually unwatchable with the ifilm download. It took about 5 minutes to get 50 words out of Michelle.

Is there some information in it relevant to NAF that can be posted?

[GRRRRR]

I agree about ending the anchor baby stuff, but that takes an amendment to the Constitution, requiring 2/3 of House and Senate and then 3/4 of the States to approve...that’ll never happen.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

"However, as long as there's demand for cheap labor, the market will provide it."

I agree.

"Honestly, I think it's a waste of time to try to disagree with President Bush on this amnesty or "shamnesty" like you would call it."

Again I agree that the President has made up his mind regardless of our wishes, but I think we should at lleast try to stop this mess.

"The best we can do is to build an Israeli-style Wall of America on the border and leave it at that."

I could not agree more.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Have Some Kool-Aid WB ???...;0) This Batch Has REEEAL Texas BULLSHI'IT In It !!! MMMMMMM,,,Good...

[floriduh voter]

http://newamerica.net/events/2006/u_s_strategy_towards_iran

Why would the White House employ this guy? I forgot to ck if Teddy was invited to one of their leftist conferences. I'm going to revisit that thread.

[AuntB]

From what I've read on here, he's going around from conservative site to site posting this spam looking for idiots who'll believe it I guess.

Yeah? Has he checked out the WH cheerleaders at "Soundasleeps"?

[teawithmisswilliams]

"What does it tell you when an American president has to go to Vietnam and Albania to find people who still like him?"

GWB may deal with the "leaders of nations" but he owes his primary duty to citizens of the United States. I wonder if he even believes that?

[floriduh voter]

The prez recently got on the global warming bandwagon.

[babbabooey]

Mr. Thompson,

The President's approval is below 30%.

Nixon was Impeached b/c he lost the support of his base.

The Dem's are vicious, they will strike. Shore up the base now... Or else, we won't be there to help...

I've enjoyed shreading every GOP Donation Letter since last Summer's Pro-Immigration March! Please send more!!!

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

Don’t get me wrong, there are a few good men running I wouldn’t have to hold my nose to vote for :)

[Soul Seeker]

I thought you were leaving to find a site that made you happy?

You have received too much attention as it is. Any temptation I have to reply to you again will instead be directed into calling yet another politician and giving them an earful.

[sageb1]

The individual from the White House who posted here also posted on all major right-wing blogs. He did not stick around on any of them to discuss anything. It was little more than a hit-and-run.

You are completely wrong on this. You say the President deserves respect. I agree, but so do the American people. We have had the administration thumb their noses at us and call us names after we have backed them and supported them and stood up for them for 6 years.

This issue has been THE issue on every right-wing blog for months now and they are only just now deciding to throw us a bone?

There have been a few out-of-line or over-the-top posts, but almost every one has stated the fact that we want the hole in the boat plugged first and we want existing laws enforced.

We watched illegals march defiantly with their demands on our citizenry and we did not flood the streets to counter them. I think we’ve shown a lot of restraint, quite frankly.

[norton]

Laughable..indeed.

It's not only prior contributions Nick:
You might ask your boss to check in with the RNC.
See how well those weekly requests for money are working these days.

[AuntB]

Nice job. So this White House managed to deport
fewer, arrest fewer and spent much more $$ to do it.

[ClancyJ]

What happens when those “cheap laborers” are made citizens with the President’s signature? Then they are no longer “cheap labor” - they are minimum wage citizens.

Is that why we have to have an additional 400,000 each year - for cheap labor?

I work in a church benevolence room and today we had 4 brand new immigrants show up - probably just coming over the border.

I would imagine that the borders are flooding with all trying to get the whole clans in here before the bill is passed.

What I resent is that the government allows the cheap labor to come, none of the families are able to exist on that salary with 6 children, so the churches have to provide food to feed them.

To me this is pushing the cost of labor onto the members of churches in our society and on to the taxpayer by draining the entitlement programs. Cheap labor? For who? Only the employers - not the taxpayer, not the churches.

And we full well know that the purpose of this is to allow the democrats and probably the hopeful republicans to buy votes.

[dragnet2]

The individual from the White House who posted here also posted on all major right-wing blogs. He did not stick around on any of them to discuss anything. It was little more than a hit-and-run.

This has been posted all over the web.

It's disgusting.