House passes controversial immigration bill (to deny illegals licenses,provide anti-terror measures)

Law would deny driver licenses to illegal aliens, provide anti-terror measures

By Jerry Kammer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON – Dividing largely along party lines, the House passed a controversial bill Thursday designed to curtail illegal immigration as a way to achieve greater homeland security.

The bill, which passed 261-161, would pressure states to deny driver licenses to illegal aliens, make it easier to turn away some political asylum seekers and ease the deportation of suspected terrorists.

The measure would empower bounty hunters to go after immigrants who have defied orders of deportation and remove environmental barriers blocking completion of a triple fence along the U.S.-Mexico border near Imperial Beach.

The bill's author, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the measure would help "prevent another 9/11-type attack by disrupting terrorist travel" and by making it more difficult for terrorists to take advantage of the asylum system or penetrate the border near San Diego.

"We must ensure that terrorists no longer can exploit these weaknesses," he said.

Passage in the House completes the first step in Sensenbrenner's strategy to ensure that the measure is considered in the Senate, where it faces longer odds.

As part of a deal last year with House leaders who wanted to strip the immigration bill from intelligence overhaul legislation, Sensenbrenner got a commitment that his bill would be included in the first essential legislation Congress considers this year.

Next week, Sensenbrenner plans to attach his bill to legislation that would provide funding for troops in Iraq, which almost certainly will be approved by the House. Then the combined measure will go to the Senate.

"That way, the Senate can't ignore it," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors greater restrictions on immigration.

Even if the Senate jettisons the immigration provisions, as some consider likely, a House-Senate conference could reinstate them.

Called the "Real ID ACT," the bill was recently endorsed by President Bush, who is pushing a sweeping overhaul of immigration laws, including a guest-worker program.

Before passing the Sensenbrenner bill, the House defeated an amendment sponsored by Sam Farr, D-Carmel. His proposal would have stripped out a provision granting authority to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to waive any laws impeding completion of the border fence near San Diego.

"My amendment was not about preventing the remaining three miles of border fence in San Diego from being built," Farr said, adding that he was trying to protect environmental laws and the review process they created.

Several human rights and religious organizations criticized the provision in Sensenbrenner's bill that would give asylum judges broad discretion to deny asylum applications based on "the demeanor, candor or responsiveness" of anyone seeking refuge in the United States.

Sensenbrenner said the tougher asylum rules would help screen out terrorists. But the executive director of Amnesty International USA said it would "punish" persons who "for reasons of culture, fear, desperation, confusion or trauma" are "unable to tell their full stories immediately and in a manner that is consistent with a distinctly American style of communicating."

Several Democrats took particular offense at a provision that would bar federal authorities from accepting a driver license for identification unless the state had first verified the driver is in the United States legally.

Driver licenses from states that do not comply could not be used as proof of identity to board airplanes, enter federal buildings and purchase guns. California and about 40 other states require applicants for driver licenses to prove their legal residence.

San Diego's House delegation split along party lines. Voting for the bill were Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter of El Cajon, Randy "Duke" Cunningham of San Diego and Darrell Issa of Vista. Opposing the bill were Democrats Bob Filner and Susan Davis, both of San Diego.

In the House, 219 Republicans and 42 Democrats voted for the bill while 152 Democrats, eight Republicans and one Independent opposed it.

Krikorian, from the Center for Immigration Studies, described the bill as a start to clamping down on illegal immigration.

"It's not a silver bullet for immigration enforcement, but it's a small down payment on what has to be done," he said.

Angela Kelley of the National Immigration Forum called the Sensenbrenner bill "a distraction" from the simmering debate on revamping immigration laws.

"This is a lopsided and out-of-focus perspective the House has taken on how to deal with a broken immigration system," said Kelley, whose groups favors looser immigration restrictions.

"If we can have a comprehensive reform package, we will be much closer to having a system where people can play by the rules and we can keep out those who want to do us harm."

Far from the raging debate over the Sensenbrenner bill, an article in the Mexican newspaper Milenio Thursday offered a different perspective. The paper noted that while the driver license provision "has been seen by some Mexican political parties as an affront against Mexicans, in reality Mexico applies a similar requirement to foreigners who want to obtain driver's licenses."

k2blader:
"Just to clarify, do you support the bill?"
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No, I cannot support the bill with the drivers license provisions in it. Here are my ideas on dealing with the immigration problem.

- Repeal the naturalization clause in the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution
Section 1.
excerpt:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

This clause is why pregnant illegals flock to America to give birth within our borders. This is sweet pogey bait for illegals, and must be repealed. If illegals have a kid here, the kid would be an illegal, and subject to deportation with its parents.

- Strengthen and enforce immigration laws. Illegals must be hunted down, arrested and deported for their first offense. All subsequent offenses should involve serious prison time, followed by mandatory deportation. Say five years for the second offense, and twenty years for each offense thereafter. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has the right idea; tents in the desert inside a fenced enclosure to house offenders. That will make them think twice about breaking our immigration laws.

- Vigorously investigate and prosecute those who employ illegals. If there's no jobs for them here, the incentive to come here is gone. We can revive guest worker programs so we have workers to pick our crops once the illegals are excluded from doing that. The guest worker programs can be strictly controlled, and the workers will pay taxes here like any other worker, and be sent home when the picking season is over. Those that try to stay must be hunted down and jailed, losing their right to be a guest worker again for life. People should only be allowed to sign up for guest worker programs in their home nation. Anyone entering illegally should be banned from the guest worker programs for life.

- Eliminate all benefits for illegals. Subsidizing criminal behavior with taxpayer dollars is insane. It must stop. 'No benefits for illegals' should be written into federal law, witholding federal monies from any state refusing to comply.

- Build a real border fence. I hear people say that this would cost too much, which is an idiotic argument. The idea that we can't find a few $billion$ in a $2 trillion$ annual federal budget is laughable. The cost of one B2 bomber would be more than enough.

- Use our technology. We have amazing sensor technology, unmanned drones like the Predator drone used by our military, ground-penetrating radar to find tunnels, imaging infrared 'heat cameras', seismic ground sensors, ground radar, etc. Technology is a great force multiplier, and it will make our Border Patrol agents far more effective.

- Beef up the Border Patrol. Border Patrol agents know their territory intimately and are trained & properly equipped for their specific job. The Border Patrol could be easily be increased in strength almost overnight by transferring LEO-trained federal employees from other agencies. For instance, both the Energy Department and Housing & Urban Development Department have their own SWAT teams (no joke!). There are many others in our myriad bloated federal agencies. If these people were transferred to the Border Patrol, given a quick orientation, and formed into teams supervised by experienced Border Patrol agents, that could quickly increase the strength and effectiveness of the Border Patrol. Other fedgov employees could take over desk jobs and some border crossing inspection duties, freeing up even more experienced Border Patrol agents to go out in the field, where they are really needed. This is doable, especially in our present political climate.

- Citizen action. The counties along the border are sick and tired of cross-border crime and all the problems caused by illegals. All they need do is to make citizen posses an election issue, and elect sheriffs that will deputize armed citizen patrols, as Sheriff Joe Arpaio did for crime control in the Phoenix area. These citizens would then have the power to arrest and detain illegals and turn them over to the Border Patrol or INS. In those counties where a sympathetic sheriff can't be elected, it is still perfectly legal for citizens to go into the open desert and run reconnaissance and tracking ops. They can then call the Border Patrol radio dispatcher, and guide Border Patrol agents to the groups of illegals they're tracking.
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Once we have removed the pogey bait of jobs, benefits and automatic citizenship for their children that we lay out for illegals, and replaced them with serious penalties for breaking our immigration laws and greatly strengthened border defenses, the tide will be stemmed. At that point our new better border security will finally work. There will no longer be a flood of illegals for terrorists to hide in, and catching them trying to sneak in over the border will be doable.

I would even reluctantly agree to one last amnesty for illegals, if and only if it was as part of package instituting all of the above reforms. The toughest one would be repealing the Fourteenth Amendment naturalization clause, for obvious reasons. We also need a national leader dedicated to bringing the illegal immigration problem under control, a person willing to campaign vigorously for these reforms. Sadly, I fear that the political will to institute these measures will not exist until after another major terrorist attack on American soil. :^(

k2blader:
"And I'm not saying you're wrong, but I just didn't see anything about national ID's in the article. I'll have to look into that more..."
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They tried the direct approach to a national ID card a couple years back, and that was soundly rejected. Now they are trying a back door approach; uniform federal standards with biometric requirements for state-issued drivers licenses and state ID cards.

The idea is that mandating federal standards and unifying state ID info from all the states into a single database accessible to fedgov agencies creates a defacto national ID. Once they get this, your state ID personal data (your name, address, description, photo, what cars you own, etcetera) will be accessible nationwide to any federal agency or LEO who wants to look at it or use it to verify your identity. Federal law enforcement agencies will finally have personal data on virtually every American over the age of 16. They will use that as starting point to build a dossier on us all. Those states wishing to refuse to conform to federal DL standards or tie their state DL databases into the fedgov database would be in violation of federal law. So much for states' rights and personal privacy.

They are using the idea of somehow controlling illegal immigration with this measure as a bait to suck in conservative support for this bill. Do not be taken in by it.

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