Posted on 04/26/2006 5:20:12 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
President Bush generally favors plans to give millions of illegal immigrants a chance at U.S. citizenship without leaving the country, but does not want to be more publicly supportive because of opposition among conservative House Republicans, according to senators who attended a recent White House meeting.
Several officials familiar with the meeting also said Democrats protested radio commercials that blamed them for Republican-written legislation that passed the House and would make illegal immigrants vulnerable to felony charges.
Bush said he was unfamiliar with the ads, which were financed by the Republican National Committee, according to officials familiar with the discussions.
At another point, Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other members of his party pressed the president about their concern that any Senate-passed bill would be made unpalatable in final talks with the House.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, said the lawmaker who would lead House negotiators, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, had been "intractable" in negotiations on other high-profile bills in the past. Bush did not directly respond to the remark, officials said.
The Republican and Democratic officials who described the conversation did so Wednesday on condition of anonymity, saying they had not been authorized to disclose details.
Bush convened the session to give momentum to the drive for election-year immigration legislation, a contentious issue that has triggered large street demonstrations and produced divisions in both political parties. Senators of both parties emerged from the session praising the president's involvement and said the timetable was achievable.
"Yes, he thinks people should be given a path to citizenship," said Sen. Mel Martinez., R-Fla., a leading supporter of immigration legislation in the Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"Bush didn't call the Minutemen vigilantes."
Did you just forget, or what?
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050324-075949-5943r.htm
Complete nonsense. You want to rattle back to me what Abraham Lincoln or Herbert Hoover's approval ratings were?
You're right!
Ever see him kiss IMUS butt? It's sickening but very telling.
In 2000?
Your favorite Jimmy Carter for starters.
You might just as well ask that all in favor of "amnesty" reply to your post. The fact is, it isn't something that anybody will own up to; but there are many here who support policies that encourage illegal aliens to flood across the border.
Well, there was that push poll at Ford's Theater...
Yes the enitre thing is a big mess.
New illegals pouring in since the 1986 citizenship amnesty.
Yet they take their partial facts from the MSM and they blaim Bush.
We've been through this already
Why not just post the actually transcript of what he said
Facts don't matter.
Oh yes he did! Hmmm...now I question the truthfulness of all your other statements
Oh no he didn't. Now I question your objectivity, and your sources of news.
Yikes...the illegal immigration apologists seem to have completely overtaken this thread.
And that makes you feel comfortable when the only name you can list who had a lower rating than Bush has is Carter? You feel good about that?
My God!
Facts don't matter.
I don't need the Washington Post, AP, etc., to tell me what I've known for quite a well. From the moment he started referring to them as "guest workers", etc. (i.e. anybody but criminals, which is what they are), it was clear that he was "reaching out" the the criminals, I mean less fortunate.
WACO, Texas — President Bush yesterday said he opposes a civilian project to monitor illegal aliens crossing the border, characterizing them as "vigilantes."
He said he would pressure Congress to further loosen immigration law.
More than 1,000 people — including 30 pilots and their private planes — have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol.
Mr. Bush said after yesterday's continental summit, with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at Baylor University, that he finds such actions unacceptable.
"I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. "I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way."
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050324-122200-6209r.htm
I may never vote again.
The last time I saw this come up, some of you folks finally conceded the point, but then started arguing that the Minutemen in fact are vigilantes so Bush was just "keeping it real".
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