Posted on 06/19/2007 4:57:21 AM PDT by IrishMike
Supporters of “comprehensive immigration reform,” also known as amnesty, are not out of tricks yet. The next tactic we can look forward to is an attempt to win over some conservative senators by making “improvements” to the bill that turn out, on inspection, to be meaningless. Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is expected to offer her colleagues welcome cover by proposing an amendment that she claims would remove amnesty from the bill.
The bill grants almost all illegal immigrants “probationary legal status” immediately. When various enforcement “triggers” are met, the government will start issuing “Z visas,” and the illegal immigrants are supposed to apply for those visas within the next six months. If they want to become “legal permanent residents” on a path to citizenship, however, they will have to return briefly to their home countries (or a foreign consulate, if the Secretary of State allows it) to file their applications.
The bill’s “touchback” requirement appears aimed at making it appear that the newly-legalized aliens are applying for permanent status from their home countries “just like other applicants.” This exercise in window-dressing fails to disguise the fact that under the bill illegal aliens enjoy their own privileged pathway to citizenship, don’t compete with applicants who have complied with U.S. immigration laws, and come right back into the United States after applying abroad.
Senator Hutchison says that this “touchback” before permanent residency amounts to a grant of “amnesty,” and therefore opposes it. She thinks that the illegal immigrants should have to leave the country in order to file additional paperwork before they can get the Z visas.
But this is a distinction without a difference. Whether or not she is successful in amending the bill, illegal immigrants will get probationary legal status, and thus the ability to work in this country without being subject to deportation, immediately. That’s amnesty: The law-breakers get the object of their crime. An immigrant who overstayed his visa can keep working under the Hutchison plan. Another immigrant who obeyed the law and left when his visa expired, on the other hand, will be out of luck.
Indeed, Hutchison’s idea might well make the bill worse. Under her proposal, illegal immigrants will have gotten probationary legal status. Both the immigrant lobby and the low-wage employer lobby will be relatively happy. Neither group will have any interest in seeing enforcement measures trip the “trigger,” in which case the government would start issuing Z visas and the workers would have to leave temporarily or lose their probationary status.
Senator Hutchison believes that the amnesty bill would be improved with her “touchback” gimmick. Nobody else should.
Probationary legal status = end of enforcement of immigration laws within US borders for employers and employees. Damn Right the OBL and illegals will be HAPPY!
bttt
They can make an ammedment that says anythiing they want.
They can also strip every single ammedment out of the bill when it gets to committee to "iron out" any differences between the Senate version and the House version.
Ammendments don't mean a damn thing except cover for the way Senators and Congressment vote.
This POS bill should be shot down in flames. Otherwise they will keep screwing around with it until the public gets tired of protesting and it passes.
Republicrats all!
We the people, by the people, for the people ...
used to mean something.
It is said, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
While the offering of an amendment can be used as a poison pill or used to highlight a failing, it also is a demonstration that too few representatives in both houses understand that the public does not want a new global fix-it law, especially when it is self-evident that the problem comes from all three branch's failure to do their job under the existing law.
Z visa holders would immediately be given Social Security numbers and would begin earning entitlement to Social Security and Medicare (which are not means-tested welfare programs). Some ten to thirteen years after enactment, amnesty recipients would begin to gain access to a wide variety of means-tested welfare programs, such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, public housing, and Food Stamps. The amnesty process under S.1348, and the different stages of the process at which amnesty recipients become eligible for different government benefits, are precisely described in “Amnesty Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers at Least $2.6 Trillion.”
So they will ban them for legal citizens so we can’t fight back. Problem solved.
Even Time magazine calls it “amnesty”.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1630543,00.html
(McLame)”Critics of the bill attack this as amnesty,” he said. “[But] we impose fines, fees and other requirements as punishment.” The bill, he said, is not amnesty.
(Time) “Yes, it is. Whether you fine illegal aliens or stick them in English classes or make them say a hundred Hail Marys, at the end of the day, illegals would be allowed to stay and become citizens under this bill. That’s amnesty.”
The administration, however, persists in calling it a “path to citizenship” but they insist it’s not amnesty.
The Z visa is—believe it or not—a permanent, temporary visa. It’s automatic. It’s amnesty.
Mr. Bush, stop peeing down our legs and telling us it’s raining.
The Z visa is—believe it or not—a permanent, temporary visa. It’s automatic. It’s amnesty.
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IMMEDIATELY !!!!!
Z visa holders would immediately be given Social Security numbers and would begin earning entitlement to Social Security and Medicare
Exactly. The Republicrats don’t want to put anyone on a “path” to anywhere.
All they want is amnesty, and they lie about wanting it.
And they want it now.
All they want is amnesty, and they lie about wanting it.
And they want it now.
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It’s the WHY part I cannot figure.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It confounds me as well. All I can guess is:
1.) cheap labor, for the `pubs;
2.) votes, for the Dhimmis; and/or,
3.) President Bush has been abducted and replaced by illegal aliens: http://www.supersimpsons.com/kang-kodos.htm
It’s the WHY part I cannot figure.
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I have come to the conclusion that it is more than just cheap labor for the Republicans. The corporations of this country AGREE with the leftists now. They wish to socialize their costs at OUR expense and maximize their profits, ALL ON OUR BACKS AND OUT OF OUR POCKETS.
For them, more democrat voters is just peachy, a bonus. It explains all the years these corporations funded the left with, what I thought was just payoff money. HA! They AGREED with them. It is a perfect storm. Corporations hand and hand with leftists to increase their power AND impoverish the rest of us. They think that is excellent. No cost to them.
That is the old “Pence” amnesty plan.
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