Posted on 09/23/2001 6:21:59 AM PDT by sarcasm
WASHINGTON -- Amnesty for some undocumented immigrants has become a casualty of last week's catastrophe, with the Bush administration focused on tightening security at home and waging war on terrorism abroad.
"This is a wake-up call," said Dan Stein, director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based group that has long advocated tighter border controls and tougher penalties for undocumented aliens and their U.S. employers.
"We have spent the last 20 years dismantling our laws and have forgotten that, in order to have security, you first have to have perimeter control."
Harry Pachon, director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a Claremont-based think tank that specializes in immigration and other Latino rights issues, acknowledged immigration reforms will be delayed.
"It's totally understandable that these issues, along with many others, have been put on the back burner since the Sept. 11 attacks," he said. "But we also have to make sure that the draconian powers we are proposing to give to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to fight terrorists are not extended to all people."
Pachon, who monitors Spanish-speaking media, said legalization remains a key goal for Latinos, especially in Southern California. The region is home to 2.1 million Mexican immigrants, the nation's highest concentration, as well as 600,000 immigrants from Central America.
An estimated 40 percent of those immigrants are believed to be undocumented.
Stein and other critics of INS policies are outraged that immigration controls proposed in 1993 to identify, track and deport abusers of tourist, student and work visas were never implemented. Those moves were made in the wake of the 1993 truck bombing of New York's World Trade Center.
Several of the terrorists convicted of the 1993 attack, which killed six persons and injured more than 1,000, came to the United States on student visas after being admitted to American colleges. The suspects quickly dropped out or never even attended the schools, but went underground to prepare for their attack.
The FBI has found that several of the terrorist hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers and hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11 also misused student, travel and work visas. They further took advantage of lax immigration controls at ports of entry along the Canadian border.
Higher education lobbyists, citing high administrative costs, derailed legislation that would have required schools to notify the INS -- via a national database -- of foreign no-shows and dropouts who held student visas.
Immigration reform, including a proposal by Bush to grant legal status to millions of Mexicans residing in the United States, topped the administration's agenda when Mexican President Vicente Fox visited the White House on Sept. 5, less than a week before the terrorist attack.
Last week, Bush informed Fox, who was seeking some form of amnesty program by the end of the year, that the effort has been put on hold.
Also on the shelf is a plan by Bush to open American highways to Mexican trucks by Jan. 1. That move, part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, has been delayed since its designated Jan. 1, 2000, implementation date, because of concerns over vehicle and driver safety.
Bush had threatened to veto a transportation spending bill that calls for continuing the ban on Mexican trucks. The ban enjoyed wide support among both Democratic and Republican House members from Southern California. Bush is now expected to sign the bill. Congress and the White House hope to complete a basic 2001-02 federal budget as early as this week and shift their full attention to recovery and the war on terrorism.
Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Oxnard, a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, is among many House members who are advocating increased border and immigration controls.
In a Sept. 18 letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gallegly wrote that "the key to regaining control of our borders and identify alien terrorists in our country is the commitment of resources and the will to enforce laws that already exist."
He specifically asked Ashcroft to halt an INS program, begun in 1994, that allows aliens to adjust their status after they have arrived in the U.S.
Applicants for legal residency previously had to apply in their home countries and go through background checks by officials at U.S. embassies and consulates.
Gallegly also asked that the Justice Department set up a central database so that the Border Patrol and other federal agencies can better identify terrorists and track down violators of INS rules.
Ashcroft has already proposed wider arrest and detention powers for the INS in cases involving suspected terrorists. That plan has drawn concern from civil rights advocates.
"The new immigration rules are broad, but I believe they are needed and will be effective in meeting this terrorism threat," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, who also serves on the House Judiciary Committee. "I know there are concerns about civil liberties. But the atmosphere has totally changed. We're going to be seeing every issue through the prism of what happened on Sept. 11."
"There's a huge danger of this nation becoming xenophobic and of anti-immigrant groups using this crisis or changes in the laws to further their own agenda," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Both Pachon and Wilkes expressed confidence that amnesties and other legalization programs for undocumented aliens will return to the forefront once the terrorism crisis has passed.
"I would tell concerned Latinos to remain calm and get an understanding of the American political process. These goals can still be achieved," Pachon said.
Barbara Coe, president of the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform, said that tougher immigration laws and enforcement are now musts if the nation is to defend itself against terrorism.
"This disaster has been created by our own corrupt politicians who have welcomed in these terrorists with open arms," Coe said. "Our border is still like a sieve, and we fear that the government will again fail to take the steps needed to protect its citizens."
FAIR's Stein said the cataclysmic events of Sept. 11 have left him with mixed feelings of sadness and rage.
"We've been talking about these immigration problems for years," he said. "It's awful to be vindicated in such a horrible, horrible way."
This virtually pin-points the problem. What a crock excuse! Higher education, dominated by American hating left wing extremists thinks that it is too burdensome to report a student on a student visa who doesn't show up for class. Yet it is "part of living in a democracy" to burden a small business owner with far more intrusive regulation and reporting requirements with an alphabet soup of agencies.
The colleges have no problem classifying students by gender, race, sexual orientation, ad infinitum for the purpose of passing out admissions, campus jobs and other perks . . . but to report persistent no-shows and drop-outs? Forget it!
A visitor gave me his genuine thick Friday September 7th NYTIMES that he brought down to read on the airplane. I saved this rarity, I threw it on a shelf, and only looked at it yesterday. This newspaper had typical puff piece coverage of Vicente Fox and GWBush's joint visit to Toledo Ohio. All very dated and quaint now after the pitfalls of our open borders immigration policy have been made obvious.
In the same paper was a picture of that 14 year old Dominican little league pitcher.... Danny Altamonte. Being taken to public school here. For the first time probably. He's an illegal alien of course. And his father is also here probably. He is a visa overstayer, meaning illegal alien
Actually, reforms will be speeded up. And we will, or better have, real reforms, ones that protect America.
There is one way I do think amnesty should be given, any Mexican who would volunteer for military service and fight for this country would prove they deserved citizenship.
This seems too much like the British when they purchased the services of the Hessian soldiers during the Revolutionary War.
AMERICA'S SOVEREIGNTY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR TRADE
AMERICA IS ABOUT MORE THAN MONEY!
" Our vital national interests are the security and sovereignty of the U.S.A. Now that the extraordinary era of the Cold War is over, we need a more traditional American foreign policy for more traditional times to keep us out of the kind of wars that have destroyed every other great power in history.
In the words of John Quincy Adams, our greatest Secretary of State, "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
When U.S. interests are threatened, or our citizens attacked, or our honor impugned, America will fight-but we will not commit our forces carelessly or sacrifice American soldiers to save the faces of foolhardy interventionists.
We will withdraw from all United Nations and global organizations that do not serve U.S. interests. Not one dime from the International Monetary Fund will go to prop up corrupt foreign regimes or countries hostile to the United States. And not one United States soldier will be forced to swear allegiance to an international organization."
Their services are no longer needed with this recession. Deport them on our empty airplanes and give the airline industry a boost. Deport their asses back to their beloved discombobulated bizarro homeland.
When I see the airline biz given a bailout I call this a recession
I think if an illegal has been living and working here and is now willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this country, they would deserve to stay, the others don't. I also think it's interesting how Fox proved that Mexico only demands full access to our economy and all our social benefits but when it comes to defending our freedoms with us it was "hasta la vista" and again it was Great Britain that proved to be the true blue friend.
I guess I even think we were all too busy looking at the illegals from Mexico who never intended to kill us all and we missed the much much bigger threat from the Arab immigrants who did come to kill us.
That is the way of the left. Expect to see more.
Kick out all the illegals and close the borders for 30-40 years until we acclimate all that came here legally.
I blame that f*****g NAFTA. It's decimating the rural areas of Mexico. I'll bet 85% of all Mexicans who worm their way in here (legally or illegally) are from the rural areas or they are just one generation removed from the land. We are getting the country bumpkins that NAFTA is driving off the land via export of cheap US corn down there
Yes you are right, the people no longer have a way to make a living in Mexico and much is due to NAFTA. The same thing happened to over 10,000 people just in my town when NAFTA sent their only job out and they haven't found work yet because there are always other people more qualified than a 50 year old ex-seamstress who never learned English. Things were better before the government tried to rearrange them all.
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