GOP Nears Deal on Immigration

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502038.html ^

[Altair333]

Senate Republicans reached agreement last night on a compromise immigration measure that they believe will garner enough bipartisan support to break through a parliamentary impasse that has stymied progress on a high-stakes border security bill for two weeks.

Under the agreement, the Senate would allow undocumented workers a path to lawful employment and citizenship if they could prove -- through work stubs, utility bills or other documents -- that they have been in the country for five years. To attain citizenship, those immigrants would have to pay a $2,000 penalty, back taxes, learn English, undergo a criminal background check and remain working for 11 years.

Those who have been here a shorter time would have to return to one of 16 designated ports of entry, such as El Paso, Tex., and apply for a new form of temporary work visa for low-skilled and unskilled workers.

[Farmer Dean]

There was a whole lot more going on in Germany than just inflation.The failure of the government then to deal with the subversive Marxists was a major cause of nazi rise to power.Our whole economy is a house of cards,just waiting to collapse.While it's true we're not to the point Germany was yet,all indicators are we headed in that direction.

[thoughtomator]

Take a look at India and tell me why they are able to maintain not one but two fences with a total length of three times the US-Mexico border, and we are not.

[thoughtomator]

While I am the last one to jump on the "look-how-good-the-economy-is" bandwagon, I do not agree. This country has too many resources, too much space, and too many real assets to end up like Weimar Germany. In the absolute worst case, as a remote possibility, we may end up doing a replay of our own 1930s, but definitely not Germany's. The context is far too different, and we don't have the temptation of the French sitting right across the border just waiting to be put in their rightful place, oh, soooo tempting...

[Farmer Dean]

While only the future can tell which position is right(and I PRAY that you're right),I can see this country is in a lot of trouble and no one seems to be doing anything to really correct the situation.When a half million can march and demand a big chunck of the southwest,and the response of the government is to cave to their imigration demands-I am not encouraged.

[thoughtomator]

The pendulum swings... in this past year we have seen it swing as far left as it's going to go for a long time. Decent, ordinary citizens are waking up en masse to what is being dumped on them, and are rising in anger. People who were militantly non-political are now talking about the dual threats of Islam and Aztlan.

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

I agree. First, this deal has to be reconciled with the House bill and there is no guarantee that this will happen. Second, in order to be even eligible for citizenship under this deal a person has to be here for a total of 16 years and go through a whole bunch of hoops. I have a hard time believing that many will qualify.

I have done a lot of court appointeed criminal defense work. It would be impossible to put every criminal convicted of possession of marijuana or assault or some such misdemeanor in jail for 60 days to a year. So, Courts impose lots of conditions in order for people to stay out of jail and on probation. The majority fail to comply and they end up serving time in jail. Some actually are successful.

If this is the real deal, it will allow us to keep a grip on these illegals by the short hairs. In many cases, this will result in de facto deportation.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"I have het to hear any politician say we need illegals because there are not enough Americans to fill jobs."

That's becayse most politicians don't tell the truth, however, that happens to be a known act.

[nicmarlo]

You know the next thing will be to officially allow people to vote even if they are not yet citizens.

They're one step ahead of ya, Wilhelm.....in NY, they're in the process of doing that....already!

Non-Citizens Expected to Get Voting Rights in NYC

Legislation granting non-citizens the right to vote is expected to pass in New York City this year, immigration rights advocates tell the Amsterdam News.

"We’re very excited and very optimistic that this will pass," New York City Councilman Charles Barron said at a recent press briefing. "We see this as the historical launching of something that should have happened a long time ago," the outspoken Democrat added.

Dubbed the "Voting Rights Restoration Act," the measure would permit immigrants who have a green card to vote in municipal elections, including for mayor, comptroller and city council, after having lived in the city for six months.

[snip]

Once this is approved, or something like it, it's only a matter of time that they do away with the "green card" requirement. If U.S. Citizenship is being done away with as a prerequisite to voting in American elections, tell me how hard you think it could possibly be to do away with (or forge) the "substituted" document requirement, whether that be a green card, a visa, or other piece of paper?

[Luis Gonzalez]

"You do realize, Torie, that app. 30% of those in Federal prisons are illegals?

Ooh!

I LOVE statistics!!!

According to this report by the GAO, there were 49,000 illegal aliens incarcerated in Federal prisons, 74,000 incarcerated in State prisons, and 147,000 in local prisons in 2003.

That's a total of 270,000 in jail in 2003.

Now, I was in this forum debating the illegal alien issue in 2003, and the generally accepted total number of illegal aliens in the country by most in here was set at somewhere between 15 and 18 million. These days the FR generally accepted figure has increased to 20 million.

Let's use a neutral figure of 15 million illegal aliens in the US in 2003...I'm sure that you believe that there were AT LEAST that many here then.

If so then, those 270,000 incarcerated in 2003 represented 1.8% of all illegal aliens in the country in jail.

Now, how does that hold up against overall statistics?

State and Federal Inmates by Race

Source: Percentages calculated from data in Table 13, Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2002," April 6, 2003. White and Black excludes Hispanics.

Now, there were 2.1 million people in US jails in 2003, 270,000 of them illegal aliens, which means that 12.9% of all inmates in US prisons in 2003 were illegal aliens, and by our assumption, all Mexicans, which makes Hispanics in general a far more law-abiding bunch than any other single major ethnic group in the nation.

Now, let's discuss your statement quoted above; it's incorrect.

The actual statement is that 30% of the Federal prison population are foreign-born inmates, whether they are illegal aliens or not is not to be found anywhere on the net.

Most of them are in Federal prison on Federal drug trafficking charges, captured while in the process of "importing" their goods. The aliens in Federal prisons are generally NOT people who jumped the border to get a job as a dishwasher, but instead decided to import 200 kilos of cocaine.

Are illegal aliens a problem?

Certainly the are, but I think that the real reason why this issue suddenly seemed to jump to the prominence that we are seeing today has a lot more to do with mid-term elections than anything else.

I will hazard a guess that after these mid-terms, the media will forget about the issue...specially of the DNC manages to wrest control of the House and Senate from the GOP.

Carry on.

[nicmarlo]

ooooh....thanks for pointing out the TOTAL of those in jail, as opposed to illegals who represent those who the govt. decided to arrest, as that reminded me, there'd be SO MANY MORE ILLEGAL ALIENS IN JAIL/DEPORTED, if the govt. was DOING ITS JOB enforcing the laws; RATHER, they do things such as this:

Bush official slammed for stopping illegals sweeps

Asa Hutchinson refuses to say if popular California roundups will continue
July 13, 2004

Border Patrol agents who executed highly popular roundups of illegal aliens in Southern California last month – the first of their kind in recent memory – say they've been told to stop such enforcement action, and the Bush administration official in charge of the immigration enforcement has refused to say if there would be additional sweeps in the future.

[nicmarlo]

More important than loving statistics, I love facts. Information abounds, if one takes their head out of the sand, that shows sheriff departments and local police are not doing their jobs (arresting illegals), either:

The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave
Heather Mac Donald

Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law. The LAPD’s ban on immigration enforcement mirrors bans in immigrant-saturated cities around the country, from New York and Chicago to San Diego, Austin, and Houston. These “sanctuary policies” generally prohibit city employees, including the cops, from reporting immigration violations to federal authorities.

* * *

Police commanders may not want to discuss, much less respond to, the illegal-alien crisis, but its magnitude for law enforcement is startling. Some examples:

• In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.

• A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.

• The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.’s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation.

Good luck finding any reference to such facts in official crime analysis.

[Luis Gonzalez]

If the government was doing its job, then it would jail the people committing the felonies involved in the illegal alien issue.

They would jail the people who hire illegal aliens.

But you'll never see Tyson executives in jail.

The illegal aliens are here because people here give them jobs.

Being here illegally is a misdemeanor, hiring an illegal alien is a felony.

Illegal aliens make up 5% of the total US workforce...if you want to identify the real problem here, why don't you try to find out how many employers are in jail for hiring those millions of illegal workers.

Instead of trying to arrest and deport millions of people, we could just throw a few hundred white collar, illegal alien hiring employers in jail, watch the jobs dry up, and then watch the illegals go home.

The government is trying to convince you of the impossibility of deporting millions of people, and are desperately trying to keep your attention focused away from the fact that instead of writing more laws that they will not enforce, what they should really be doing is enforcing the laws they've already written, and throw employers in jail.

You are all emotionally wrapped up on the wrong issue.

Demand that the government enforce the laws and jail employers if you want this issue solved.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I do love statistics, and hate how people manipulate them in order to paint misleading pictures.

Here's one:

"In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens."

Now, there were a total of 433 murders in LA County in 2005, those outstanding warrants are a cumulative figure going back years, if not decades.

[nicmarlo]

what they should really be doing is enforcing the laws they've already written, and throw employers in jail. You are all emotionally wrapped up on the wrong issue. Demand that the government enforce the laws and jail employers if you want this issue solved.

First of all, any HONEST person would hardly characterize ANYTHING I'VE EVER POSTED concerning illegal aliens as EMOTIONAL. Rather, it is FACTUAL.

Secondly, point to any of my posts wherein I stated that employers who knowingly hire illegals should not be charged with the commission of a crime?

Thirdly, to place law enforcement duties upon the employers is not only wrong, but impossible. Additionally, it takes away the focus concerning the problem. It's not mutually exclusive. Employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens (and there are many, many here in FR who claim they do just that), whether they commit these crimes by giving "winks and nods" to "immigration documentation" or not asking for them at all, they should be heavily, heavily fined. But if the Border Patrol and local police authorities were actually ALLOWED to enforce existing laws, rather than MANDATED NOT TO, the problem would only begin to be solved. If the border was sealed, so the flow of illegals could come to a halt, or at least a dribble, the number of illegals getting in, coupled with the REDUCED draw for jobs that would no longer exist, coupled with the INCREASED incarceration of those who are detained.....the dike could be repaired.

[nicmarlo]

Words mean something, Luis. She didn't say there were 1,200 to 1,500 murders.

Heather Mac Donald said there were 1,200 to 1,500 OUTSTANDING WARRANTS for murder; of those, 95% were targeted for illegals. To quote her in Testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims, she stated:

-- In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in the first half of 2004 (which totaled 1,200 to 1,500) targeted illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) were for illegal aliens.

[ElPatriota]

IF we let them get away with this, it's only a matter of time before they shred the rest of the Constitution!!!! They have proved that they are incompetent and unable to lead our country according to laws set forth in the Constitution, and I say it's time for them to go.

I share your outrage. It's like everything in life, if you can do something and get away with it.. they will keep doing it. The illegals will keep coming and in 10 years from now, we'll be hearing the same BS argument "oh, but they are here already.... BS, BS, BS."

THE THING TO DO IS **NOT TO VOTE FOR THOSE WHO PASS AMNESTY or some crap like it. That's it. If winning means having these RINOs, I would rather lose and get rid off them.

[Borax Queen]

You are all emotionally wrapped up on the wrong issue.

Oh, puh-lease!!

[Moonman62]

Those who have been here a shorter time would have to return to one of 16 designated ports of entry, such as El Paso, Tex., and apply for a new form of temporary work visa for low-skilled and unskilled workers.

And if they don't, will the government enforce the law?

[Luis Gonzalez]

"95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in the first half of 2004 (which totaled 1,200 to 1,500) targeted illegal aliens."

Three times as many outstanding warrants for murders as there are murders in a year in Los Angeles County.

"Outstanding" means that they are unresolved, it does not tell you how long they have been outstanding.

If a warrant for murder was issued in 1968, and no one has been picked up, it's an outstanding warrant in 2006.

Words DO mean something.

[nicmarlo]

Yes, words DO mean something.

95% of outstanding warrants are targeted for ILLEGAL ALIENS.