Posted on 06/03/2006 1:27:38 PM PDT by Doctor13
Yesterday Sean Hannity, a conservative who I think generally tries to do a good job of researching his stories, attacked one of the most conservative members of the House of Representative, Chris Cannon, who happens to be my congressman. In that attack he joined what has become a nationwide campaign to defeat Congressman Cannon over the issue of the illegal immigration problem. Rep. Cannon has been voting for bills to address the illegal alien problem since his first years in Congress during the Clinton Administration, as he points out on his website.
Cannon was voting for legislation in the House 5-7 years ago that was designed to do what many of his current critics claim they want done, i.e. “assist the Bureau of Border Security and U.S. Customs Service on preventing the entry of terrorists, drug traffickers, and illegal aliens into the United States” and stopping the sale of false identification documents that have allowed so many illegal alien to remain in the country and find jobs. He is probably the best informed member of Congress about what has worked and what hasn’t worked in addressing the problem.
The 11 to 12 million illegal aliens now in this country did not suddenly arrive since George W. Bush was first inaugurated in the year 2000. In fact, 20 years ago, when Senator Diane Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco, she made a major contribution towards helping illegal aliens remain in the USA by signing an ordinance, passed 4-3 in 1986 by the San Francisco City Council that made San Francisco a sanctuary city for illegal aliens and prohibited spending city funds to assist immigration enforcement.
This problem really started back in 1965 during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency when Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced a bill eliminating the national origins quotas of the 1920s that favored northern Europeans. The bill became part of the 1965 Civil Rights Act. It wasn’t a big deal at the time, but within 4 years of passage of Kennedy's bill the complexion of America had been forever reversed as new immigrants from Asia and Africa outnumbered European immigrants 4 to 1.
Then in 1982 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe, that a Texas statute which withheld state funds from local school districts for “the education of children who were not ‘legally admitted’ into the United States” , and which’authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children’ violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In 1986, as most Republicans want to carefully forget, conservative President Ronald Reagan signed a bill passed by Congress that was intended to stop the rapidly growing problem of illegal immigration by providing a one-time amnesty and banning employers from knowingly hiring illegal workers.
For 20 years it has been illegal for employers to hire illegal aliens. That was greeted by the creation of a new industry: the making and selling forged identification documents. In 1996 during the Clinton Administration a bill was passed, and signed, that called for fences to be built in San Diego and El Paso to stop illegal aliens. The unintended consequence of these border tightening efforts was a change in the behavior of the illegal aliens. The men who came through the porous borders to harvest or plant crops, stopped going home for fear they could not get back in the country. Instead, using the new law intended to unite families, they began bringing their families into the United States, instead of going back home. In effect, those laws ENCOURAGED rather than discouraging illegal aliens to stay in the USA.
Douglas S. Massey, a Princeton University sociologist and co-director of the Mexican Migration Project, after a survey of more than 18,000 migrants, observed, “We've transformed what was before 1986 a circular flow of workers into an increasingly settled population of families. We have actually accelerated the rate of undocumented population growth in the United States and shifted it from a relatively less costly population of male workers into a much more costly population of families."
In spite of this history that efforts to close the borders and to build fences at the borders have dramatically INCREASED the flow of illegal workers into this country, we now have a growing and angry demand that we repeat exactly what has failed in the past. We are also experiencing an election year effort to defeat people like Congressman Cannon who has a ten year record of trying to correct the problem and who knows that the “cures” being demanded by Sean Hannity and others make the problem worse.
In 2004 we in the 3rd Congressional district of Utah were bombarded with propaganda, largely funded by people outside of Utah, to defeat Chris Cannon. Billboards which inaccurately claimed that the bill introduced by Chris Cannon was an “amnesty” bill were funded by a Manhattan restaurant owner who, it turned out, had mostly illegal aliens working in his restaurants.
So, how come he was spending his money trying to deceive the sometimes gullible voters of Utah about Chris Cannon? I think he was really just trying to defeat a congressman who has been trying for 10 years to actually DO something about illegal aliens.
Deception has become a major weapon in American politics. Many who claim they want to STOP the influx of illegal aliens are really merely working to defeat the only people in Congress who are trying to actually stop the influx of illegal aliens!
Is this just simple ignorance of the history of illegal immigration that prompts so many people to demand a repeat of past failed policies, or do they really KNOW the history and are trying to deceive the public in order to eliminate those who might come up with a workable solution to the problem of illegal aliens?
240,000 illegal alien sex offenders in the country with nearly 100 more arriving each day. All have an average of 4 victimes each. This according to the Violent crimes institute of Atlanta.
http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html
Guess we should just tell the million victims they're being ignorant.
Yes.
I'll wager deception and raise you that they are counting on voter ignorance.
Sorry, Mary. If you believe Chris Cannon on immigration reform, it is YOU who has been deceived.
John Jacob for Congress!
The wheel has turned, and it is time for Chris Cannon to GO!
For those who don't know, Utah has a unique party election system. Delegates to the state convention vote for Congressional and statewide candidates. If the candidate, incumbent or not, receives over 60% of the vote, there is no primary.
At the Utah convention a couple weeks ago, Chris Cannon received a vote of no confidence from his own party. He was outpolled by John Jacob, forcing a primary.
Cannon is going down, thank God.
ping...
This guy?:
"We love immigrants in Utah. And we don't oftentimes make the distinction between legal and illegal. In fact I think Utah was the first state in the country to legislate the ability to get a drivers license based on the matricula consular and of that I am proud."
Rep. Cannon
Is this writer saying that the influx of illegals into the US are a result of trying to close the border? If so, what a dolt. What has increased the inflow is that we have not REALLY made an effort to close the border, and have winked and nodded at employers who hire them, and have basically put out the welcome mat.
susie
This hasn't been tried, really. With a few miles of fences up, it is simple for those who want in to cross instead at locations with no fencing (or ineffective fencing.)
ping...
Glad you posted this. Its gives some well deserved balance in perspectives toward Cannon. I have already spent my meager donation to him
We also need prison sentences for the criminals who hire illegals. They are the lure.
Yes, she is and it is not as dumb as it sounds. She is saying that the temporary workers who came here seasonally to pick crops would go back home to their families after the picking season was over. When they put up walls at the entrance points in San Diego and El Paso those workers became afraid to go home for fear they couldn't come back the next season so they stayed and brought their families to the US instead. Now they are permanent, though illegal, residents. So trying to stop the problem only increased it.
Now, however, it is too late to correct that problem that was created by closing the borders, partially, so we must close it completely. That was an example of unintended consequences.
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