Free Republic

Why Does Governor Napolitano Think Arizona Should have the Lowest Security Standards in the Nation? Governor Janet Napolitano made a big show of sending a “bill” to the federal government for the costs of illegal immigration, complete with tough talk and finger-pointing. However, by vetoing meaningful reform in her own backyard, she is turning a blind eye to fraud, identity theft and other crimes committed in Arizona by illegal immigrants. I sponsored Senate Bill 1511 -- “secure and verifiable identification” -- to establish a standard for identification used by state and local government as recommended by FBI testimony. The FBI...

As part of the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill, Congress voted to support legislation for the use of federal troops on the Mexican-American borders. The National Border Control Council and the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed the legislation mandating the stationing of U.S. troops on the Mexican-American border to support the U.S. Border Patrol. [SNIP] On a more personal note, Virginia Sen. George Allen said, "Legal immigration has been and is the lifeblood of our nation. My own mother followed the process and emigrated to the U.S. from Tunisia after World War II. I have the greatest respect for the ingenuity,...

This is a dynamite article, but unfortunately can't give you anything but the link under the FR rules because it's USA Today. http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050518/ts_usatoday/mexicansgotoarizformedicalhelp/nc:716

Feinstein targets agricultural workers. Senator plans to introduce an industry-specific bill, rather than a sweeping measure on immigration. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday that she ... plans to introduce her own measure to provide a path toward legalization only for longtime undocumented agriculture workers. Feinstein, D-Calif., said any new guest-worker program – even one requiring employees to eventually return to their home country – would be a "magnet for illegal immigration" and something she could not support. SNIP Under Feinstein's idea, which hasn't yet been finalized, longtime undocumented agricultural workers would get a "blue card," allowing them to continue to...

Victory is in sight thanks to your tremendous efforts! The House today passed by a vote of 368-58 the final conference agreement on the Emergency Appropriations Supplemental Act (H.R. 1268) with Rep. Sensenbrenner's (R-WI) REAL ID provisions largely intact. This is a major victory for homeland security and the fight against illegal immigration! These provisions will help keep driver's licenses out of the hands of illegal aliens and the terrorists among them, will close dangerous loopholes in our asylum system, and will improve border security by enabling the completion of the San Diego/Tijuana border fence. Your continuous faxes, emails, phone...

Analysis of the latest Census data indicates Texas’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers more than $4.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to more than $3.7 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden amounts to about $725 per Texas household headed by a native-born resident. This analysis looks specifically at the costs to the state for education, health care and incarceration resulting from illegal immigration. These three are the largest cost areas, and they are the same three...

The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday unanimously passed the emergency spending bill for the war on terror, but left out restrictions on using driver's licenses as federal identification and asylum claims that passed in the House version. The $80.4 billion bill is $1 billion less than the version that passed in the House three weeks ago, and $1.5 billion less than what President Bush had initially requested. It trims the foreign-affairs appropriations by $1.4 billion from what Mr. Bush requested, cutting aid he sought as a reward for nations that have contributed armed forces to the war on terror. But the...

WASHINGTON — Half a million or so illegal immigrants now picking America's crops could become legal residents and eventually U.S. citizens under sweeping legislation reintroduced Thursday. Backed by hundreds of farm, labor and church groups, the so-called AgJobs bill still faces serious political hurdles. Though similar legislation withered in the last Congress, supporters insist this year's effort will be less encumbered by election-year politics. "If the farmworkers and agribusiness can put aside decades of often bitter differences, surely Congress and the White House can do the same," United Farm Workers president Arturo Rodriguez said at a Capitol Hill news conference....

WASHINGTON - Everyone considers immigration reform a top priority when Congress reconvenes next month. But no one agrees what "reform" means. "I fully understand the politics of immigration reform," President Bush assured reporters this week. Many lawmakers, including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, call tougher enforcement the centerpiece of reform. Many others interpret reform as a code word for a guest-worker program that puts illegal immigrants on track toward a green card. This apparent contradiction could doom legislation. Or perhaps Capitol Hill's long immigration stalemate could be broken by some deft combination of getting tough and giving hope....

AGJOBS is legislation only a liberal could love. Yet, conservative Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) its sponsor, has now moved to take his bill straight to the floor. This bill to legalize illegal aliens working in American agriculture helped to stall much-needed class action reform from coming before the Senate in July. Craig tried to attach AGJOBS to the legal reform bill. He has vowed to offer this legislation to every bill the Senate moves the rest of the session, despite Bush administration opposition. Craig brokered the bill-writing among agriculture lobbyists, immigration lawyers and the ethnic identity lobby. Farm lobbyists in...

Senators Larry Craig (R-ID) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) have reintroduced their AgJOBS amnesty bill under a procedural rule that allows the bill to go directly to the Senate floor. The reintroduced bill number is S. 2823. Don't let Senators Craig and Kennedy sneak this massive amnesty legislation through. [Click to send a free FAX to your senators.] [Or, make a phone call:] Keep you phone call short and to the point. Here's a sample call: "My name is (insert name). I am a constituent calling to urge Senator (insert name) to oppose the AgJOBS amnesty. If passed, AgJOBS will grant...

Opinion polls consistently show the vast majority of Americans oppose amnesty for illegal aliens. But some Republicans continue pushing amnesty legislation. In this case, it's called AgJOBS.Conservatives whom special interests have snookered into cosponsoring the agriculture amnesty--S. 1645 in the Senate and H.R. 3142 in the House--should read the fine print. In addition to the odious amnesty provisions, this legislation should give thinking cosponsors "buyer's remorse."Though Republicans are the lead AgJOBS sponsors, there is a good reason most cosponsors are liberal Democrats. AgJOBS is liberal legislationThe euphemism sponsors invoke is "earned legalization.".But amnesty is amnesty, by any other name. Bottom...

In July, President Bush instructed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to block a Senate floor vote on the AgJOBS bill (Agricultural, Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act, S.1645), which would allow an estimated 500,000 undocumented farm workers to earn the legal right to stay in this country by continuing to work in agriculture. The bill was negotiated over three years by the agricultural industry and the United Farm Workers. It has 63 Senate co-sponsors, including 26 Republicans, which is more than enough to ensure passage and block attempts to stall the measure. Another 111 members of the U.S. House...

Victory!!! All of your phone calls and faxes have made the AgJOBS amnesty so controversial that Senate leaders a few minutes ago barred the AgJOBS amnesty from being submitted as an amendment today to the legislation on the floor. As of last night, that amnesty definitely was coming up for a vote today. The power of constituency reaction was proven spectacularly this morning. The open-borders Senators and lobbyists had failed to bring the AgJOBS amnesty up for a vote on the Senate floor in previous attempts to add as an amendment to Department of Defense appropriations and others. The only...

Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Larry Craig (R-ID) are trying to sneak through their AgJOBS amnesty/"guestworker" bill (S. 1645) as an amendment (S. Amdt 3396) to the currently pending National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2400). The disastrous AgJOBS bill could grant amnesty to as many as three million illegal aliens in the U.S. and bring in hundreds of thousands of new immigrant workers. A vote on the Senate floor could come this week -- possibly tomorrow -- and Sens. Kennedy and Craig have every intention of attaching their amnesty bill to every piece of legislation on the Senate floor between...

President Bush wants to create a new class of "temporary" workers in America. As he said in his immigration proposal last week, he expects these workers to spend several years here, and he would offer them incentives to return permanently to their home countries. This is a reasonable idea but unduly limited. It is clear that there are low-skilled jobs that are open, and that there are many eager to come, earn higher wages here and then return. At the same time, some should be able to seek permanent residency. Moreover, the history of guest workers in America is a...

   The Jayson Blair Syndrome:  What Illegals?January 6, 2004  Illusion is the new reality.  Just like Jayson Blair turned fantasy into New York Times’ articles...politicians and special interests are about to morph the illegal into the legal.  There is a move afoot, in that “other America” (called the Nation’s capital), to turn a nightmare into a dream.  Two pending pieces of legislation, the AgJobs bill (S. 1645) and the Dream Act (S. 1545), if enacted, will make about as much sense as naming an airline in honor of Mohammad Atta.  Should it surprise you that the Traitor Times supports both...

<p>It is rare, almost unheard of in fact, for both the United Farm Workers Union and the California Farm Bureau to support the same major piece of immigration and labor legislation. But a new bipartisan bill in Congress has won the backing of the two longtime political foes. It offers an imperfect but pragmatic and politically practicable way to deal with one of the most difficult issues facing the country: the crush of illegal immigrants working in agriculture.</p>