Free Republic

Both gloat and glum hang over Washington after last week's Senate defeat of the immigration bill. But now what? Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has the best answer: Enforce current laws, however imperfect they may be. "To regain the credibility with the American people that has been squandered over 30 years, we're going to have to be tough," he said, after losing a months-long struggle on Capitol Hill to pass immigration reform. The squandering he refers to is the unfulfilled promise by several presidents to treat illegal immigrants with justice – and fairness. The justice lies in better securing the...

WASHINGTON - The United States remains safe after the attack at a Scottish airport and two foiled car bombs in London, and no lifting of the terror alert status is planned, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Monday. "We are safe, but we are safe because we continue to pay attention and we continue to add security measures," Chertoff said as the Fourth of July holiday approaches. The homeland security chief noted that it appears no suicide bombers were involved in the incidents over the past several days in Great Britain and said that sends the message that would-be terrorists...

Procedural snares and ``killer'' amendments threaten to disrupt the fragile coalition in the Senate that's holding together the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration policy since 1986. Supporters are scrambling to address the legislative obstacles before debate resumes next week. Opponents plan to try to derail the legislation by using procedural delays and offering poison-pill amendments that may split the coalition that sustains the measure. Passage of the legislation would give 12 million undocumented immigrants a chance at legal status while handing President George W. Bush a victory on his top domestic priority. ``This is a delicate balance. The wheels...

Along with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has been the Bush administration’s voice in an immigration debate that has divided Republicans. Gutierrez, a Cuban immigrant who became chief executive of Kellogg’s, said this week in an interview that he’s not disappointed by Republican opposition to the immigration bill, and that he hasn’t seen evidence that Democrats want to withhold a victory for President Bush. Gutierrez repeatedly framed the debate as a national security issue, predicting victory in part because of the “inevitability” of immigration reform. Q: If the Senate doesn’t approve a comprehensive immigration reform bill...

Today, it looks like the immigration issue is ripping apart the Republican Party. But tomorrow - 2008 - could be a different story. Specifically, it's George W. Bush who is ripping up Republican unity. Reflecting his own rich kid Texas roots - doesn't everyone own a ranch, requiring lots of nonwhite people to do the work? - Bush is determined to bring the benefits of the Tara Plantation lifestyle to more of his fellow millionaires. But what about the middle class, which finds its wages depressed, its culture besieged and its sovereignty challenged? Well, frankly, Bush doesn't give a damn....

Conservative Republicans working to block a compromise immigration bill risk endorsing a "silent amnesty" by insisting on unfeasible mass deportations, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in an interview published on Thursday. In remarks to USA Today, Chertoff also criticized liberal immigrant rights advocates, saying they could prolong the anguish of immigrant families by withholding support for legislation that could give them legal status. Chertoff spoke to the newspaper's editorial board in a preview of a Bush administration media campaign to build support of broad immigration legislation being debated by the U.S. Senate, USA Today said. The compromise bill...

What is it about Michael Chertoff, President Bush's unqualified, unsuccessful, unrepentant and yet still unreplaced Homeland Security Secretary? After (1) bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by treating FEMA as an unwanted step-child in a massive Homeland Security Department focused on the War on Terror and (2) hamstringing former FEMA Director Michael D. Brown by officially putting him in charge and then tethering him to Baton Rouge when he needed to be in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coat, it was Mr. Chertoff who should have resigned, but did not. For an encore, Mr. Chertoff ran Homeland Security...

Confiscating hair gel and Starbucks coffee is this year’s equivalent of the banning of nail clippers and lighters. Put another way, the enhanced security measures put into place at airports across the world following this month’s disruption of a plot by British Muslims to smuggle liquid explosives onto several transatlantic flights aren’t making airline passengers feel much safer. Which is why Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has tried to reassure American travelers about boarding an airplane by reminding them of such protections as the “prohibition on liquids, gels and beverages in carry-on baggage.” The problem is that while possible liquid...

Weekend Talk Show Preview - Analysis for August 12th and 13th, 2006On the shows this weekend I'm most interested by Vali Nasr, on CNN, and Ken Mehlman, on Meet The Press.  I think we'll learn more about the events in the Middle East from Nasr and more about the coming campaign from Mehlman than all of the other guests, combined.  Nasr is an expert, from Iran, on the issues of conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  I actually view this as our best hope of winning the coming world war.  Just as Communists and Nazis joined forces to start World...

One of the key issues in this fall’s Congressional election will be centered on what has been done to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the US. As things stand now, there is tremendous frustration over the lack of any meaningful progress on this issue and over the seeming lack of concern on the part of most Democrats, RINO Republican senators and President Bush. Perhaps, though, President Bush has somewhat gotten the message and responded to it (something no Democrat president would do).

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff spoke to a packed audience at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on Thursday, June 29 about immigration reform and the Secure Border Initiative, which is shaping up to be as big an issue on campus as it is this session of Congress. Chertoff said that increased border patrol security is needed along with a temporary worker program, to help meet the “strong demand for workers” in the U.S. and “break the incredible economic pressure on the border.” To deter illegal immigrants, Chertoff pushed for Congress to pass immigration reform legislation before the end of the...

President Bush has put forward a comprehensive vision for immigration reform that will secure our borders, strengthen interior enforcement and create a temporary worker program that is not amnesty but will provide a legal,regulated path for those seeking work in the United States. A key part of this strategy is effective worksite enforcement. Simply put, we need to give employers better tools to verify the legal status of their employees.Under the president's plan,we will provide new tools—including a tamper-proof identification card for legal foreign workers and an expanded electronic verification system that will allow employers to quickly and accurately confirm...

Federal authorities announced the arrests yesterday of four construction supervisors and 76 illegal immigrants at a Kentucky home-building company, continuing a promised government crackdown on employers that rely on illegal labor. The arrests at Fischer Homes, a leading builder in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, followed the April 19 arrests of seven current and former managers and more than 1,100 workers for Ifco Systems North America Inc., a subsidiary of a Dutch manufacturer of plastic crates and wooden pallets. The effort comes as Congress debates plans to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. "We will continue to bring criminal actions against employers...

Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last month Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard; today Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi will speak by video to a conference at Columbia University that his regime is cosponsoring. (Columbia won't answer questions about how much funding it got from Libya or what implied strings were attached.) Then there's Yale, which for three weeks has refused to make any comment or defense beyond a vague 144-word statement about its decision to admit Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi--a former ambassador-at-large of the murderous Afghan Taliban--as a special student. The three backers of the foundation that,...

Fox News Sunday (Chris Wallace) Memes: As usual it looks like Fox is reversing the main meme of the other shows: the usual suspects (Dems/MSM) are trying to blame the grown ups for a natural disasterThe MSM are out of their tiny minds, particularly CNN for lashing out at Brit Hume and Fox for the Cheney interviewThey are giving Evan Bayh a platform for trying to run right of George Bush on IRANThey are giving Lindsey Graham a platform to auditioning as John McCain's VP candidate, therefore he will take the Democrat talking points on NSA and repeat them, ad...

NEW YORK -- Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, compared the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo on Saturday and attacked the president as a liar.

Things are going from bad to worse at the Bush Department of Homeland Security. Do not be fooled by DHS chief Michael Chertoff's tough-sounding rhetoric. While the Washington muckety-mucks pay lip service to reforming the nation's broken detention and deportation system, catch-and-release of immigration lawbreakers remains the order of the day -- not only at the border, but all across the country's interior. The rudderless and overwhelmed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency still does not have a new chief. Which is just as well since Bush nominee Julie Myers (a nice Bush lawyer with virtually no immigration or customs...

Julie Myers is 36 years old, a lawyer and a political appointee to the Bush administration with limited executive experience. Yet, she is slated to become head of one of the nation's most critical security-related agencies, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Myers appointment, in the wake of FEMA's disastrous handling of the Katrina Hurricane and the resignation of its chief, Michael Brown, has people from both sides of the political aisle raising hackles. "The Bush administration has barely rebounded from the resignation of horse show organizer Michael ‘Heck...

Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows By Jonathan S. Landay, Alison Young and Shannon McCaffrey Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show. Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: President George Bush spoke to the nation during a rare live weekly radio address from the Rose Garden at the White House this morning. He announced that the U.S. military will send an additional 10,000 National Guard troops to Louisiana and Mississippi to assist in hurricane relief. The influx of new National Guard troops is in addition to 7,000 active-duty federal ground troops being sent to the area by the President. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will visit Mississippi and Louisiana tomorrow, and the President returns Monday. His planned schedule has been cleared. Even his...