May 25 2007
Immigration Bill Rolls On
The Immigration Bill is rolling ahead in the Senate.
By a vote of 66-29, senators rejected an amendment by Republican Party legislator David Vitter to eliminate a provision that offers legal status to most of the 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
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The Senate also narrowly rejected a proposal by Republican Norm Coleman to allow state and local law enforcement agencies to help enforce immigration laws.
I have issue with some things changed or not included – especially Coleman’s proposal. Hopefully it will go back in at conference. Of course, if the hard right would vote to strengthen the bill instead of gutting it things would be better. Coleman lost by 2 votes. Perfect is the evil of good and continuing with the status quo is dangerous. So as along as the ability to deport criminals stays in under a one-strike-your-out feature this bill is keeping my support. That feature alone makes this bill worth keeping. But we need the guest worker program to get background checks (criminal records) and to provide IDs to those checked and cleared. So far good enough.
Update: Myth busting the myth peddlers:
FACT: The bill would, for the first time, give the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice (DOJ) tools to keep certain aliens out of the United States solely on the basis of their participation in a gang.
No conviction is required – if an individual has associated with a gang and helped “aid” or “support” its illegal activity, then he or she is not allowed to remain in the country – even if he renounces his gang affiliation.…
ACT: After the family backlog is cleared in the first eight years after enactment, the bill will eliminate about 190,000 extended family visas per year. By contrast, the category of “extreme hardship” cases is capped at 5,000 visas per year.
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FACT: Illegal workers who ignored deportation orders are not eligible for the Z visa program, except in exceedingly rare cases in which they can demonstrate their departure would “result in extreme hardship.” FACT: The determination of what constitutes “extreme hardship” lies entirely within the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security, who has no interest in allowing this exception to be abused.
Unlike the cries of that the sky is falling from the right, these concerns from the far left are serious concerns. They are not getting what they wanted. Seems to me all the right people are pissed off on this bill. How many times did Cons hit liberals for incidentally allying themselves with al Qaeda on Iraq? Tons of times. Seems some kettles are going around calling some pots ‘black’. Look at the alliances against the bill – uber nationalists and anything goes lefties. No wonder this bill’s time has come.
Update: The hardliners are killing the GOP:
For a certain kind of conservative, any attempt to grant a legal status to illegal immigrants is as welcome as salsa on their apple pie. One conservative commentator claims that the law is “going to erase America” — an ambition even beyond Ted Kennedy’s considerable powers. Another laments that “white America is in flight” — and presumably not just to Jackson Hole or Nantucket for the summer.
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If a Republican presidential candidate doesn’t get about 40 percent of the Latino vote nationwide, he or she doesn’t stand much of a chance on an electoral map where Florida and the Southwest figure prominently. A nativist party will cease to be a national party.
Breaking 40 percent is possible for Republicans. President Bush did it in 2004. Republican momentum among Hispanic voters has been strong in the past decade — until Rep. Tom Tancredo and his allies began their conflict with the fastest-growing segment of the electorate.
Conceding Latinos to the Democrats in perpetuity is a stunning failure of political confidence. If the Republican Party cannot find ways to appeal to natural entrepreneurs, with strong family values, who are focused on education and social mobility, then the GOP is already dead.
Well, some of it is dead anyway. The question is whether the condition is fatal or correctible. For our nation’s sake in the fight against al Qaeda I hope it is correctible. My fear is ,from what I have seen the last week, is it is probably fatal – to all of us. We will surrender to al Qaeda because some folks got all worked up over documenting undocumented workers. Just crazy.
Thanks for the link, FE. A pdf will be much easier on my eyes than NZ’s html. Danke.
apache, that link you had had just truncated the list. it continued on the next page as i show above
(3) 2,400 in fiscal year 2009; 1
`(4) 2,400 in fiscal year 2010; 2
`(5) 2,400 in fiscal year 2011; and 3
‘(6) 2,400 in fiscal year 2012. 4
yea and much easier to ”find” specific words and sections.
Just count all those wonderful “subject to the availability of appropriations†clauses.
that’s the same phrase that was in the fence bill last year.
so far the “availability of appropriations†has been zero, as in none.
Probably within a $ or two of the same amount that will be available for securing the border thru the year 2012.
And let’s not forget that this bill will usurp any state laws that have been passed to deny social services, in-state tuition and other things to illegals, such as the ones passed by voter mandate in Arizona and Oklahoma. Those laws will be judged unconstitutional by some judge and they will be long gone with the states expected to pick up the education, incarceration and medical treatment tabs of illegals. How many states have sued the federal government for not reimbursing them for the medical bills of illegals?
This bill should be called “The Socialist Demand To Bend Over And Take It/Death of America Bill”.
Apache, I discussed this yesterday:
All Chertoff would say is that 75 miles are “under contructionâ€, but that “very few†are finished.
all that is under construction was begun prior to the new bill last year. One 16 mile segment, in CA, was started in 1998 and is still under construction (very rapid progress, eh?) there is another segment in Az but that’s it. the total is not nearly 75 miles and since ’98?
How long do you think it would take to do 400 miles? with all the environmentalists, the correct answer is most likely never. Especially since there is no expectation that anyone is serious about securing the border anyhow.
Who would you be securing it against anyhow? Everybody here already would be legal and all their millions of relatives.
NOTE: this is the opinion of a hardliner (another word for those who support enforcing the law)
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FE, you are right. It is only 14,000 and it is stretched out over 6 years. I think I know why it is stretched out over 6 years. It is this clause –
“subject to the availability of appropriations for such purpose,”
They want to commit to actually hiring as few as possible until such time that the Democrats are in complete charge and the Republicans are so few in number that they will be completely powerless.
As soon as that happens, *POOF*, the funding will disappear.
If they can take charge sooner, compliments of importing voters, they will de-fund it sooner. So it is in their best interest to “string out” the hiring of additional border patrol agents. Pretty slick, from a screw the American people perspective.
and obviously, they expect to be completely in charge within 6 years. That’s why they didn’t bother going out beyond 6 years and hiring the full 18,000.
You really have to give Kennedy credit. They are thinking long term.
FE, I agree completely. They will never fund the parts of this bill they don’t like. And I think we both know which parts those are.
I can’t believe how anybody could be fooled by this. It boggles my mind.
Our government has never secured our borders and they do not intend to. It will take terrorists *successfully* carrying out a *major* attack before they even consider it.
This sucks.
Has anyone here read Mark Steyn’s “America Alone”?
It is a fantastic book. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. And for those of you who can’t find the time, or perhaps don’t enjoy reading, it is available in audio form. I bought an audio copy at audible.com
Demographics are fascinating. If you read (or listen to) “America Alone” and if you research voting trends, you will look at this bill with a different perspective.
This bill will completely destroy the Republican Party. Republicans will be voted out of office at every level of government; local, State, and Federal.
The Democrats will have full reign. Every single one of their policies will be implemented. Universal health care, surrendering to Al Queda (sp?), political correctness out the wazoo, stricter control (if not complete abolishment) of any speech they disapprove of, higher taxes across the board (on everything they can tax), appointment of more liberal judges pushing their agenda for decades to come, etc… etc… etc…
I should compile a list of what this Country can look forward to if this bill passes.
Well, you made a good start, the strange thing about it is, the Repubs will get the blame if that happens because they did not stand firm.
It’s strange that the Dimmicrats are counting on Repub votes to pass this. They can’t do it on their own, so if the Repubs stay firm, they have a chance to regain control next year, but if they cave, the game is over.
But now that I see that upwards of 80 % of the “people” want border security first, and the House does also. I’m not pessimistic of the chances of it never becoming law.
Once a border security bill gets in place and the border gets secure, the other things will not be a problem. Then we can actually get a guest worker program that will work and a path to citizenship that will be in continuing the tradition we’ve always had.
This present bill, which clearly bypasses the border security issue can never work, but it’s not gonna pass anyhow.
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But now that I see that upwards of 80 % of the “people†want border security first, and the House does also.
Wow. That’s a awful lot of “hardliners”. 😉
Who knew an irrelevant minority could be so big? 😉
Ah, I knew if I kept reading I would find someone that was saying exactly the same thing I was, except saying it better. Here it is:
That’s Mark Steyn and here’s the link to the whole thing:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steyn/402407,CST-EDT-steyn27.article
Here’s a little more from that article, it’s too good to pass up.
While I’m in this good stuff, if you like humour, you’ll love this. This is from Mark Steyn column the week before: here’s link to it:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steyn/393216,CST-EDT-steyn20.article
Read the rest of it, it’s great.
(3) Catch and Return: The Department of Homeland Security is
37 detaining all removable aliens apprehended crossing the
38 southern border, except as specifically mandated by law or
39 humanitarian circumstances, and U.S. Immigration and Customs
40 Enforcement (ICE) has the resources to maintain this practice,
Just who decides what those humanitarian circumstances are?
Another of those exceptions that can have a major effect on who actually gets a pass to avoid the law.
“(c) Alternative penalties- Notwithstanding the penalties provided
31 in subsection (a) or (b), any person who violates such subsection
32 shall—
33 “(1) be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10
34 years, or both, if the violation involved the operation of a motor
35 vehicle, aircraft, or vessel—
36 “(A) in excess of the applicable or posted speed limit,
37 “(B) in excess of the rated capacity of the motor vehicle,
38 aircraft, or vessel, or
39 “(C) in an otherwise dangerous or reckless manner;
Nice to know that if your kid takes all his buds in his van for a trip to Tijuana and overloads the vehicle all of them can be jailed for up to 10 years.
SEC. 125. SURVEILLANCE 1 TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAMS.
2 (a) Aerial Surveillance Program-
3 (1) IN GENERAL- In conjunction with the border
4 surveillance plan developed under section 5201 of the
5 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
6 (Public Law 108-458; 8 U.S.C. 1701 note), the Secretary,
7 not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this
8 Act, shall develop and implement a program to fully
9 integrate and utilize aerial surveillance technologies,
10 including unmanned aerial vehicles, to enhance the
11 security of the international border between the United
12 States and Canada and the international border between
13 the United States and Mexico. The goal of the program
14 shall be to ensure continuous monitoring of each mile of
15 each such border.
I guess the define continuous monitoring as that sometime during the flight duration (maybe 30 or more hours) all the border areas in the drones zone are visited. Doesn’t sound to continuous to me, more like periodic.
Merlin,
Why are you trying to be obtuse? You can fly more than one surveillance drone which overlap areas. And recall the ground speed requirements. walking at a couple of miles per hour means you don’t need to watch 100 square miles instantaneously, all the time.
You folks are getting pretty ridiculous concerning all these horrors you are supposedly finding in the bill. Taking a section and then assuming some strange scenario as if that is fact or reality is just the kind of fantasizing I said destroys credibility. Face it – you folks want the status quo or nothing if any option gives immigrant workers a chance to stay and work lgeally. Stop kidding yourselves. You sure aren’t kidding the rest of us.
merlin
If someone asked me what continuous meant, I would have said ‘at all times’
So it comes as a surprise that Homeland Security defines it as a system that is in place to monitor several miles once in a while as continuous.
So, how would that work at airport security gates? Let’s say there are 10 entry gates and one screener, but the screener goes from gate to gate ‘continuously’ does that mean the gates are continuously monitored? Well, Yes.
But that doesn’t matter, everyone is already provisionally legal in the country and even if you get here next year and apply for the Z-1 and claim you were here before jan 1 07. who will know the difference? As said above, by the time the application gets reviewed, around the year 2015, who will care anyhow. Just stamp it approved.
I predict that even if you get here by 2015, you will still be legal, just apply and demand an attorney if you are questioned. The Dimmicrats will be running the place by then anyhow, and they might need more votes.