Conservatives who opposed the recent Intelligence Reform Bill have vowed to fight on and get them implemented in a new bill.
LA Daily News (via Prestopundit)
Southern California Republicans vowed Wednesday to bar illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses, restrict asylum laws and speed up completion of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, all by early next year.
Unbowed by the absence of those measures in a sweeping overhaul of U.S. spy agencies that Congress ordered Wednesday, local lawmakers promised that cracking down on illegal immigration would be their top priority in 2005.
"It's really far from being the end of the national security debate," Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, said of the intelligence reform bill President Bush is expected to sign this week.
"When you consider what happened on 9-11 and when you consider what happened at the World Trade Center 10 years before, these perpetrators were part of a failed immigration system."
Gallegly, Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, and Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, said they will be backing an effort by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., to link immigration reforms to the first major bill Congress passes next year.
Oh how we can only wish this would get through. Polls say 70%+ of Americans are for immigration reforms and cracking down on illegal aliens. If only representatives would do what their constituents are asking for.
Washington Times (via Lonewacko)
The immigration security provisions stripped out of the intelligence overhaul bill will be introduced as a separate bill on the first day of the next Congress, House leaders promised yesterday, and will be their first priority for passage.
"We're doing this to stop the next terrorists and to take necessary steps to protect the American people," House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. said.
...
The provisions are expected to be easily approved in the House but face uncertain opposition in the Senate. The Bush administration has quibbled with some of the crackdowns on illegal immigrants supported by the House but President Bush promised members of Congress in a letter this week that he will work with them "early in the next session" to enact some of the scrapped provisions.
Are you ready for the most ridiculous reasoning in the history of logical thinking? Well here it is.
The third major component of the envisioned bill would be finishing the Otay Mesa fence on the California-Mexico border.
A major obstacle to finishing the fence has been fear among environmentalists and Democrats that the construction of a new fence would interfere with a rare native desert grass that grows there.
They are
so full of shit. If they are so damn worried about
maritime succulent scrub -- which is the crappy desert grass they are talking about -- you would think they would want to stop this from occurring on a daily basis.
Other Commentary:
Powerline has some good points, but seems a little too optimistic to me.
Controlling illegal immigration is wildly popular with voters from both parties; the only reason why nothing has been done is that both parties have sold out the voters. If the Republicans are willing to make themselves the party of rational immigration policies, they will only benefit politically, especially since Democratic politicians--not voters--are so far out of touch on the issue that the Republicans can look like heroes without doing anything very controversial.
Isn't there some way to force an irresponsible executive branch (perhaps through the judiciary) to enforce the cotton' pickin' laws on the books?
What would happen if President Bush, for example, ordered his whole administration to stop enforcing the separation of church and state, and allowed violations to run amock nationwide? Tell me exactly what the liberals would do to force him to enforce the law??
This is one of the ONLY issues about which I disagree with the Bush administration.
I've had this lottery fantasy where I would win the powerball, and have a bazillion dollars to spend. I fantasize that I go get a bunch of lawyers and start action to force the government to ENFORCE THE EMIGRATION LAWS, OR CHANGE THE D**N THINGS. If that concept could be forced through the courts, legislators and the president would be off the hook, politically. Then let those doofuses actually go on record for or against uncontrolled immigration.
Isn't that legally possible, even in fantasyland?
Posted by: deona on December 10, 2004 09:19 AM
My wife's Texas located company was recently sold. The new owners, a large corporation, audited the employees and all illegals were dismissed. This amounted to close to 50% of their workforce. They have still not fillled all the vacancies. Illegal immigration is a very troubling situation as its gotten so out of hand over the years that to act now will cost many US States a signifigant amount in losses in productivity, revenues etc. Think how many apartments and homes would be vacated if families were rounded up and deported. What would the cost to the banks be on all those forclosed properties?
Another anecdotal story from a few months back, where a leak occured that the US Immigration was going to raid a subdivision that was populated by mostly illegal aliens... the local public school ended up dismissing classes for that day as a majority of its students failed to attend. If this was a permanent situation, how many schools would close, teachers lose jobs, etc?
Its nice to point fingers post 9/11 and make blanket statements regarding policy, but most opinions I've seen dont touch on these very meaningful problems created by closed border policies.
Posted by: Opinionated Vogon on December 10, 2004 10:27 AM
Back to my favorite rant . . .
You will have Illegal or "Un-documented Workers" as long as you provide a place for them . . . . Just like the baseball movie, "You hire 'em, they will come" . . California has just made note that it costs that state 7.7 Billion Dollars a year to educate the children of Illegal aliens, and roughly another 3 Billion to provide medical care . . . That's out of the taxpayer's pocket!
Revise both our "Catch and Release" Policy and the way we bring the Immigrants into our nation. Educate the immigrant to become an "American", not a Mexican that knows how to milk the system better than a Phildelphia lawyer, and celebrates the Cinco De Mayo rather than the Fourth of July. Let's make them real Americans, not some card carrying non resident who has no stake in the welfare of this country!
Let's make the hiring of an Un-Documented Worker just like an OSHA Violation, $100k per head fine to the prime contractor . . As I've said before, Bet Wal Mart will look a little closer to who cleans their Pissers! Probably 30% or better of the Skilled and Semi-Skilled Construction Workers in this country are Illegals, and probably 50% of all paving and Concrete crews are too. And the big General Contractors literally encourage it, lower Sub-Contractor Bids, but right now, they're not responsible if anybody gets caught, but they are responsible for that very same guy not wearing a hard hat on the job! It could be Enforced!
That would decrease the stream of illegals because there wouldn't be anybody willing to take the chance of getting caught and having to deal with the consequences. Then we could concentrate on the criminals and terrorists that would then stick out like a sore thumb!
The present laws are not adequate, and as long as you criminalize the alien and not the employer, the poor and desperate who view this country as "The Promised Land" will continue to flock to this country. Just as the present Tax laws need to be thrown out and rewrote, so do the immigration laws.
And I'll say again, El Presidente Fox will continue to lobby Bush and the rest of our politicians to do little or nothing, because the total amount of money sent back to Mexico every year is estimated to be between 40 and 60 Billion Dollars!
Posted by: large on December 10, 2004 12:45 PM
