House Republicans reject illegal-aliens amnesty bill

[fintstone]

It seems that we have not discussed the illegal alien situation lately. Has that ceased to be an issue? I am glad that the amnesty bill was rejected. Anyone else?


House Republicans reject illegal-aliens amnesty bill
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 8, 2006
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House Republicans yesterday officially rejected the Senate immigration bill that would grant citizenship rights to some 10 million illegal aliens now in the country.
"We agree that we cannot support the Senate amnesty bill," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said. "This Democrat immigration bill wouldn't secure the border. It would erase it."
Mr. Hastert met yesterday with other House leaders and the chairman of several committees to discuss how to proceed with the stalled immigration legislation and emerged saying new border security proposals will be offered next week.
The new initiatives will include more border patrol agents, new fencing and surveillance and stricter enforcement of current laws, which they hope will pass both the House and the Senate before November's elections.
"We will take many of these recommendations and move quickly to pass border security legislation in the next few weeks," Mr. Hastert said. "Congress cannot wait until next year to move on this issue. The American people expect us to tackle this problem and solve it."
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, criticized the decision to abandon "comprehensive immigration reform."
"After a summer of cynical immigration campaign events and years of cutting billions from border security funding, today's announcement has more to do with solving a political problem for Republicans than solving our illegal-immigration problem," he said.
"While we all support more resources for border security, it is abundantly clear that these stop-gap measures are designed to provide cover for their failure to produce comprehensive reform."
House Majority Leader John A. Boehner vowed to complete legislation.
"Republicans will take immediate action to put legislation on the president's desk that fulfills our promise to strengthen our border security by providing more border patrol agents, enhancing enforcement, building more fencing and increasing surveillance," he said.
"Republicans will vote on these reforms before adjournment and work to send them to the president's desk for his signature."

[Porsche-O-Phile]

On this one we can agree. These people can follow standard immigration channels like everyone else or be booted the f*ck out.

[Jim Richards]

+1

[speeder]

We are so fuched on this issue. Repubs have squandered there political capital backing Bush and will very likely be run out of office in a couple months, before they can do the one truly beneficial thing for America that any politician has proposed this decade, which would be to take the Mexican border by the horns and start deporting the ~10 million "visitors" squatting in the U.S. presently. I'm pretty torn; a Dem congress would castrate Bush and Cheney before they sell the Washington Monument to the Chinese, but we become part of greater Mexico.

Yep, we're fuched.

[Superman]

Originally posted by speeder
We are so fuched on this issue. Repubs have squandered there political capital backing Bush and will very likely be run out of office in a couple months, before they can do the one truly beneficial thing for America that any politician has proposed this decade, which would be to take the Mexican border by the horns and start deporting the ~10 million "visitors" squatting in the U.S. presently. I'm pretty torn; a Dem congress would castrate Bush and Cheney before they sell the Washington Monument to the Chinese, but we become part of greater Mexico.

Yep, we're fuched.

I wonder if you guys understand what you are saying. I wonder if you understand your bedfellows on this. Organized Labor vigorously opposed NAFTA. This was a BUSINESS decision. And the reason why we're not sending them all back to Mexico is also very much COMMERCIAL.

[speeder]

I understand it just fine. I do not disagree w/ your assessment, and we are fuched.

[Superman]

Darned if you do, and darned if you don't. Fact is, our economy is dependent on that cheap labor. Agriculture, especially. Indeed, if we achieve the goal of increasing our affluence (doubtful, in my estimation), then we will continue to shuffle our menial tasks more and more onto the wetbacks.

But the problem as I see it is that we are not investing in education to a degree that will continue to elevate our affluence in the face of increasing global competition. Like Speeder says......we're fukked.

[jdm61]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
On this one we can agree. These people can follow standard immigration channels like everyone else or be booted the f*ck out.

Now this is going to sound a bit strange coming from an alleged neo-con like me, but i think that it is a good idea for a couple of reasons.
1. contrary to what the unions, etc say, illegals do the work that "working class" Americans refuse to do......before you go off on me, I will tell you that i have seen this personally and not just in agriculture......who is buidling your house and mowing your law today?. The left gripes about a "living wage" and that is fine. If every American is willing to pay significantly more for their daily needs, then so be it. All of these limousine liberal buys super expensive "organic" food anyone, so it will not effect them one bit. But ask a single mom if she is willing to have a 20% hike in her grocery bill.
2. Regardless of what people say about how they are enforced today, the US immigration laws are based in racism and xenophobia. Up until the early 1920's we HAD open borders for the most part. Even after they centralized the process at places like Ellis Island in the 1890's, well over 90% of the people who just showed up were let in. The rest were usually turned away for medical reasons. Then we decided that the immigrant pool was getting a bit swarthy, so we turned Lady Liberty's torch into a giant middle finger. "standard immigration channels" are designed to keep people out of the US. You don't even have to look a Mexicans to see that. A single female from pretty much anywhere in Eastern Europe other than Slovenia (no idea why, but Slovenes can enter the US visa free like Western Europeans, Japanese, etc) cannot get a tourist visa pretty much under any circumstances. This includes women from our very close allies Poland and Lithuania(whose first President after indepepndence was a retired US Army colonel). It is presumed that they are hookers, strippers sent over here by the Russian mob or illegal mail-order brides looking for a green card. Yeah.....I love strippers with a medicaldegree....lol. How many of the 12 million illegals would have actually been granted permission to enter the US? I can tell you.....almost NONE of them. The only ones who typically get in are the select few who win the immigration lottery each year. We don't have slots for working class people and campesinos.
My point here is that strict immigration controls are inherently anti-American and tend to impact those who actually most closely resemble the imigrants that helped turn the good old USA into the greatest economic power that the world has ever seen.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

The free-market has great self-correction mechanisms built inherently into it. Things might possibly get a little squirly for a while, but long-term we'd be FAR better off without their "services".

[Seahawk]

Originally posted by Superman
But the problem as I see it is that we are not investing in education to a degree that will continue to elevate our affluence in the face of increasing global competition. Like Speeder says......we're fukked.

Don't agree. It is HOW we are spending our ed dollars, and federal control of those dollars, that is the problem.



http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/newsfax/Insidethebudget139.pdf#search=%22education%20spend ing%22 http://www.effwa.org/highlighters/v14_n18.php
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa126.html

[Moneyguy1]

Another unproven hypothesis that somehow the economy will suffer if all "illegal" aliens are deported. Does anyone really believe this? If so, please explain it to me.

While you are at it, what is the effect of "cheap labor" on other working class people who are citizens or legally here? Seems as if one of the reasons for the cheap labor is to keep wages low for many others.

[fintstone]

Anyone who does not want to clean their own house, paint their own house, or mow their own grass deserve to pay whatever the market will bear.

[Hugh R]

#1 Dems want illegals because they see loyal votes,

#2 Republicans want illegals for cheap labor for business,

#3 The businesses can pay dirt wages and let "society" pay for health care, it doesn't come out of their bottom line,

#4 Unions see declining membership and see organizing them and getting their union dues, the unions just want revenue for their organization,

#5 Personal observation, how can attracting the lowest educated, least skilled to our country be good for us? IF the average illegal makes $10/hour (going rate at Home Depot in SoCal, and in some affluent areas $15/hour). Just how much do they pay in taxes to educate their kids at 6,000-$7,000/year/kid? Answer: they don't. How about medical, police, fire, flood control, roads.

We as a country are debasing our society. For those of you in Rio Linda, "debasing" means going to the lowest common demoninator.

[stevepaa]

#1 not me, and not any Democrat I know
#2 , #3 my Republican in-law who built his multimillion dollar business using illegals and still uses them today
#4 yep
#5 using the cheapest labor it is what our system is based on- pay what the market demands, that's why we have NAFTA, it is why the person on the end of the help line speaks British, it is why sports people make millions, etc..

Is there any country that has limited immigration and done well over the long haul?

[john70t]

qoute:"Is there any country that has limited immigration and done well over the long haul?"
Japan, but then again they have limited space already (it depends on your definition of "overcrowding" is), a social educational system, an orginized, unified, homoginous society, and a mass transit system which accomadates existing population density areas.

[speeder]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Is there any country that has limited immigration and done well over the long haul?

This is a good and legitimate question, but IMO one of the major fallacies of the "pro-immigration" argument is the assumption that nothing has changed in the U.S.A. since the 19th or early 20th century. In reality, he world today is unrecognizable from that time; even 50 years ago there were HALF as many people in the world as today, and the U.S.A. was an uncrowded, inexpensive place where any honest person w/ a trade could support a family w/ children on one income. There were no suburbs to speak of, and the infrastructure of cities was relatively young and in good repair. Schools and hospitals operated at 100% or close to it w/ no funding shortage and taxes were low. Healthcare and basic survival for the middle or working class was a non-issue.

As I said, unrecognizable. As much as any good American, (or citizen of other developed country), would like to welcome people from lesser places to become American and share in our way of life, there are now practical limits to the sheer #s of them we can accommodate. The infrastructure of the U.S. is stretched thin, and the addition of several million uninsured, uneducated + quickly multiplying people will break us rather quickly. Anyone who doubts this can simply come to Los Angeles or any city in the southwest for confirmation. It is not a situation that will fix itself, (as is the liberal fantasy), and it will be a major man-made disaster for the United States. This is not your grandfathers immigration.

I still believe that the U.S. can welcome immigrants, and in fact needs them, but only in a controlled and just fashion which takes into consideration the needs of refugees everywhere in the world and people who are real, legal U.S. citizens. I see Mexico as a place that has mostly created its own problems by not adapting to the modern world, and not automatically entitled to enter the U.S. and set up camp. Even though we have a system that is ready to exploit them for cheap labor once they are here.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

As I've always said - we should welcome anyone here with open arms that wants to come here, work hard, pursue a better life and contribute to the advancement of our society and culture - and comply with our laws.

Anyone that comes here looking for a free ride, to sponge off our system, leech off our compassion and generousity and try to milk a better life for themselves while contributing nothing in return and thumb their nose at our laws from Day #1 ought to be sent back across whatever border they originated from via the swift kick of a steel-toed boot squarely on their ass.

[Seahawk]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Is there any country that has limited immigration and done well over the long haul?

I can name many if you change "limited" to, "legal" and "controlled". Try and become a citizen of Australia, or Canada (without a bank roll),

Name one that can absorb what we are faced with NOW, never mind the long haul.

[jdm61]

Originally posted by john70t
qoute:"Is there any country that has limited immigration and done well over the long haul?"
Japan, but then again they have limited space already (it depends on your definition of "overcrowding" is), a social educational system, an orginized, unified, homoginous society, and a mass transit system which accomadates existing population density areas.

Japan is one of the most homogenous, protectionist, xenophobic and racist societies on the planet. Any refernce to their immigration policies must be seen in that context.

[jdm61]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
As I've always said - we should welcome anyone here with open arms that wants to come here, work hard, pursue a better life and contribute to the advancement of our society and culture - and comply with our laws.

Anyone that comes here looking for a free ride, to sponge off our system, leech off our compassion and generousity and try to milk a better life for themselves while contributing nothing in return and thumb their nose at our laws from Day #1 ought to be sent back across whatever border they originated from via the swift kick of a steel-toed boot squarely on their ass.

The problem is that those who are coming over here are NOT leeching. They are some of the hardest working people you have ever seen. How many of you actually cried the first time you made $100 for a VERY long days work? Saw that happen in Kentucky, my friends.