I’m reading lots and lots of clenched fist angry type posts by various conservative bloggers nowadays over this Immigration bill. This bill definitely deserves it. A bill that allows those here illegally to remain here and become legal is crap. Forcing them to pay a fine and to get back at the end of the line isn’t a bad idea but without a real wall, which will keep the next 12 million illegals from coming in this is just a temporary fix….just like Reagan did in the 80’s.
But I also find many on the right are just way to unrealistic on how things really work. In case you haven’t noticed, we have a Democrat controlled Congress now. This happened during the last revolt, and now we are reaping those "benefits". What would those be? Well the simple fact that no enforcement only bill would get passed by this Congress. Its not gonna happen.
So what should we do? Nothing?
I want a wall across the whole border of Mexico, and no "technological" wall either….now that is something I am pissed off about with this bill. No wall.
And that is why I am endorsing this backlash against the bill and President Bush on this matter.
I endorse the backlash, I endorse the furor (I know, who cares if some blogger endorses it, but I’m just saying….). But I am not endorsing the burning of RNC cards, like this story pretty much spells out:
The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.
Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.
Do you card burners understand we are at war here? Do you understand what will happen if a Democrat gets into power? Please, just try to fathom it. Last time we received a Democrat majority in our Congress. With a Democrat President we get new liberal SCOTUS judges, taxes through the roof, capitulation to our enemy, the start of a socialized form of government.
This does nothing but ensure a Democrat comes into power and how will that fix immigration exactly? It won’t!
People say that this bill will make us less safer since it doesn’t do anything to prevent a terrorist from getting to this country. But what we have now is not better then what we would have with this bill.
Dafydd wrote a post today in response to Hugh Hewitt’s interview with a immigration bill supporter, and it deals directly with the issue of security:
Suppose the bill passes, and a bunch of illegal immigrants apply for Parole Cards (the provisional Z visas — at least, that’s what Sen. Jon Kyl, R-AZ, 92%, calls them). Hugh’s worry is that among all the Gonzaleses and Ramirezes and Garcias will be hidden a few Mohammeds and Zarqawis… or even a Padilla or two.
Hugh is terrified that these terrorists could also apply for Parole Cards, and then be able to move around the country, get work, and even exit and reenter the United States at will. Of course, they can do that today… but Hugh seems to believe that they’re more likely to be caught and deported today, with no bill, than they would be next year with a bill and Z visas and Parole Cards. (I have no idea what current mechanism for capturing and deporting them Hugh sees; it certainly eludes my sight.)
Let’s carefully break down what is means to exit and reenter the country and to work: The border-crosser must show a passport and a SmartVisa. Specifically, he must swipe the card through a reader; this necessarily creates a record of leaving and reentering. Too, moving from place to place within the U.S. and working also creates a phosphor trail. But so what? How does that help capture terrorists?
Enter the CIA’s old computer connection-tracking program, Total Information Awareness. Congress got hysterical in 2003, defunding it — or so they thought; but it’s widely believed still to be in existence, just shifted under the umbrella of black-ops programs and funded by secret accounts.
The reason it was so effective is that it was simply an object-oriented database data-matching application. It was not programmed with any pre-existing biases for one type of connection above the others; it noted and kept track of any and all connections between datapoints — between Walid the terrorist and Guido the Mafioso, for example. Then it allowed for queries at any level of complexity.
The operators looked for connections where they would not expect to find any. Of course you could find a connection between the Secretary of State and various unsavory political leaders; that’s the secretary’s job. Nobody thinks Condoleezza Rice is in league with Bashar Assad simply because she met with him during a trip to Syria.
But suppose some dentist in Minneapolis calls Zarqawi in Iraq, then is called by a known terrorist in Pakistan, then is spotted by the FBI having lunch with an arms dealer in Minneapolis, then shows up as a co-signer on a loan to buy an airplane, when the other co-signer is a radical imam operating at a mosque out of Idaho.
Those connections are completely unexpected; why would one lousy dentist know all these people? In fact, that pattern is so suspicious that we should initiate surveillance to see what our "dentist" is up to.
But without TIA, the authorities would never have stumbled across the connections because they cross jurisdictional boundaries: The CIA identifies the terrorists abroad; the NSA records the calls; the FBI is tracking the arms dealer; and nobody is paying any attention to the imam. Without a single, unified database to bring all these observations together, nobody would notice the previously unknown dentist at the center of the web.
Now we take the TIA database… and we add to it the Parole Card and Z visa. Suppose we’re looking for Walid Achmed Mohammed, a suspected jihadist who is thought to have sneaked into the United States in 2006 under an unknown alias. Today, we would have no idea where Walid could be found; because he is underground, he could be anywhere, under any name, working for anyone.
We make some educated guesses; let’s suppose, just as Hugh fears, that Walid gets himself a Parole Card so he can move about and in and out.
CIA informants report that Walid was spotted at a "terrorism convention" in Pakistan in January of 2008; then another source believes Walid was at a training and planning session at a safehouse somewhere in Madrid in July. But that’s all we know.
Under today’s rules, that doesn’t help us at all. But under the rules established by this bill, the very first thing we should do is query the TIA database to see which holders of Z visas traveled to Pakistan in January 2008 and to Madrid in July of 2008… I’d bet there were not that many. (Check not only direct routes but the roundabout routes that terrorists tend to use; the CIA is actually pretty good at that nowadays.)
Then you take that list of Social-Security numbers, winnow out the obvious non-targets, and plug that into the Z-visa employment database. This will tell you where the eight or nine potential "Walids" have worked in the past year. Since the real Walid has no reason to believe he has been outed, he will probably follow the same pattern… criss-crossing the country carrying messages and money and working for the same set of employers along the way.
By staking out each of those employers around the times he usually shows up, we suddenly have a very good plan for grabbing Walid Achmed Mohammed and hustling him off to Gitmo. And the best part is, neither he nor anybody in his cell would have the slightest idea how we did it!
And there you have it; that is just one way that the provisions of this bill could help us catch terrorist infiltrators who are completely unlocatable today. There simply is no disputing that by putting themselves into the database, terrorists become much more likely to be caught.
But what if Walid is afraid of this very scenario, so he does not get a Parole Card? But if that’s the case, his movements will be severely impeded… because we will require anyone crossing our borders (whether by car, boat, or airplane) to show not only a foreign passport but also some form of visa — whether tourist, student, former illegal (Z visa), guest worker (Y visa), or permanent resident. (For citizens, the United States passport itself could be remade as a smart card, at least including the mag strip or bar code or whatever.) If Walid doesn’t have a visa, or if the name on his passport doesn’t match the visa, he gets caught.
If he tries to get multiple visas, the fingerprints will out him.
And if he doesn’t have a visa that permits working, he will not be able to find a job after this bill is enacted. Again, his operations will be severely impacted, because he will have to rely upon smuggled funds to survive.
An excellent summary of how this bill could help. I italicize could because it would need to provide the funding necessary to actually do the checks, fund programs such as TIA, and so forth….something this bill makes no mention of.
Doesn’t mean it should be supported without amendments such as building the damn wall, huge hikes in the amount of money spent on our Border Patrol and other enforcement entities, and one of the better ideas from Hugh Hewitt, a burden of proof on those immigrants coming from countries that openly support the enemy, ie terrorists.
I am also with Hugh in that they should fix it or kill it.
But I will not stop supporting the Republican party if they don’t get it done. Because this war is more important then that.
UPDATE
Check out Patterico’s excellent posts on those we should be spending huge amounts of money deporting. The criminals.
See author page
Let the democrats have it, lock stock and barrel. They’ll destroy the country in less than four years. Maybe we can find another Reagan to put it back togather and maybe we can’t. Either way the ‘people’ will finally know for a fact that democrats are incapable of running the country anyplace but into the ground. The last two did it, they excused the first because he was actually stupid and excused the second because half of the population wanted to replace the fixture under his desk. Even the most stupid of the stupid democrats know what they did, they just haven’t came around to admitting how screwed up they are. Wounded ego’s are a dangerous thing. Now they have an Islamist and a Socialist vying for the top of the ticket. How much lower can they go than under the desk, into Islam or Socialism?
Sorry, can’t support that Scrap. No way no how. Way to important to give everything up in the hopes people will then see the light.
Getting a Republican candidate who supports cracking down on illegal immigration elected in 2008 is one way to fix this but just letting the Dem’s have it is not the answer.
I knew in 2000 that I disagreed with Bush on immigration but I am still very thankful he has been in office these last 8 years. I am not nor will I ever be a one issue voter, and I would hope others would not be either.
One of the few times we disagree.
A border wall will do virtually maybe add a couple of minutes at best in an illegal’s journey. The only thing it provides is a chance for agents to respond. Its an aid to existing agent based enforcement.
If those in charge have no resolve in enforcement, a wall will do virtually nothing.
Politicians have to be held to the standard of solving the problem and not checking a few key bullets. Otherwise we’ll end up with an unmanned wall. A wall which at first will be a political placebo and then later held as proof as futility of stopping illegal immigration.
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 06/01/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
We are in this mess exactly because Repubs stayed home last year to “protest”. How did that work out for ya’ll? Now we have even worse proposals and policies than before. We can’t afford another 2-4 years of this in the world in which we now live. While I completely disagree with this bill and will do what I can to see it die, whoever the candidate with the R is behind his name next November I will support 100% because he will 1000X better than the one with the D!
“We are in this mess exactly because Repubs stayed home last year to protest.”
Really? Taken a look at who is supporting this bill big time. Republicans, including Graham, McCain, and Kyl. How exactly did staying home affect them?
We are in this mess because Bush wants us to be in this mess. If he was threatening to veto any bill like this, it would never have happened.
What do i get for supporting Bush and Republican party since forever? Huge spending, more government, McCain-Feingold, Harriet Myers, No Child Left Behind, pathetic attempts at immigration reform, broken borders, NAFTA, and the bestest of all, I am now called a nativist, a xenophobe, a racist and told I do not want what is right for America, all because I do not support this p.o.s. immigration bill.
I am going to vote for the most conservative candidate I can find in the next election, regardless of party. If that person turns out to be a Dem, so be it.
Curt,
Best damn thing I’ve read in a long time on this issue. Supporters just need to let this stupid bill die, and opponents need to remember that we’re in a shooting war, and their opponents on this immigration issue are some of their greatest allies on the Iraq issue. Maybe, after a couple more election cycles, we all can get together and craft something that suits both the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board and National Review, but right now we just need to get past this and focus this energy on crafting the War message. If the right can expend this kind of energy on the war issue, we can frame the debate, and finally win the argument. September is approaching rapidly.
I think this kind of view is incredibly small-minded. You’ve depersonlized illegal immigrants into a number and forgotten their humanity. Sure, they broke the law crossing the border, but what do you think you would do if you were poor, your family’s starving and you only make $2 an hour- you’d act on a survival instinct and cross the border, hell or high water, to ensure the livelihood of your family and yourself! You were lucky enough to be born here in the land of plenty. You can blame those who had the misfortune of being born in a poor county for wanting something better. I think your wish for a huge wall across the border is humorous, and about as full-proof as a condom. If gunshots and risk of arrest doesn’t deter these people, neither will some climbing. If you want to stop the mass illegal immigration, you gotta go right to the source. I explain how in my blog: http://blogs.ardmoreite.com/node/31. Read it, and then try to tell me how I’m wrong.
In 2000 I knew he was not a strong anti-illegal immigrant advocate…how did you not know this? Like I said, I am not one issue voter, never will be. I disagree with him on this issue but I am extremely glad he has been in office these past 7 years.
What? Tell me a Dem who is conservative? That’s ignorant. And I am not telling you not to vote for a conservative candidate, please read the post completely before making a comment like that. I am decrying the fact that those same “stay at home” Republicans from 2006 are doing it again which will cause a Hillary to get into office. Think the illegal immigration issue will get better then?
Oh really? So instead of trying to fix their OWN government they should just come to our land and get all the free medical, all the free schooling, on the taxpayers dime.
And I think your moral relativist view of the world is ignorant and naive. Oh, condoms are pretty damn full-proof so that was a terrible analogy. Will there ever be anything 100% full proof? Nope…but it’s much better then going bare back.
That’s why you spend more on border patrol to man the damn thing. Geez, your dense.
Doing something to ENFORCE the laws we have on the books is better then what we have now. If I thought it was realistic then I would be for deporting every single one of them, plus repealing the act in the forteenth amendment that allowed for anchor babies. While the first one is unrealistic, the second one is not.
As a liberal, I agree that helping other countries build their economies & political/social structures may help slow the tide a little. (I’d want to be as certain as possible that it’d be worth what it’d cost before agreeing to anything, though.) I’m also pretty damned sure that if it was a choice between breaking the laws of another country and feeding my family, I wouldn’t reallly care about the law, either.
After that, we part company, Tiara. I believe in borders. I believe in the law. While it probably is cosmically unfair that some was born here and others wasn’t, them’s the breaks. (& yes… Was I born there, I’d probably be less flippant about it, but them’s part of the breaks, too.)
I think the wall will be really unattractive, and screw with animal migration. But unless/until I’m persuaded that thousands will die (from people to one eyed spotted newt fish, that’re essential to the ecosystem) I say build it.
Deport criminals.
Fine businesses that hire illegals. Fine them alot, and often. Fine them until no business would ever think of hiring an illegal alien.The sooner we dry up the pot of gold at the end of the US rainbow, the sooner folks will move back home. Maybe it’ll even help US wages go up, too.
*IF* we end up with a labor shortage, increase the slots for legal immigrants, and streamline the process, so that it’s not so cumbersome. And maintain the value we’ve always placed on families… This idea of getting the kind of workers we need is laudable, but splitting up families to do so, isn’t. It reminds me of the days when folks were rewarded in the workplace for not being married/having children.
One more liberal point… The fact that it’ll probably make electing conservatives more difficult, and that Republicans are helping to make it happen, does tickle me no end… 8>) But even that doesn’t make this foolish immigration plan worth the cost to this country.
Curt, thanks for such a great post! It paints an easy-to-understand picture of the immigration bill.
Tiara, I think just the opposite. You and too many others have personalized the illegal-immigrant issue to the point that it blinds you to the fact that they are breaking the law…pure and simple!
Let’s say someone needs some jeans. They can get by with (and afford) $15 jeans, but would prefer some $75 jeans. Are you saying it’s okay to steal the $75 jeans? Or worse yet, hand me the bill to pay for them just because I’m in line behind them?
Your link says that in Mexico they make $6,000 per year, yet you compare it to our poverty level. That’s apples and oranges. Have you checked their much lower cost of living compared to our’s?
I haven’t heard anyone object to “legal” immigration. The point I’m trying to make is that if they want to get in to the U.S. so badly, then come “legally.”
All we’re saying is, “Don’t break our laws, use our healthcare and school systems, etc. then expect us to just rollover pay the bill and be happy about it.”
I forgot to mention enforcement… More of that, too.
More agents, if that’s what we need, but certainly more agents taking action against the influx, and more cooperation between ICE & local/state/federal jurisdictions.
(Not such a big fan of the Minutemen, though… Good theory, but a recipe for trouble eventually, in real life…)
Here’s the problem though. It only works if we have border enforcement. If Walid can sneak across the rio grande like he is able to do now, then no smart card in the world will help things.
Jim C
repsac3, I agree with almost all of your idea’s for this situation. But as a liberal you must know that what you speak about is not the liberal median viewpoint. In fact it’s almost exactly 180 degrees from where the liberals are at right now.
That being said, the cut and run philosophy and socialist bent coming from the Democrats will make it just as tough to get your guys elected as this immigration issue is going to be on the right side. So don’t go giggling too much. =)
I agree, that’s why I agree with calling for more enforcement. But Dafydd also spelled out how this bill could help in tracking down the bad guys….while it’s a bill with some good ideas, some very bad idea’s, and lots of idea’s with no plans to fund them, it IS better then nothing. In this Democrat controlled congress we will not get a enforcement only bill passed…won’t happen. Like I said, you reap what you sow. You stay home in 2006 and now we have the most crooked of the pack leading both houses, Reid, Pelosi, Murtha, Feinstein….and lets throw in Jefferson.
So now we have to deal with it. Don’t like it but this is reality.
I’m hoping there can be some compromises done, some amendments passed, and we get something…anything…that will allow us to fine the hell out of businesses in this country that hire these illegals. If there was only one issue in this bill that could get passed, that would be it for me. Stop the businesses from hiring them, and they go away. Or they become legal.
Yes, this bill does have some features that were not in the last bill. But I’m afraid that the good does not outweigh the bad and that on the whole, this bill is worse.
Last year the focus of the bill as presented by my Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was on making sure all these immigrants learned English and became part of American society. I pointed out how very difficult that would be to enforce and especially so now that we have large ghettos of unacculturated, uneducated immigrants totally self segregated living right here in my own county.
This new bill tosses the idea of assimilation and acculturation out the window and says you can stay as long as you pay to renew your Z visa. The danger of a permanent underclass of persons cut off from the larger society should be evident to all.
There’s a giant fiscal cost to that too which Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation has disclosed:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/sr14.cfm
Immigration Counters.Com also has some very interesting statistics presented in an excellent graphic:
http://immigrationcounters.com/index.html
Frankly, I don’t understand why border security first is not possible. We passed a bill to build 800 miles of fence, but how many miles have been built? It’s understandable that people are reluctant to support a compromise which promises border security when for some reason we cannot even carry out a law which is already on the books to do just that.
Despite the positive points in this bill, I just cannot bring myself to support it unless I were more confident that we wouldn’t simply be repeating the mistakes we’ve made in past bills which have merely made the problem worse and not better.
“But as a liberal you must know that what you speak about is not the liberal median viewpoint. In fact it’s almost exactly 180 degrees from where the liberals are at right now.”
Yeah, I’m not feelin’ the love vibe from much of anyone, these days…
“That being said, the cut and run philosophy and socialist bent coming from the Democrats will make it just as tough to get your guys elected as this immigration issue is going to be on the right side. So don’t go giggling too much. =)”
Yeah, I agree with that, too… (Not that the Dems are cut’n’runners or socialists, but that they’re seen that way, which is a distinction without a difference, electorally.)
“I’m hoping there can be some compromises done, some amendments passed, and we get something…anything…that will allow us to fine the hell out of businesses in this country that hire these illegals. If there was only one issue in this bill that could get passed, that would be it for me. Stop the businesses from hiring them, and they go away. Or they become legal.”
Generally, as far as this bill is concerned, I’m praying for gridlock (a citizen’s best friend, sometimes), but specifically, I agree completely. Once the draw of a better life (whether via gov’t freebies or steady employment) is closed, many will leave of their own accord, and those who keep saying “we can’t deport 12 million…”–who’re correct, prolly–will be saying “we can’t deport “x” million” (a much lower number, which I’m not prepared to guess at), in future.
Even if it only dropped by 1 million or so, I’d be happy, just on principle.
FRI JUNE 1 Crazy Conservatives Gone Wild