Today in a vote falling 14 votes short of the number required to cut off debate, the Senate effectively killed the amnesty bill that was being pushed so hard by Democrats and the President. Billed as a flawed but workable compromise, this is the second time the bill has failed to garner enough votes to move it to the floor for a final up or down vote.
Those voting against the bill said the major sticking point was the granting of amnesty to millions of illegals, some of whom have been in the United States as little as six or seven months. They also stressed that their constituencies wanted to see border security first and then discuss such unpopular items as amnesty and a guest worker program both of which were pushed hard by labor unions and big business. Voters have apparently not forgotten the last big amnesty program in 1986 which failed to enforce any of the border security and employer sanctions, but which granted amnesty to millions of illegals at that time. The bill was heralded at the time as the "final fix" for the immigration crisis.
Personally I am not upset to see this bill fail. It was seriously flawed and was weighted much too heavily with special rewards to illegals. There was no way of telling what it would cost the country in the long run, but estimates were staggering. There were far too many "easter eggs" in the bill that came to light when some people actually read it. Just a few deal-breakers for me was the amnesty provision for gang bangers, the 24-hour limit on the time it could take to perform a background check, no requirement that people leave and remain gone until their application is approved, thus rewarding these people by putting them ahead of those who follow the rules.
While framers of the bill said it was "tough on security" in fact it was not. Through some tricky wording the amount of fencing was reduced by nearly half rather than being inreased. While there were other security measures that were billed as mandatory before the amnesty portions of the bill would kick in, in fact the actual bill wording said that the amnesty would start after 18 months whether or not the security measures were completed. This was, to me, a deal breaker.
According to most experts the bill is now dead until after the 2008 election. That's too bad. I would like to see them propose a border security and identification database bill that would move the security portions of this bill forward now so that congress could prove it had good intentions and actually meant what it said about securing the border. Of course this could also be accomplished by Mr. Bush simply ordering the Department of Homeland Security to enforce existing laws. I am not holding my breath on that one.
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Comments: 69
The Shrub loses again. Kick the Criminal Trespassers out on their collective Derriere's!!!
I am thrilled that it was stopped, but like you I would like to see some action on enforcement, long before the 2008 election.
The reason they will not do this is because without the amnesty they will not be able to garner the Hispanic vote, and they know this. Leaving it as it is now, and continuing the lack of enforcement allows big business to continue to operate the way it has and will, they hope, keep their coffers filled.
Even though this bill did not pass, I have every intention of now turning my efforts to the removal of EVERY Senator who either designed or supported this bill. It is long over-due, and it's time the people of this country had a say in who is governing us. Some of these people have been in office so long they forgot what they were elected for, and now we will remind them. NO MORE good old boys club!!! Men the likes of Kennedy, Lott, and several others like them, have NO PLACE in OUR government. It is, was and always should be "Of the People, By the People, FOR the People", and they don't want that.
Even though this bill did not pass, I have every intention of now turning my efforts to the removal of EVERY Senator who either designed or supported this bill. It is long over-due, and it's time the people of this country had a say in who is governing us. Some of these people have been in office so long they forgot what they were elected for, and now we will remind them. NO MORE good old boys club!!! Men the likes of Kennedy, Lott, and several others like them, have NO PLACE in OUR government. It is, was and always should be "Of the People, By the People, FOR the People", and they don't want that.
Anne G., Jun 28
DITTO!
and lets not forget those running for prez who voted for this,....
Obama
Clinton
McCain
What I would love to see happen is for congress to address this problem as a series of individual bills. First and foremost, secure the borders. After 9/11 it borders on insanity that Mr. Bush as thus far refused to do so.
Second, cut off all social services unless a person can prove they are here legally. This will require an unforgeable identification card attached to a secured database.
Third, enforce the laws on the books about hiring illegals to the letter.
Finally, revisit and get an interpretation from the Supreme Court on the real meaning of the 14th amendment. If they rule that anchor babies are legal, then sponsor an amendment to the constitution to remove that interpretation and thus remove the impetus for all these babies.
When all of that is done, then perhaps we could sponsor a limited amnesty in which people who have lived her at least ten years could voluntarily return home and would be given some sort of recognition if they have a clean record, work, and if they speak English that would enable them to return. Tye would, of course, be required to sign an agreement not to apply for any form of social services for at least two years.
When all of that is done, or at the same time, maybe they could try bringing the legal immigration process into the 21st century. It's unconscionable that it takes ten or more years to process a legal application as it does presently.
Write , call, and email .
Get involved if you really care , or would you rather just bitch??????
By the way, does anyone here remember Mr. Bush defiantly telling the press who had dared question this monstrous bill, that he would see them at the signing ceremony?
Let's not ignore the fact that the House of Representatives had already declared this bill DOA and they had not even begun considering it. So even if it had passed the Senate, it would have bogged down in the house.
What is needed is what everyone else here is saying: secure the borders, train more border agents, and enforce the laws against employing illegals.
Bruce: There was one cool thing in the now-defeated amnesty bill that I loved. It would have told other countries who refuse to take back their own illegals that until they change their minds that 100% no visas or other immigration documents would be issued even to their diplomats.
Even if the government were to enforce the current identification rules that are on the books it would go a long way. It would also protect employers against getting into trouble because an employee presented fraudulent identification. As long as they followed the rules, things would be ok. Well, maybe such incidents as one company with over 150 employees with the same SSN might be questioned, but under normal circumstances it wouldn't be a problem.
2. BIG BIG BIG FINES for companies hiring illegals - make it in their financial best interests not to do so.
3. Identify and prosecute identity-forgers (illegals get work w/fake Social Security cards. Where do they get them? find out and bust 'em!)
4. Stop the "anchor kid" paradigm. If your parents are foreign nationals, so should you be, even if you were born in the USA.
Point #2 is already in the law but is currently not being enforced. I would personally add jail time to the equations and not just for the HR folks, but also for the CEOs. Do you want to bet how quick enforcement would become a matter of company policy if the big shots had to stand accountable?
#3. Identity theft and forgery of US documents is a huge business. The easiest way to shut it down is to require that there be an unforgeable identification card tied to a secured database. The problem is I'm not sure how you would get Americans to use the cards as well as immigrants. Right now I use my passport for identification on jobs.
#4. Amen.
If they aren't there to enforce the current laws why the heck do they make $170,000 per year. They were able to get a raise of $4,400 this week.
Congress can't do much with Mr. Bush's war. But they could do this. I say keep them scared so maybe they try doing what's right. What we need now is a concentrated campaign to force enforcement of existing laws regarding immigration. Keep the pressure on them.
By the way, I wrote my congressional delegation regarding my views on this subject and didn't even get the courtesy of a response. As a result, they will not be getting my vote in the next election.
proof SYSTEM - Ex. you go for a job. They check your eye retina pattern and finger
prints on a machine and it is hooked into a national database. If they aren't identifiable as here legally, they don't get hired, rented to, or receive govt benefits.
Regarding Jeanie's #1, I agree with both of you. Yes, we should make things better where they came from (most are from Mexico). But that doesn't mean handing more money over to them. We're already absurdly giving them financial aid
when they're robbing us in aliens' remittances and welfare.
The solution is to pressure Mexico really hard. No more remittances, no more of
us paying their poverty bill and no more grant $$ to them. If they still don't get the message, we should keep ramping up the pressure until they do. If it has to go all
the way to a do-over of 1848, so be it. They've been asking for it for a long time.
From our perspective it's just simple self-defense. If my neighbor was ruining my
nice cared-for yard, with dead leaves from his unpruned trees and litter (blown by
the wind), I'd START by going directly to him about it. This whole immigration mess
is also an EMmigration problem on the Mexico side. They should be fixing it, not us,
and they have plenty of money to do that. Their richest folks pay a selfish 10%
annual income tax. They should start fixing the problem, or we have to make them
fix it.
The origins of the card has to do with the concept of a biochip that contains the picture, birthdate, and fingerprints of the legal owner. This is tied into the database. Employers could check in seconds online. This technology also exists today, so there really is no good reason not to implement it.
The sticky part is ensuring that the people coming to you for the card are here legally to begin with. Once they're in the database it's all over. The only way to do that is to demand that they return to their country of origin to get the card, and that it be done by Americans only but in that country.
I think I would need a bank of Lawyers to decifer the bable in S1639. I am just glad that the Senators for whatever reason pulled there heads out for once. I keep hearing the people in this comment line saying we need to push for enforcement now and I for one AGREE 100%. I also wanted to thank you for posting this article Carolyn, It feels good to finally be heard. Lets just be heard some more.
we think. I have records going back to my birth (1946), elementary school, and thereafter. Even if we don't have it , we can usually get it from the institutions
(hospital, schools, jobs, clubs, etc). The person who walks in claiming to be here
legally, but has no visa (except an expired one), can't speak English, and can't produce any documentation of living here beyond recently, is the one whose problem it is. For us here legally - not our problem.
As a reminder, she wrote
*************
1. Make things better "where they came from" - you don't see a lot of Canadians coming and staying illegally.
2. BIG BIG BIG FINES for companies hiring illegals - make it in their financial best interests not to do so.
3. Identify and prosecute identity-forgers (illegals get work w/fake Social Security cards. Where do they get them? find out and bust 'em!)
4. Stop the "anchor kid" paradigm. If your parents are foreign nationals, so should you be, even if you were born in the USA.
************
America, as a society, has a track record of attacking symptoms rather than causes and this is another example of that. We should look at root causes if we want solutions.
They are coming here because, well, why the hell wouldn't they? This is a miracle of a place. Meanwhile they live in a part-desert 3rd world country where IF they find a job in one of the factories that American companies set up down there, they work very long hard hours for nickels per day while all you want to do is feed your kids. If that was you, and a place like America was next door, face it, you'd go. And no fence would stop you. Show me a 50 foot wall and I'll show you a 51 foot ladder.
Remember the America that the whole world loved and respected, rather than envied and loathed? remember when they loved us because we were a beacon of freedom rather than a place to make money and dominate others? When we were THAT country, it was because we helped the neediest in the world. We came up with things like the Marshall Plan and the Peace Corps. We need that America again.
As for this specific bill, I thought perhaps, simply because there was something for everybody to be pissed about, that it might actually be the right answer. But it is clearly doomed now, and instead of this flawed action, we'll get no action at all.
Personally I would be happy to foster one of these anchor babies in my own home when their parents leave. I'm sure that there are many others like me who would love to do so.
You want to clean fish for 16 hours a day http://www.idahotrout.com/This company got hit by INS last year and they are in dire straights for employees to this day.
My brother wants to turn over his trucking biz to his son but he can't find a driver to replace him.
Where's all them Americans willing to do Illegal alien work?
\\ Follow the money. The interests of major RNC contributors would suffer greatly if there was effective immigrant legislation. Status quo hurts the working class and helps the oligarchs. "Amnesty" is a smokescreen.//
Probably true. Rich, please write and post an essay that elaborates.
I'm hoping Rich is simply being fecescious when he says
\\YEAH! Deport them all!//
I mean, on a purely logistical level, forget about it. You will never locate, arrest and deport 12 million + people. Just ain't gonna happen.
Yes, we still have the problems but I believe that no bill is better than that flawed bill. There are excellent suggestions included in the comments above.
My NY Senators chose to ignore my pleas.
Congress simply went about this all wrong. They should have started with border security, port security, beefing up the border patrol, etc. Then once the tidal wave of illegals is slowed down, they could begin addressing the other issues. The biggest issue after border security that needs to be addressed is a total overhaul of the legal system which is totally and utterly broken.
Don't even get me started on stupid decisions by Chertoff and others that they don't even bother to project to see what the impact on an already strained system would be. This whole passport fiasco shows that this administration simply does things without every considering the ramifications. I am happy to see Bush lose this one. All we would have gotten out of it is millions of amnesties and no enforcement. This time the government has to prove it's serious BEFORE they get the goodies. Not after.
As for you Rudy, If you only work 12 hours a day what do you do with the rest of the day after lunch?
But we still have to read bullshit pro-illegal propaganda like in one of the comments just a few back from this one.
Rich dear? This has nothing to do with liberals and conservatives. People on both sides of the aisle found this bill offensive. I'm pro-choice and believe gays are people just like you and me, yet I thought this bill was bovine excrement from the get go. This bill could never have succeeded and had so many little "gotcha" triggers in it that it was amazing.
I don't know if you read the bill. Really read it. I did. The bottom line here is that the American people were sold a total bill of goods in 1986. We aren't going to be that stupid again. What we need to do now is to get together and start bombarding our elected officials to begin pushing for border security using the laws we already have. No new ones. Just enforce those that are on the books.
After a bit if we need more then we can pass more. For now, however, don't let your representatives off the hook. BTW, did you know that yesterday people actually crashed the Senate switchboard from the sheer volume of calls?
If this had not failed this week, in a few weeks there was going to be a call for Americans to stay home from work to see how quickly the government would change their minds.
I am all for increasing border security and keeping terrorists out of our country. I am for anyone who wants to come to this country to do so legally. I have many friends who have done that. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for the "illegals". They should not be given a free ride.
horrible bill. Here in Texas the social services are overwhelmed with non paying, non citizens. Hundreds of people from 125 countries earned their citizenship
in Houston this month, if they did it the right way, why can't everyone?
But there were the few who respected their constituents wishes. And even some who really understand what was going on.
"This immigration bill has become a war between the American people and their government," said Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican. "This vote today is really not about immigration, it's about whether we're going to listen to the American people."
Timothy: She doesn't need to be paid. A lot of people have accepted this myth without bothering to dig for the truth. There are some jobs it's difficult to recruit Americans for these days, so the assertion is at least partially true. On the other hand, there are a lot of Americans who can't get construction work any more because of illegals and in some areas they could not go do field work if they wished because they are threatened. This last happened quite close to me and is causing quite a flap.
The problem with this bill was simply that it was too big. Nobody really understood what was in it completely, even those of us who managed to actually read it. The focus of the bill was amnesty and there were far too many free tickets there. What sank this boat, however (in my opinion anyway) was the way it was presented. Nobody could make any effective changes to fix the glaring problems in the bill, not even things like allowing only 24 hours to complete a background check before granting amnesty. Some of us wondered why, when it takes 8-13 years to complete a legal application, Senators felt it was ok to set an impossibly short time limit on this.
They were granting amnesty to gangbangers.
They were allowing people to stay here then pretending they weren't going to the head of the immigration line when those applying from outside the country have to stay there and wait. Obviously we were considered to stupid to make that connection.
After doing some reading this morning, I am convinced that Mr. Bush will get even with us all by abandoning the already passed border security laws and by refusing to order strict enforcement of the employer laws already on the books. It would be his way.
http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer
So then we go to the trial phase. That again takes months and requires a solid majority willing to vote yes. In other words there is no way and no time you could possibly get an impeachment and a conviction in the time Mr. Bush remains in office.
Between his endless vacations and those of congress, they won't even be there long enough to do it now. Meanwhile all action on everything else of importance grinds to a halt. Besides, unless you can find someone to give Mr. Bush an BJ and then persuade him to lie about it, there's no case. It's not as if he went and lied about a war, costs us thousands of American lives, refuses to protect our borders, and has a bazillion different abuses of power behind him.
What he doesn't "see' is the destruction that he is causing this great nation. I think it would behoove him to tuck in his wings and set-out the remaining time left on his term.
We had the chance to send him the message you mentioned at the last election, and the voters chose to reelect him so we deserve what we've got. That's the way it works. Personally I think America shoots itself in the foot in terms of elections since we concentrate on money and looks rather than on substance. Being a good money raiser and being a good leader with ideas to better the country are not mutually exclusive, but one does not necessarily mean the other. We have become enormously shallow as a people. Then we express surprise when our elected officials do nothing whatever and are shallow, dishonest, and self-absorbed.
I'm truly happy that the American people are standing-up for this country and I sincerely hope that we continue with it.
As to the confidence vote.....I'm all for it as long as we include the derelicts that we have placed in Congress.
What I am gathering from the discussing is that proposal to give the illegal a pathway broke the camel's back. Had they gone with just probationary period where there is no certainty that they will achieve the status would have helped.
We have to remember that still in America, there is exploitation of people. This should also be unacceptable. Just my 2 cents.
Yes. The amnesty provision was one of the things that broke this bill because it didn't set limits on who could be granted amnesty. If you came here six months or six years or more ago you still got amnesty. It provided for a so-called background check then said it would be ignored if it took longer than 24 hours to perform. It did not require them to return home and wait until their applications were approved before giving them the right to stay.
It's not a matter of leaving matters as they are. It's a matter of sending a message to the president and congress that they get their priorities right. First border security. Next fix the damned broken legal system. Finally, develop an effective system for identifying who is and is not legal. At the same time as all this is going on, prove they are serious about things by enforcing those laws that have languished on the books since the initial 1986 amnesty but were never enforced. Make hiring illegals something you don't even want to consider.
I honestly think what broke the camel's back were those parades in which illegals marched blatantly through our streets with their Mexican flags, their signs in Spanish rather than English, and their demands for "their rights." It irritated the hell out of a lot of us who might otherwise have been sympathetic to their plight. They have no "rights" to demand. They have broken the laws and are here illegally, most of them having used forged documents or engaged in identity theft and they dare use the very freedoms this country holds to dear to attempt to intimidate us?
Personally, I would be entirely content to grant illegals here exactly the same rights and privileges that their home government grants illegals in their countries. Make it reciprocal.
The voters have spoken. First in November, and twice this year regarding this bill. I'm sure Mr. Bush will attempt to "get even" by refusing to approve the money he promised for border security now that he's been thwarted in his attempt to hand over millions of cheap workers to big business. If we ever return to the amnesty issue here, personally I will fight for limits on who qualifies and under what conditions. No touch back. Just go back and wait just like everyone else does.
If those here illegally feel exploited I'm sure they have somewhere else to go. They weren't asked to be here so they can just go home. I'm sure they'll get fairer treatment there. What is unacceptable is open borders and floods of illegals self-selecting to come here. We're a sovereign nation and it's about time we began acting like one.
The voters here are not as stupid as Ms. Feinstein apparently thinks we are when she urged her fellow senators to ignore the floods of phone calls against this bill because, as she put it, we didn't really understand what was in the bill and didn't know what was good for us. Well excuse me Ms. Feinstein but I'll put my education against yours any day, and I will bet you that I read more of that bill than you did.
About border; what they need to go after are the areas where the inflow of illegal is extreme. I know the conversation is going to be to build great wall of America, but if they are smart, they will target communities, areas and business nearby. This will greatly reduce the flow without spending too much of American tax dollars.
It's neither going to help or hinder us with the illegals. The mistake this current bill made was to try to address it from that perspective and that's the wrong way to approach the subject. First you secure the border. Next you discourage employers of illegals by enforcing the laws already on the books these past 20 years or more. Add new ones if you with.
The recently defeated bill had some good features. It wouldn't hurt to mine it for those. For instance, it advocated using closing military bases as holding facilities for those illegals snagged at the border. No catch and release. Just catch and deport. If you bundled this with border security, a much larger and more aggressive border patrol, with a backup of as many National Guard troops as we can spare, plus all of the electronic surveillance, and you have a very good start on reducing the flow of illegals. That's the most important first step. Just as when you go to repair plumbing, the first thing you do is shut off the water, the first thing you do with illegal immigration is to dry up (as much as possible) the flow into this country.
As the border security is going into place, you hit a second part of the attack which is go to after the employers. Put a few CEOs and board members behind bars and I guarantee you hiring illegals is going to look a whole lot less attractive. Offer employers cheap alternatives such as welfare recipients and non-violent prison inmates. Make them work for their money and help out the employers at the same time. Might even cut down on the crime rate if these folks had to do something more than sit on their butts and watch TV.
You'll notice I haven't mentioned doing anything with the current crop of illegals. Deprived of work and hopefully cut off from social services, many will self deport, thus reducing the problem. I disagree with you by the way that most of these people have "become part of our society". That's the biggest part of the problem. Take a look at the pro-amnesty parades with all the signs in Spanish and the Mexican flags. And people shaking their fists and demanding their "rights". Enough said. If they were part of our society they would be speaking English and assimilating. They, for the most part, do not do this.
Yes, the problem needs to be addressed. The thing is we tried this amnesty thing in 1986 and it was an utter failure on all fronts. We need a new approach. That approach has to be border security and employer sanctions first. From there we can look at fixing the broken legal immigration system, guest worker programs if they are actually needed, etc. But not until we've taken care of business first. Remember, one definition of insanity is to do the same thing the same way and expect different results.
I won't name names, but to those of you above that cannot compose a coherent paragraph, I have to wonder if English isn't your second language. If it is, kudos to you for at least trying to learn English. If you were actually raised in America and taught in an American school, I feel shamed that our educational system failed you so miserably.
I agree that government is slow to react to this problem. They have made the error of not making it a national issue. If it wasn't for the grass root campaign, this would have not been the issue to begin with. I 100% with the notion to put CEOs in jail, but we all know that this is not going to happen.
I think you are painting vast majority of illegal in same light. I doubt they are all Mexican flag waving, fist pumping pro-amnesty crowd. I just believe that there are many who sincerely want to be Americans.
My problem with those who sincerely "want to be Americans" is that most of them don't even speak English and demand that their kids be taught in Spanish in our schools. That's frankly ridiculous since there is no way these children will ever get ahead if they cannot even speak the predominate language of the country. Also, every single illegal here has broken at least one law, and most probably considerably more than that.
Again we go back to the old premise....the more you reward bad behavior the more of it you get. That was proven conclusively in 1986. We granted amnesty. It caused the biggest mass illegal border crossing in our history. If we grant another 10-12 million amnesty, all we're doing is setting things up so that in another 20 years it's 20-30 million we're granting amnesty to. Amnesty doesn't work. We have to do something different. Why continue to do the same thing when we know it has failed?
I don't know if the majority of illegals are like those I saw on TV. Obviously they can't be since not all illegals are from Mexico, just the majority. If you want to know the ultimate aim of these folks, go out to the LaRaza website and do some reading. It's all laid out there in plain English.
Its an ambitious plan, but I doubt it will happen. Let's hope the government does something about it because even if the Bill is dead, issue is still alive.
I'm reading some stuff that leads me to think that there will be some gestures coming forth. I don't expect them to be more than gestures designed to get a spot on the evening news. Chertoff is already talking crackdown on employers.
Mr. Bush's only alternative to just ignoring the entire issue now (which is what I think he will do) is to put forth that 4.4 billion dollars he said he would and go for border security. Given his hands in the pockets relationship with big business and with the Mexican government, I cannot see why he would bother to do anything. The only glimmer of hope is that he still believes he can save his "legacy" by doing something. If that something comes to rest on immigration there is the slightest of hopes we might move forward.
*sigh* I am frustrated. I am glad this horrid mess of a bill is dead. I don't buy the idea that a badly flawed bill is better than no bill, especially when the badly flawed bill was an amnesty bill. I would love to see the legal system fixed so that it was easier to come here legally. In the end, however, even that won't fix things because the legal system will always favor people with education, training, and who speak English over ignorant, uneducated, unskilled people who refuse to even try to learn English.
My biggest concern is that I don't want to see the United States become a third world country. It's just not what I want to see my granddaughter have to cope with.
JUst asking because you are SO determined to jump people who as their FIRST ACT ON ENTERING THIS COUNTRY chose to break the law - to the front of the line ahead of people who have been working for YEARS to become citizens LEGALLY.
Yes, Snookiedimples, there IS a legal process that can be followed to truly immigrate to this country, and almost all American Citizens are quite welcoming to those who come here LEGALLY.
On the other hand, those of you who come here without bothering to go through the process legally (it's TOO INCONVENIENT!!!) need to be deported with nothing but your anchor babies and the clothes on your backs.