A Democrat Regrets Dennis Hastert’s Likely Departure

By Donald A. Collins

10/11/2006

Frankly, this upcoming election scares me. My party’s House Leader, Nancy Pelosi, could well be the speaker.

Why is this dangerous? Well, my friend, Roy Beck, President of NumbersUSA, showed me his wonderful web page which rates the immigration record of every member of Congress. Being a computer klutz, I had Roy show me at a recent meeting here in Washington, DC, exactly how his system works by going to Pelosi. When he did, she came up last of the 435 House members on all the key immigration issues that need fixing.

Obviously, this lady, with whom I can agree on many other matters, does not understand the urgent threat to our security, democracy and our general welfare posed by illegal immigration now and continued high levels of legal immigration into the future.

The Republicans so far are handling the Foley affair only slightly better than the Catholic hierarchy handled their priest problems. Instead of caucusing and saying, "Dennis, as unfair as you may think it is to be forced to resign now, 5 weeks more of sticking the dirty details of this into the faces of the American public will not help us."

The longer it takes the Republicans to get this job done, the more it will hurt their already bleeding fortunes.

Hastert strikes me as a guy who suddenly became second in line for Presidential succession by being extruded up the pipeline by bureaucratic inertia. He looks avuncular, pleasant, rather like your favorite uncle, in short a nice guy.

Once there in this high profile post, however, Hastert has actually been very good indeed on the issue of immigration reform. Particularly when compared to Pelosi.

A quick check, which you can do, of Roy’s wonderful web site tracking device, will confirm my opinion. First, go to the home page of www.numbersUSA.com and then scroll down to the box entitled, Immigration Report Cards. Punch that and you will get a page headed "Americans for Better Immigration" on which there is a green box on the right where you can go to "View Grades" on the subject of "Overall increases through Immigration". Punch "By Member Name" and up comes a list of all Congress. Scroll down to "Hastert" and bingo, up comes his record, which for most specific issues is very high–even A+ on many issues, such as how he voted on to reduce chain migration, the visa lottery, unnecessary visas for foreign workers, to try to stop fraud in the refugee and asylum cases, which is rampant, reduce amnesties, stop anchor babies, improve border control, and beef up internal enforcement.

In fact, following a series of hearings around the US on border security, Hastert said: "We found through these hearings that every state is a border state, and almost every city is a border city."

Now do Pelosi. Her highest grade was a "D" on all those issues mentioned above, reducing chain migration, the visa lottery, unnecessary visas for foreign workers, on trying stop fraud in the refugee and asylum cases, which is rampant, reducing amnesties, stopping anchor babies, improving border control, and beefing up internal enforcement. Her overall grade is an "F-".

Boy, if you like them apples, you are going to love her tenure as House Speaker when the Senate sends over its open border monstrosity — maybe not S. 2611, but Son of S 2611, which will fly through the House and land on Bush’s desk.

Bush is so desperate to get anything done, he will sign this bill, which will not only insure amnesty of the 11 million illegals here now, but open the floodgates for millions more.

And if you like that, then you will love Bush’s efforts on behalf of the North American Union, an simply dictatorial scam without legislative action by Congress to wed Canada, the USA, and Mexico into a trading block that will allow free transit of aliens, terrorists and tariff-free goods to flow greater profits into the pockets of poor little corporations like Wal-Mart.

So here we go. What we are going to get on the immigration issue from the Democrats is not reform but refocus. Viva le Open Borders!!!

Pelosi apparently never met an illegal alien import bill she found unacceptable, despite the overall US polls which show great concern by over 80% of Americans for getting border security first, before any more amnesties. The previous 6 amnesties, always advertised as the last one, have brought at least 11 million illegal aliens into America and probably more.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. Mr. Hastert, we hardly got to know you, But, given the vicious way the system works here in DC, even if nary a page was seduced by Mr. Foley, you are probably toast. Sorry about that.

It speaks to the stupidity of how Americans generally handle matters of sexuality, as if somehow we were all alike and if not, why not? Turns out that the clerk in charge of pages, then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl according to a Washington Post article of October 7th was " openly homosexual and personally close to the now-disgraced former law maker, who announced through his lawyer this week that he is gay." [ Staffer Cites Earlier Role by Hastert’s Office, By Jonathan Weisman]

Question: Is it better to have a Speaker who messed up on fingering a potentially dangerous gay guy, but who is okay on immigration reform, or a speaker who wants open borders? We will know soon.

Meanwhile — gee, Mr. Hastert, I hope you stay your personal course on real immigration reform.

Donald A. Collins is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.