07/02/2007
My Georgia based daughter in law sent me today this email message about the defeat of the Senate’s amnesty bill (S1639) on June 28th, when the cloture vote failed by a 46 to 53 margin:
"I hope even if Hillary is elected there will still be a public outcry like this time and it will be defeated!"
Bright lady, so right. While the next immigration reform measure may not surface until after the Presidential election in 2008 (thus no action until early 2009), it is important for that massive outcry from the vast majority of Americans citizens be understood by our elected officials of both parties.
No longer is the immigration reform issue the provenance of the sneaky special interests and the arcane policy wonks. This latest blatant attempt to steal our heritage, our tax supported services, our sovereignty and our culture by this greed-driven, corporate-owned Congress, has finally alerted Americans to the real major danger on our soil.
The danger to our Republic posed by the threat of more terrorism here (while highly plausible) is only marginal compared to that constituted by the present invasion of our nation. That threatens to have far more effect on our freedoms and our safety. Yes, bombs will kill, but such attacks, like 9/11, will only serve to unite us. But, as has often been expounded, most eloquently by former Governor Richard Lamm in his October, 2003speech, "How to Destroy America", allowing this continued alien invasion can only lead to the end of the American Dream.
Yet this open border policy has for years been freely allowed to function uncurbed by the Federal Government. Both Parties are equally culpable. Why do they do it? You know! Because of the politically and financially lucrative incentives supplied by special interests — including the corporate elites, but also ethno-centric lobbies such as LULAC, and other groups seeking political and religious benefits while purporting to represent the interests of immigrants and refugees. The new-member-hungry Roman Catholic Church and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society must be mentioned here.
Just how dangerous this is right now is vividly illustrated by the London and Glasgow car bombing cases. The influx of radical Moslem clerics and other preaching hate and Jihad to young resident Moslems is a phenomenon also going on America. We are talking not only treason, but murder and mayhem.
None of these special interest groups care about you and me, the average citizens of this great nation. They insult us with silly slogans: "America is a nation of immigrants", "poor undocumented workers just doing jobs Americans won’t do" "Everyone deserves the American Dream; why are you so selfish?" and the bell ringer for the Open Borders chorus, "We can’t just let 12 million (or is it more like 20 million) illegal aliens stay in the shadows; we must act now to give them recognition and a track to citizenship." Chutzpah!
Yes, far too many can and really need a psychiatric examination to explain why they believe that illegal is legal, demands for our property and livelihoods are OK, and the right to march with the flags of other nations in our country demanding citizenship is not out of order.
No more, hopefully, I told my daughter in law, will this kind of phony rhetoric be able to gain the kind of traction which allowed S1639 to bulldoze its way onto the legislative agenda despite the qualms and protests of the vast majority of Americans.
What to we need to do now that S1639 is "history?"
Moderates of all political parties and religious and ethnic persuasions need to unite against these hostile forces, which can destroy forever the heritage established by our Founding Fathers in reaction to the faults and abuses they saw in England.
June 28th will mark the date of a great revolt by American citizens, who en masse at last began to realize they were being taken to the cleaners by their elected officials. They rose up and clogged the Senate switchboard that day so that no further business could be done over those Senate phones. They imitated the actor Peter Finch’s news anchor man on the movie Network, shouting out on his nightly news program, "We are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore."
As Ed Rollins, former White House political director under Reagan and Republican strategist, said on Lou Dobbs June 29, 2007 nightly news program on CNN, "This was a fascinating week. This is a historic week. I think — as someone who’s been in this business for 40 years, this is a week that had big, big actions that matter. The voters got their voice heard."
Yes, illegal alien immigrations should be stopped and those here identified and given the door, but even the legal level of immigration is way too high at almost 1 million a year. Then there are those H1-B work visas to people who are needed not because Americans can’t be found for the work, but because they can be underbid by imported serfs. And those temporary visas issued to visitors, over half of whom over stay and no one in government knows where they are. Yes, it is a mess.
But the people who wanted to pass this monstrosity bill in the Senate are saying now, "Well, the present immigration laws are unenforceable." But they wanted to put more unenforceable laws on the books and Bush offered a $4.4 billion border security carrot to get votes for S1639. Show me that money now, Mr. President! And while you are at it, how about building that fence very fast for which the money is already authorized, instead at the present snail’s pace?
Again, the voice of Ed Rollins on that same Dobbs broadcast, "The idea that you can’t enforce the laws that you've already passed is one of the most absurd things. First of all they have appropriate — not appropriated, they authorized various things from more guards to more fences and they never funded, and I think they need to be held responsible. They need to live up to enforcement of this law and give the tools to [seal] the border."
Oh, and, Mr. Bush, how about pardoning those border patrol officers who shot an illegal Mexican drug dealer and got over ten years each in the Federal pen for their loyalty to our country.
Perhaps now politicians will understand that Americans will no longer stand for the BS that they have been fed. The credibility of our Federal Government is zilch, with Congress less well regarded in the opinion polls than our politically bankrupt President.
As a long time board member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), I am very proud of the part it has played for so many years in educating the American public about the dangers of unremitting, under regulated, unfair immigration. FAIR’s statement following the defeat of S1639 on 6/28/07, summarizes perfectly the course of action Americans should expecting from its elected leaders. In part, FAIR’s President, Dan Stein,
"National immigration politics have changed forever and the American people are engaged." "The integrated lobbying strategy involving talk radio hosts across the nation, e-mail, phone calls, internet and local grassroots activism have all combined to enlighten the average American in ways unimaginable as recently as 1996," says Stein, "and people know intimate details about pending legislation and are acting on that information — by the millions. They know it was weak, impractical and unfair in the extreme. It is the American people who will now lead this debate with enlightened immigration politics that serve the interests of future generations of Americans, not the usual battery of self serving interests." [28 June 2007 Why the Senate Immigration Bill Failed — The Politics of the Immigration Issue Have Changed Forever, says FAIR]
As matters in the Presidential race now stand, it looks to many observers that it is Hillary Clinton’s race to lose. People are so disaffected by the arrogance, hidden power grabs and continuous policy and governance mistakes of the present White House, that Republicans will very likely not retain that office. But if Hillary or any other standard bearer who attains the nomination of my party thinks that open border immigration reform is great for adding to Democratic voter rolls, they had better be thinking again. We are aroused. Most of us are not such hard core Democrats or Republicans — we have been hosed by both parties. Most of us are in reality independents and we see the price of cheap labor and lost control of our nation very, very clearly.
We want and will from now on demand real border security, real employer sanctions, and real reform of the administration of our immigration system. As Dan Stein has noted, "The Bush administration has missed virtually every deadline set by Congress for the assertion of immigration controls since September 11, 2001. The President has lost credibility because he has repeatedly promised enforcement for political reasons and then retrenched the moment the cameras left the room. This President — whose repeated pronouncements since 2000 have encouraged the greatest tidal wave of illegal immigration in American history — is not the person to convince the American people that …a mass amnesty will generate effective enforcement."
Remember, folks, the Senate failed to address the recommendations that have been made repeatedly about how to limit immigration and rendered enforceable — going back as 1980. The arguments in favor of a merit system were not properly framed by the proponents, including the need to develop an enforceable immigration selection system under an annual, reviewable and enforceable cap. The arguments against chain migration — as driving incessant annual increases in unskilled immigration, generating unmanageable backlogs and thwarting the general public’s ability to decide who and how many come each year — were never fully developed.
Stein has it right when he states, "The American people have raised their voices collectively in outrage over this blatant assault on core values and rule of law — the values that tie this diverse society together as a nation". Amen.
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.
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