Newt Gingrich on La Amnestia bill:

This bill is a disaster. It is a failure. It should be defeated. It should cease to exist. The Senate ought to go back to regular business. They ought to try to produce an immigration bill through the regular committee process out in the open where people can look at it, amend it, refine it, criticize it. But this particular deal is as big a disaster that any Republican has had in my lifetime, and I predict, if in fact it gets through the Senate, it will be a disaster for every Republican Senator and a lot of Democratic Senators because I think the anger is bipartisan. Taxpaying Americans do not want to be told that international gang members are going to be amnestied.

REWARDING LAWBREAKERS
By KRIS W. KOBACH

May 21, 2007 — THE immigration bill set to hit the Senate floor this week has over 300 pages – yet few people have seen the details. Proponents, led by Ted Kennedy, waited until the last minute to make the draft public – so most senators will be in the dark when they debate it.

But the text is now circulating on Capitol Hill, and the content is astonishing. Just when it is becoming clear that overwhelming majorities of Americans – of all parties and all races – say they want to see stronger enforcement of our laws, the bill would take the country full speed in the opposite direction.

As promised, the bill will legalize most of the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens now in the country via a new “Z visa.” Each would pay $3,000 – only slightly more than the going rate to be smuggled into America.

But provisions buried in the fine print are far more outrageous. Here’s a sampling:

1) To qualify for the Z-visa amnesty, an illegal alien need only have a job (or be the parent, spouse, or child of someone with a job) and come up with a scrap of paper suggesting he was in the country before Jan. 1 of this year. Any bank statement, pay stub, or similarly forgeable record will do.

Expect a mass influx unlike anything this country has seen before, once the 12-month period for accepting Z visa applications begins. These rules are an open invitation to sneak in and present a fraudulent piece of paper indicating that you were already here.

2) Supporters of the bill call the Z visa “temporary” – neglecting to mention that it can be renewed indefinitely until the visa holder dies. Thus, we have the country’s first permanent temporary visa. On top of that, it’s a super-visa – allowing the holder to work, attend college or do just about anything else.

Are you a law-abiding alien who’s interested in switching to this privileged status? Sorry. Only illegal aliens can qualify.

3) Many criminals and terrorists will find it easy to get a Z visa. The bill allows the government only one day to conduct a so-called “background check” on the applicant. If the (already overstretched) feds can’t find anything in that single day, the alien gets a probationary visa that lets him roam at will and seek employment legally.

Plainly, the bill’s authors don’t have a clue how the government maintains info on criminals and terrorists. It has no single, searchable database of all dangerous people. Much data exists only in paper records that can’t be searched in 24 hours. Other information is held by foreign governments.

In this real-world version of “24,” if the federal government fails to find the key facts soon enough, we all lose.

4) The bill effectively shuts down our immigration-court system. If an alien in the removal process is eligible for the Z visa, the immigration judge must close the proceedings and offer the alien the chance to apply for the amnesty. The wheels of justice won’t just turn slowly, they’ll go in reverse.

5) The bill transforms the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from a law-enforcement agency into an amnesty-distribution center. If ICE officials apprehend an alien who appears eligible for the Z visa (in other words, just about any illegal alien), they can’t detain him. Instead, ICE must help him apply for the Z visa.

Rather than initiating removal proceedings, ICE will be initiating amnesty applications. It’s like turning the Drug Enforcement Agency into a needle-distribution network.

6) The bill even lets gang members get the amnesty. This comes at a time when violent international gangs have brought mayhem to our cities. More than 30,000 gang members operate in 33 states, trafficking in drugs, arms and people.

Deporting illegal-alien gang members has been a top ICE priority. This bill would end that: Under it, a gang member qualifies for the Z-visa privileges as long as he simply signs a “renunciation of gang affiliation.” He can keep his tattoos.

In Sen. Kennedy’s America, “immigration enforcement” will become an oxymoron. And – just like the last time we offered an amnesty, in 1986 – millions of new illegal aliens will flood the country to apply for the amnesty fraudulently.

This bill isn’t a “compromise” in any meaningful sense. It is a surrender.

Kris W. Kobach, a professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, served as counsel to the U.S. Attorney General, 2001-03. He was the attorney general’s chief adviser on immigration law.

Read the rest here.

PROMINENT REPUBLICANS REPUDIATE KENNEDY-BUSH AMNESTY

MITT ROMNEY• “I strongly oppose today’s bill going through the Senate. It is the wrong approach. Any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely, as the new ‘Z-Visa’ does, is a form of amnesty. That is unfair to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate to the U.S.” — Press Release, 5/17/07

NEWT GINGRICH• “[A] sellout of every conservative principle.” – The Spectator, 5/18/07

FRED THOMPSON• “We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders — or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty.” — National Review Online, 5/18/07
From the Office of Congressman Lamar Smith

The below was written for and is posted on Dick Pettys’ INSIDER ADVANTAGE GEORGIA, a subscription Website. Reposted here with full permission. We are grateful to Mr. Pettys.

I have added a few hyperlinks to educate the reader.

It’s not amnesty?

D.A. King

It is fitting and proper that the two U.S. Senators from Georgia are playing defense on the latest version of amnesty for illegal aliens.

It is disgraceful if they are using the “trigger” argument for that defense – and would have us believe that the promised triggers will prevent more than twenty million illegal aliens from continued residence in the same nation that millions of puzzled potential real immigrants are even now applying to enter legally.

The truth is glaringly easy to see.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, most illegal aliens coming from Mexico already have jobs there, but take a very understandable view that making five or ten times as much money here as in their home nation makes walking into the U.S. a no-brainer trip.

Who could blame anyone for wanting to live and work in the U.S.? While citizenship would be a cherry on the sundae of working here while getting free medical care and education – in their own language – it is not why they come.

They come for the money.

Illegal employers, winked at by the corrupt Bush administration could care less if their taxpayer subsidized labor obtains citizenship.

They hire the illegals because they will work for less than an American requires to live with any dignity in his own country.

They do it for the money.

As we watch the debate begin on a bill that few can possibly have yet read , we should all keep our eyes on the amnesty provision that no one can dispute and that none of the bills proponents will ever take out, which is the proposed “Probationary Status”. It would be available to nearly all illegal aliens within a few months of the bill’s passage. When an illegal alien applies, the government has no more than 24 hours to do a criminal background check. Once the 24 hours are over, the Probationary Status is given, even if the background check has not been done.

All of this happens months and even years before any of the enforcement provisions in the bill take effect. Just like in 1986, the bill provides amnesty first and enforcement later – if ever.

Once in the probationary status, there is no reason the illegal will ever have to go home unless he decides to do so or disqualifies himself with certain criminal activity…if that part is actually enforced. There is no reason he can’t have children who are American citizens and further anchor the family into the U.S.

According to the well-respected Washington – based immigration reform organization, NumbersUSA, the now newly “legal” alien is not ever required to apply for a green card that would eventually lead to a path to citizenship. But he can stay in the U.S. and work for the rest of his life if he chooses to pay $1,000 for a Z-visa renewal every four years – $250.00 a year to live in the United States of America.

No trigger. No deterrent. No change in the absence of any real border security, no additional Border Patrol Agents, no increased interior enforcement and no punishment for the employer who has been in violation of the law for years.

No amnesty?

Here’s another little feature will likely not be in the convoluted talking points offered in the defense of the “Grand Compromise” and amid the endless howls of “this is not an amnesty:” The earlier selling point of requiring the formerly illegal aliens to pay back taxes on past wages earned – illegally – has been quietly taken out at the insistence of the White House

Not amnesty? Americans watching the spin from the leaders elected to preserve the rule of law will have to make up their own minds on the ridiculous game of semantics being played and decide for themselves.

Most of us already have.

Nobody can argue that the only group in the game that is not getting what they demand from this repeat of the failed amnesty of 1986 are the American people who are under the apparently quaint and out-dated impression that American law should be equally applied and that those who blatantly violate that law should not be rewarded.

Likely an extreme concept when the money is really the object here.

D.A. King

King is a Marietta Daily Journal columnist and president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Georgia-based non-profit coalition actively opposed to illegal immigration.
On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org

Kill the bill!

Boston Globe
Bush removes provision requiring back taxes from illegal aliens

The Bush administration insisted on a little-noticed change in the bipartisan Senate immigration bill that would enable 12 million [illegal aliens… criminals] to avoid paying back taxes or associated fines to the IRS, officials said. — An independent analyst estimated the decision could cost the IRS tens of billions of dollars….

An independent analyst estimated the decision could cost the IRS tens of billions of dollars.

A provision requiring payment of back taxes had been in the initial version of a bill proposed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat. But the administration called for the provision to be removed due to concern that it would be too difficult to figure out which illegal immigrants owed back taxes.

The dropping of the back-tax provision was not made clear in the announcement of the immigration reform proposal on Thursday. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, speaking in reference to illegal immigrants seeking legal status, said, “You’ve got to pay your taxes.” He did not state whether he was referring to back taxes, future taxes, or both.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel, asked in a telephone interview yesterday to clarify Chertoff’s remark, said it referred only to future taxes.

The rest here.

It is amazing to witness the blatant contempt our elected public servants display for their bosses – the Sovereign American People. Last week the US Senate revealed their “compromise” guestworker Amnesty bill. Let’s be clear here. The only “compromise” involved is that of United States Sovereignty. Amnesty for illegal aliens is but one more step toward the North American Union – an end goal that Ted Kennedy and George W seem to share – no matter what the American People want. After all, “The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper,” said George in a closed meeting. (Bush on the Constitution: ‘Just a goddamned piece of paper’, by Doug Thompson, Capitol Hill Blue, December 9, 2005).

Here is a very good synopsis of this terrible bill.

Here is the actual wording of the bill.

Here is an article on how bad the bill really is:
Capitulation, from A—— to Z, by Mark Steyn, Human Events Online, May 20, 2007

Fred Elbel
guest writer, The Dustin Inman Society

The Senate agreement so far (draft) as of May 18– Highlights

1) Grants blanket amnesty to all illegal aliens who have not been convicted of a felony or three or more misdemeanors
(Sec. Chertoff guestimates that about 15% will be disqualified as serious criminals!);

2) Says that a massive, new “guest worker” program and the blanket amnesty will begin once the President tells Congress that five meaningless triggers have been met.

The triggers are:

1) Customs and Border Protection must have hired (not trained or deployed) a total of 18,000 Border Patrol agents (or 4,000 more than we now have);

2) DHS must have built 200 miles of vehicle barriers, 370 miles of fencing, and 70 ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern land border of the United States, and have deployed 4 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and supporting systems (the law you passed last year requires twice this amount of fencing);

3) DHS must continue doing what it already claims to be doing now and detaining removable aliens caught entering illegally and it must have the detention beds to continue to do so;

4) DHS must have the “tools” to prevent illegals from getting jobs, including ID standards and a work eligibility verification system (note that it doesn’t actually have to be using the tools, it just has to have them);

5) DHS must be “processing and adjudicating in a timely manner” amnesty applications (even though the amnesty is not supposed to begin until the triggers are met).

So the triggers do NOT require that DHS have operational control of the border; they do NOT require that DHS comply with the law and build the all of the fence; they do NOT require that DHS implement the exit system that would allow us to know if “guest workers” actually leave, even though it has been in the law since 1996; they do NOT require work site enforcement; they do NOT require that DHS increase its apprehension rate or its alien absconder removal rate. In fact, the substantive thing the triggers really require is that DHS be rapidly processing amnesty applications!

3) Increases legal immigration levels by at least 50 percent over the next decade by granting green cards to all of the extended relatives who are on the State Department’s waiting list for the chain migration categories (adult married and unmarried children of citizens, plus their families; siblings of adult US citizens, plus their families; and adult unmarried children of permanent residents, plus their families), before it eventually eliminates these categories (see Dr. Gingrey’s bill, HR 938, for the right way to end chain migration). Moreover, by giving green cards to millions of additional relatives, the bill ensures that legal immigration will continue to grow in the foreseeable future as this larger pool of permanent residents brings in new spouses, which would become an unlimited category under this bill.

4) Relies on the Administration to implement the enforcement provisions in the bill, even though it clearly has been unwilling to implement current law.

Fred Thompson on amnesty TownHall.com

Most Americans know that we have an illegal immigration problem in this country, with perhaps as many as 20 million people residing here unlawfully. And I think most Americans have a pretty good idea about how to at least start solving the problem – secure our nation’s borders.

But there’s an old saying in Washington that, in dealing with any tough issue, half the politicians hope that citizens don’t understand it while the other half fear that people actually do. This kind of thinking was apparent with the “comprehensive” immigration reform bill that the U.S. Senate and the White House negotiated yesterday.

Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., seated, and others, takes part in a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 17, 2007, to discuss immigration reform legislation. Standing, from left are, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) I’d tell you what was in the legislation, but 24 hours after the politicians agreed the bill looked good, the Senate lawyers were still writing what may turn out to be a one thousand page document. In fact, a final version of the bill most likely will not be made available to the public until after the legislation is passed. That may come five days from now. That’s like trying to digest an eight-course meal on a fifteen-minute lunch break.

We’ve tried the “comprehensive” route before to solve the illegal immigration problem with a bit more care and deliberation, and the results haven’t been good. Back in May 1985, Congress promised us that it would come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem of illegal immigration and our porous borders. Eighteen months later, in November 1986, that comprehensive plan was signed into law.

Twenty-two years and millions of illegal immigrants later, that comprehensive plan hasn’t done what most Americans wanted it to do — secure America’s borders. Now Washington says the new “comprehensive” plan will solve the problem that the last comprehensive plan didn’t.

The fact is our border and immigration systems are still badly broken. We were reminded of this when Newsweek reported that the family of three of the men, arrested last week for allegedly plotting to kill American military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, entered the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago; filed for asylum back in 1989, but fell off the government’s radar screen when federal bureaucrats essentially lost track of the paperwork. Wonder how many times that’s been replicated?

Is it any wonder that a lot of folks today feel like they’re being sold a phony bill of goods on border security? A “comprehensive” plan doesn’t mean much if the government can’t accomplish one of its most basic responsibilities for its citizens — securing its borders. A nation without secure borders will not long be a sovereign nation.

No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it’s not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress’s track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier — at least from the public’s point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business.

We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders — or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty.

Fred Thompson is an actor and former Senator. His radio commentary airs on the ABC Radio Network and be blogs on The Fred Thompson Report.

18 May, 2007

As voters who must deal with the fact that the federal government has refused to secure American borders – and with the huge influx of illegal aliens into our state, we recognize that a path to legalization for the millions of illegal aliens in our nation will not serve as a deterrent for millions more to eventually make their way into our communities.

The costs of illegal employment have devastated the wages of low-income workers in our nation. Legalizing illegal activity will not work towards lowering taxes or raising those wages. Legalizing illegal aliens will only serve to multiply the taxpayer benefits paid to those who have broken American laws to take American jobs.

According to expert testimony from a preliminary study given May 17 to the House Judiciary Committee by Robert Rector of the highly respected Heritage Foundation, the cost of amnesty and earned citizenship for just 7.9 million amnesty recipients would be $2.4 trillion. A cost that must be born by the American taxpayer.

We believe the number of illegal aliens present in the U.S. to be in excess of 20 million.

We understand that the amnesty of 1986 proved beyond all doubt that the only real solution to solving the illegal immigration and illegal employment crisis in our nation and our state is to secure American borders …at any price.

We adamantly oppose any federal legislation that would legalize continued presence for people now present in the U.S. illegally. This is amnesty-again.
We oppose the entire concept of the proposed Z VISA and any “touchback” provision in what is being labeled as “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” in Washington.

Touchback provisions are thinly veiled attempts to put illegal aliens at the front of the very long line of potential immigrants who are not allowed to live and work in the U.S. while pursuing legal residency.

We heartily agree with Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions in his observation that any “grand compromise” legislation will be lengthy and will require considerable inspection before any responsible vote could be taken. We also urge all concerned to carefully read section 113 of last year’s Senate immigration reform bill, the language of which is repeated in both the Flake Gutierrez House bill ( HR 1645) and the Senate bill – s 1348 – presently in consideration in that body.

We support the never – tried concept of attrition of the illegal population by enthusiastic enforcement of existing laws coupled with a verifiable, secure and tamper-proof worker verification ID for all applicants for U.S. jobs coupled with vigorous work-place and border enforcement.

Sadly, we have little faith in the Bush administration’s integrity to certify border security or operational control.

Attrition through enforcement is the only sensible, just and moderate method in taking the first steps to a real solution to the chaos created by the lack of action in the federal government’s obligation in securing America in a war on terror.

We oppose any federal legislation that does not protect American children’s expectation of a secure America and an opportunity to obtain the American dream of the equal and constant application of the rule of law in America.

We urge the U.S. Senate to just say “NO” to any illegal alien legalization legislation, including the proposed “Z VISA” system.

We urge the U.S. Congress to heed the findings and recommendations of the Jordan Commission on Immigration Reform of 1995 and restate the words and spirit of the testimony of Barbara Jordan – that commission’s Chair – to Congress during the Clinton Administration: “Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave — deportation is crucial. Employer sanctions can work”
We will never forget any vote that grants a path to legalization for illegal aliens, and we note that there is no penalty for the millions of employers who are granted the same…amnesty.

D.A. King
President
The Dustin Inman Society
Marietta, Georgia
www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org

Gingrey statement on Senate immigration compromise

Rep. Phil Gingrey

Washington, May 17 –

U.S. Congressman Phil Gingrey today made the following statement regarding the preliminary details of the Senate’s compromise immigration legislation:

“In the past, the Senate has come up with some truly outrageous plans for dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants in our nation, from consulting with Mexico on a border fence to giving illegal immigrants workplace protections that law-abiding Americans don’t enjoy. We have learned to closely scrutinize their bills, and I fear this new compromise may simply be amnesty by another name. Citizenship is a precious commodity, and we need to ensure our immigration laws benefit the American people, our security and our economy. We can’t bankrupt our government services by granting the biggest handout of all… amnesty.”