As they say in baseball, it’s not over til the fat lady sings. Let me tell you that if the Senate ever passes their version of an immigration reform measure it still has a major obstacle standing in its path called the House of Representatives. Those 435 members are up for reelection every other year. Word from the Hill is that the majority will not endorse any proposal from the other House which kills any chance of approval in the opinion of this writer. Earlier today I received the following update from Gary Bauer, former candidate for president a few years ago. Although Gary is a fiscal and social conservative Republican he does not support the adminstration in their amnesty proposal.
His remarks on this topic follow:
From: Gary L. Bauer, Chairman
Campaign for Working Families
Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Here We Go Again
Today the Senate is debating a new bill on comprehensive immigration
“reform” brought to the floor under the Senate’s arcane rules in a
procedure known as a “clay pigeon.” There will be limited time for debate
and only a limited number of amendments designed to “improve” the bill will
be considered. Some votes on the amendments will be taken by a “voice
vote,” a nice way to hide from you how each senator voted on those
amendments.
And, according to what we’re hearing from friends on the Hill, the senators
themselves may not even know what they’re voting on. Harry Reid’s office
was reportedly rewriting the bill behind closed doors this morning when it
was discovered that previously agreed upon items were missing from the new
text.
But as the editors of National Review point out, “the entire exercise in
the Senate is about passing the core ‘Grand Bargain’ – that is, immediate
legal status for illegal aliens in exchange for promises of enforcement
later. Any amendment that truly threatens the bargain won’t pass. …The
game remains the same: Pass amnesty by giving it some enforcement cover.”
Unfortunately, they are right. An issue as complex as this, and one so
fraught with tremendous implications for our national security, has been
reduced to little more than a D.C. shell game.
For example, a number of senators are telling their constituents that they
oppose amnesty and will very likely vote against final passage of the bill.
Yet, yesterday they voted to revive the debate in exchange for a chance to
offer an amendment knowing full well that their amendment would be shot
down!
National Review counts eight senators in this category, and they are
dubbing them “The Amnesty Eight.” They are: Kit Bond (R-MO), Sam Brownback
(R-KS), Richard Burr (R-NC), Norm Coleman (R-MN), John Ensign (R-NV), Ben
Nelson (D-NE), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Jim Webb (D-VA).
Here’s another example of the disingenuousness of the bill’s supporters.
We have been told ad nauseam that it is impossible to deport millions of
illegal immigrants. Yet, three primary sponsors of this “grand bargain”
are offering an amendment requiring some aliens to “self-deport” to their
home countries – after they have been given legal status – in order to
apply for their Z visas.
If they refuse to comply, we’re told, “They will be deported along with
their spouses and any non-American citizen children.” So the same senators
who said mass deportations were impossible now “promise” mass deportations?
Give me a break!
We’re told this bill includes all kinds of border security measures and
employer sanctions. So what? Last year Congress passed the Secure Fence
Act mandating 850 miles of additional fencing and more Border Patrol
agents. The additional agents haven’t been deployed, the fence hasn’t been
built and won’t be for decades at its current pace of construction, and the
government doesn’t even enforce the laws currently on the books.
Columnist Terry Jeffrey recently studied a series of reports and audits
from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general, and the
results are shocking. For example, the Social Security Administration
maintains lists of employers who report fraudulent information, but it does
not refer them to law enforcement for prosecution!
In an extreme case, one child’s Social Security number was reported on
nearly 4,000 W-2s. One employer in Illinois filed nearly 132,000
inaccurate and false W-2s with mismatched names and Social Security numbers
to the IRS over five years. The IRS can fine employers up to $50 for every
bad W-2, but guess what? According to a 2004 Government Accounting Office
report, “IRS does not have any information documenting that any employer
has ever been assessed such a penalty.”
But wait, there’s more. Jeffrey also discovered this amazing fact in the
inspector general’s report: The government itself may be one of the
biggest employers of illegal aliens.
My friends, if you’re thoroughly disgusted by this sham of a process, I
can’t blame you. But I want to leave you with this note of encouragement:
This isn’t over yet. There will be one more crucial vote tomorrow, where
senators will be given a second chance to redeem themselves and stop this
bill from passing.
But if it does pass the Senate, there appears to be little support for the
bill in the House of Representatives. Speaker Pelosi has said she would
not bring the bill up without 70 Republican votes. Yesterday, the House
Republican caucus took the unusual step of voting to condemn the Senate’s
immigration bill, passing a resolution of “disapproval” by an overwhelming
margin of 114-to-23. In the words of one House Republican, the Senate
bill “is dead on arrival.”
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