Americans ‘Would Not Support Immigration Reform that Included Amnesty’
Four days ago, President Obama ordered that an immigration policy not agreed to by Congress be enacted, deferring deportation for certain young illegal immigrants and single-handedly jacking the immigration issue up to its highest position on voters’ radar since 2006.
Six years ago, the controversy over how to handle millions of illegal immigrants had hit the boiling point of controversy. Minutemen watch groups deployed along porous desert regions on America’s southern border. Tens of thousands were spilling into the streets of American cities to protest H.R. 4437 – the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, passed by the House 239-182 on Dec. 16, 2005, but later killed in the Senate.
Covering those protests back then in Southern California, I remember standing within a crowd of demonstrators after Maywood was declared a sanctuary city, seeing the signs and hearing the chants decrying Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).
“Who is Sensenbrenner?” a woman near me asked. The people around her shrugged.
“They turned into a ‘hate Jim Sensenbrenner rally,’” the congressman said of the massive spring protests — demonstrations that quickly petered out by fall.
Talking to PJM today, Sensenbrenner recalled how Cardinal Roger Mahony whipped up a frenzy among Hispanics in L.A. and propelled the protests.
“I was very disappointed in the cardinal’s actions on that, that he ended up becoming an advocate for illegal immigrants,” Sensenbrenner said. “Personal attacks that went on during that period of time really were not conducive to getting anything done.”
The famous legislation comprehensively dealt with everything from ending a “catch and release” enforcement policy to tightening deportation rules, verifying workers’ eligibility status, and prohibiting aid to illegal immigrants.
Another hallmark of the demonstrations was how they morphed into something beyond their original intent. When many families showed up for what they thought was simply a pro-immigrant rally, they were handed copies of The Socialist Worker or greeted by signs promoting the reconquista of Aztlan.
“Definitely it spun out into something,” the congressman said. “Mahony and organizers ended up losing control of it. That ended up hurting the cause of solving the problem.”
But Sensenbrenner sees one powerful lasting effect of H.R. 4437, what he called “probably the last great chance to get some kind of immigration reform that did not include amnesty.”
“The American public spoke loud and clear in reaction to the protests,” he said, and though still strong supporters of legal immigration Americans continue to indicate that “they would not support immigration reform that included amnesty.”
Great post, thanks. The last significant immigration reform (under Reagan) featured a wide spread amnesty element and it was a disaster. And while Catholics are good for their pro-life and anti-gay stances, their positions on immigration and poverty are best ignored.
As conservatives learned from Reagan’s experience, Democrats lie about immigration. They’ll promise to fix the fence first — how is that going, by the way? They’ll promise anything tomorrow for a quick hit today. I suspect that the split over immigration is more about how one feels about Democrat political promises than over immigrants, themselves.
This!
Democrats lied like hell in the 80′s. Reagan even admitted (with a majority of country being against amnest even back then) that it was the one part of his presidency where he made a mistake.
As far as I’m concerned get the illegals out of the country first. Period! Then halt ALL legal immigration into this country for around 5-10 years untl ecan get a handle on the assimilation that hasn’t taken place like it has in our entire history. THEN we’ll talk about reopening immigration.
However, if the progs keep dismantling this country we may not ever have to worry about anybody ever wanting to step foot in this country ever again.
The big problem, even with the program under Reagan is funding and enforcing the law. You can have as many laws as you want but until you enforce that law it is meaningless. The Dems have never demonstrated that they will enforce any law. If you could get them to agree to enforce the law and stop the anchor babies then I would allow those that have been here for years to work their way through the system
Exactly! We have plenty of laws against illegal immigration and hiring illegal aliens, but they are seldom enforced. That’s why states like Arizona are passing their own laws – then being sued by the Federales who want to continue NOT enforcing the law and don’t want Arizona enforcing it either.
This all boils down to “we must put the interests of non-citizens ahead of the interests of citizens”. Which makes sense given that of the roughly 6.8 billion on the planet less than 5% are U.S. Citizens. Why make policy based on the 5% when you’ve got a basket full of 95%? It’s the old political axiom – never put the interests of your voters ahead of potential voters. Your voters will always vote for you but potential voters may vote for somebody else. It may well be that the only way Conservatives can get the GOP to respond to them is by voting for Obama. It’s pretty clear that the GOP doesn’t want GOP voters, it wants Democratic Party voters.
When one compromises on a principle, then the compromise becomes the new principle. If one is not careful, he can compromise until he has no principle, and his opponent has the high ground. Over the decades, this is what illegal immigration has come to represent. It is fast getting to the point that there are indeed, in reality, no principles on which to act, because all substance has been compromised away.
“Compromise, hell! If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?” ~ Jesse Helms
House Committee Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers By David KravetsEmail Author June 19, 2012
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/judiciary-approves-fisa-act/
Certainly Americans recognize this as a vast, weepy Liberal Ponzi scheme. Do this today, more will follow tomorrow.
After all, we know Ponzi schemes intimately. We’ve already had one pulled on us for 3 1/2 years now, and we’re a bit jaded by it all.
The Rule of Law is the distinguishing difference between wealthy first world countries and failing third world crap holes.
By embracing lawlessness for political advantage the Obama administration is transforming the United States into a bigger version of Argentina.
Hey, it’s change…
We don’t need immigration reform as our political class would foist upon us – whether with or without amnesty.
What we need is a permanent end to mass immigration.
Obama’s Dream Act is a nightmare for America
I don’t even agree with wonder-boy Rubio’s amnesty bill. And he supports Dear Leaders EO except that he wants DL to get Congress’s approval first. That was Rubio’s disagreement. Great!!
So we allow those illegals of that age cohort to become defacto citizens, but what about their parents and siblings??? They must be made whole, right? So again it is just, as Allston@7 said, a ponzi scheme. What about those who have been here for longer than 10 years but are not in the age cohort; what are we to do with them? We can’t deport them; the progs would go apoplectic-their heads would explode. So we must make them whole as well. And before you know it all illegals are legal and subject to our benefits,which they already get.. so forget that remark.
And nothing is said of the extra welfare benefits costing states, the fed and us more money. Nothing said of securing the border. I just don’t get it.
You know at some point real Americans have to decide whether they want an America or a third-world, balkanized trash heap.
An observation.
While breaking campaign promises willy-nilly, it would seem to this girl that Obama’s fulfilled one of them in spades; the promise to transform America. And it’s gotten a lot of people in a real tizzy.
But, if you will, follow this line of reasoning.
Does not Obama’s recent immigration/amnesty discretionary move open the door to all kinds of legal/illegal transformations, not all of which would sit well with leftists?
Which door would you like to open first?
There’s the matter of Roe v Wade: bad law from the start which I believe needs a little discretionary tweaking. Twist the doorknob. Open sesame.
I hope Romney as the next President, for example, uses his discretion regarding Roe v Wade, and saves a million or so unborn lives a year. Which is much better in my view that having 800,000 illegal aliens becoming legal because Obama’s cooked the law books.
Further, I hope any Black Panthers who stand at voting areas with billy clubs to intimidate voters are allowed to be legally shot on sight. Which would require a new way to look at the affirmative defense of self defense.
Getting my drift?
If the Democrats like the smell of anarchy, let’s give them a huge whiff of it.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Even if actually doing these things is repulsive to anyone believing in the constitution, Romney explaining the things this kind of Marxist legal thinking could logically lead to should be pause for anyone with half a brain to scream to the rooftops that Obama’s gone off the deep end. Odd isn’t it? Just when you need a life raft it’s impossible to find one. Well, I guess, that’s life.
DREAM is just in concept and scope, although the unilateral decision by the administration may turn out to be extra-constitutional. But the take home point here is that this (in general) **is** supported by the majority of Americans, although the far right denizens here shudder to think it. Yes I too support this and no I’m no more of an Obama voter than you are.
Separate the action’s legality from the impact itself. Obama is banking on the support of the people. He is also shrewdly banking on the far right to come unglued so that he can once again show that the far right isn’t fit to govern and wants only to exercise the same unilateral power but for “other” values. And just as I thought this I note comment #11, a wish by a far right type to wage cultural war on women (in the name of the unborn, amen.)
Did you guys ever see the Roger Rabbit movie? Like the ‘toons who cannot resist completing the “shave and a haircut” rythym, the far right can’t resist jumping in with their pet culture war topics. Obama knows this. The secret to beating the GOP is to provoke the bible thumping far right culture warriors who can’t and won’t shut up. Ever. They fouled up the McCain candidacy and my guess is that they can’t help themselves; they will take the Obama culture bait and foul everything royally for Romney as well.
Then let that be a valuable lesson for the GOP. If you acquiesce in the non-enforcement of the laws thInking you will profit from it by wooing a voting block, you still may not actually profit.
And I think it was McCain who screwed up his own candidacy. Therefore, sir, I do not mean this as a ad hominem, but do please drop dead.
It’s just shocking that the media is raving over this tripe.
I’ve been hearing the same mantra for the last two election cycles – and – that mantra was a direct link to the motivation our former Gov & current Obamnesty field marshal Napolitano had for trying to turn Arizona into a mini-California Mart when it came to a sanctuary state during the last Boom economy.
This californiesque big prize…the LATINO VOTE…’its going to be huge this year…this year is different…look at the last census…look at the Pew Hispanic numbers…this is a game changer’…!!!!
And it is always the same. Nada. No where were these numbers EVER PROVEN to have swung anything but a big pile of horse dung!
We in Arizona are supposed to be ‘ground zero’ in this sordid tale – routinely accused of harboring the worst nativist excess and lunitics. After all, we had numerous protests during the year of SB1070. We have had numerous DREAM ACT protests ever since as well.
Supposidly we have had nearly 30% latino immigration – legal and illegal – since 2000. Yet the great tide that is always getting predicted as ‘different this time’ never arrives.
That is because IT IS A RUSE. [by the numbers that count - votes in Maricopa county AZ - which is almost 80% of the ENTIRE STATE - they DONT BROACH 15% OF THE ELECTORATE! Often they don't crack 10%!]
There is no monolithic latino vote that is going to rise up and bite anyone in the arse. Or push anyone one over the crest. Two states have the vast majority of Mexican nationals living stateside – California and New Mexico.
After that all the musing we hear about Florida, Virgina, Colorado – you name it? It’s all negligable speculation folks. It’s what the media does during the silly season – sell sell sell when ‘handicapping’ the election.
As for you 12. randomengineer…
Comparing McAmnesty ’08 with what is happening now in ’12 is about as silly as it gets. Obama is no brilliant stratigist poised to turn the GOP factions upon themselves…a narrative worn out during primary season.
He’s just a tired Pol from Chicago who has been so far over his head ever since picking up his Nobel he never earned. He is in full panic mode – every where his numbers suck.
It’s not just democrats in West Virgina who are openly defying him – Ohio, Michigan…PENNSLYVANIA…home to the 2nd biggest natural gas deposits (LOOK AT THE GROWTH IN PITTSBURG & ALL OVER WESTERN PA – if not for Obama and his idiots at the Dept of Interior they would be booming just like North and South Dakota)…
This ploy was a desperate poitical ploy – and it was good for one week to stop the bleeding on a horrendeous news cycle – and not much else.
Then we will all know in Nov now won’t we?
it’s “Pittsburgh”, not “PITTSBURG”. And it seems like it’s about 70% Very Active young Democrat, about 20% understated older conservatives and the rest seem to be a mix of Ron Paul people who think they know what Libertarians are.
Is anyone else sick and tired of this liberal pandering all the time? What would it feel like to have a president, congress, and supreme court that actually stood up for US citizens once in a while. No the liberals say-we don’t want to learn about free enterprize and the founders or the other qualities that make America great. Just give us your money and let us bargain away american citizenship to buy votes. This is what we have become. Obama is a calculating scum bag, a liar, and a hypocrite! Qualities also in over abundance among his supporters. We are sick of it and him and liberalism. Yes America is a land of immigrants and we are going to keep it that way by following a process that everyone must follow–”legally”.
Let’s reopen the illegal immigration issue only after resolving the illegal overstep issues of the President. Apparently since Mr. O does not approve of the slowness of Congress to fix illegal immigration, he will disregard the separation of powers and make his own laws.
Yes, humane decisions need to be made for “inadvertent illegals.” However, there are a lot of people already waiting in line, paying the necessary fees, acquiring the appropropriate sponsors. Their interests do not matter?
PROTECT AMERICANS, NOT ILLEGAL ALIENS?
JOIN YOUR LOCAL TEA PARTY AND FIGHT BACK, SAVING AMERICA FROM INVASION.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court released their opinion Today that the federal government has the sole power to enforce the laws against illegal immigration, striking down three key provisions of Arizona’s first-in-the nation crackdown on illegal aliens squatting there and stealing our children’s education, American family health care and a cornucopia of welfare payments and programs. ONLY THE TEA PARTY CAN SAVE US NOW. THE TEA PARTY IS EVERY WALK OF LIFE, EVERY RACE, & EVERY RELIGION THAT HAVE HAD IT WITH THE TWO POLITICAL PARTIES. ID YOU DON’T WANT A SOCIALIST FUTURE, EVERY AMERICAN WHO HAS NEVER VOTED—SHOULD VOTE. NON-CITIZENS WILL VOTE TO SAVE OBAMA.
Two very important laws must be imposed at once, so no more foreign invaders are encouraged to break the immigration ‘Rule of Law’. ‘THE LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT’ must be passed and advanced, so illegal aliens can no longer steal jobs from the millions of Americans unemployed. The ‘BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ACT (H.R.140) must be compulsory so babies smuggled into America, so that parents cannot take benefit from welfare, once the child become an immediate citizen. Half a million pregnant women enter the United States looking for handouts annually, for their children. Let your Senator or Congressman/Women know how you will vote, by giving your name to the politician’s aides and that you want them to sponsor E-Verify and the Birthright Citizenship bills. Citizen voters should phone Congress at the central Switchboard at 202-224-3121. FORCE YOUR CONGRESSMAN/WOMAN TO fulfill their obligation to the oath of office and stop pandering to the businesses that use cheap labor. Use the power of your VOTE to demand they sponsor these to policies or we are destined to become like Europe, overwhelmed by the poverty of other countries.
SO NOW ITS IMPERATIVE THAT THE PEOPLE, MOVE WITH ALL THE EMPOWERMENT THAT OUR UNIQUE SOVEREIGNTY AND THE CONSTITUTION TO REMOVE ALL REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRAT INCUMBENTS INCLUDING THOSE A STATE LEVEL WHO ARE NOT PROTECTING AMERICANS FROM THE ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION. WITH STATE SOVEREIGNTY BEING STOLEN EACH DAY, THE STATES ARE BEING FORCED TO RELINQUISH THEIR POWER TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ARE BEING EXTORTED FROM ALL TAXPAYERS BY FEDERAL MANDATE TO MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR FOREIGN NATIONALS. IT IS TIME TO THINK OF OUR OWN PEOPLE AND CUT OUT FOREIGN AID, AND INSTEAD LOOK AFTER ARE OWN SICK, HOMELESS AND WOUNDED AND OUR JOBLESS WORKERS?
Remember, we must restore America and not stop until every political parasite is voted out and sent home in disgrace. Obama will crush America, if he gets a majority of the Hispanic vote and our only chance for America to survive is the TEA PARTY. Legal Hispanics will vote for Obama, to insure he keeps the illegal relatives in the USA.
“The fight for America is on! But we don’t fight alone. Cadres of invisible Patriots have been silently empowering the Tea Party, working tirelessly behind the scenes to restore America. Their names carry no political weight, they do not seek glory nor will their acts ever be recorded in the history books, but they are indispensable in the fight against the darkness that blankets America. These invisible Patriots are the Tea Party Guardians, guarding all we hold dear.” LOOK TO VOTING OUT THE POLITICIANS WHO HAVE NEAR BANKRUPTED THIS NATION AND REPLACE THEM WITH TRUE TEA PARTY LAWMAKERS.
Now we have a pharaoh in power, which has torn up the most precious of document called the Constitution, in his pursuit of absolute power. In his term he has hired a bunch of Marxist and ultra left Socialists that have done almost irreparable damage to our economy. His henchman like the despicable U.S. Attorney General has been on a ‘Witch Hunt’ escalating his intimidation on initially Arizona, with his warlord rumbling against Alabama and Georgia. Because these states dared to introduce legislation, to remove illegal aliens that are not only stealing American welfare by court mandate, but by causing mayhem by drunken drivers on our highways, but attacking children and women. This miserable human being called Eric Holder who reigns over us with a big stick, with his legions of overpaid public servants called attorneys.
ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE NOT AMERICANS? THEY ARE CRIMINALS WHO ENTERED A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY. THEY CAME HERE FOR TWO THINGS, TO TAKE YOUR JOBS AND YOU’RE PUBLIC SERVICES?
Then we have Obama forcing the American people to forfeit their money to pay for a Socialist style health care. Money extorted from taxpayers, for probably a large proportion of people who live like leeches of the rest of us. Obviously the 22 million illegal aliens in the country will remain free of payment for Obama’s health care package. Not just illegal aliens, but a mixture of the population who sleep late, eat their fast food, watch TV and play video games on a computer. With this potentate in power unemployment is through the roof. Food stamps are at a full time high and the lines of illegal aliens, who have smuggled their babies over here before they were born, have been instructed by verbal guides that once here their child can claim citizenship. This in itself has become a hundred billion dollar industry of child health care, education and a long list of financial payments, that even citizens are declined to collect. Illegal Immigration has become blight and Americans under President Obama will pay a dear price.
It will be them against US in the 2012 election and both Obama and Romney are already trying to pacify the majority of ethnic voters across the U.S. The only possible the American voter can gain the momentum to remove Obama and his crowd from office; not saying that even Mitt Romney is any better and should drive the old incumbents out and replace them with TEA PARTY leaders. Only then will we return sanity to this Congress. Only by replacing the Senators and Congressman in both traditional parties will anything ever change and who seem completely oblivious to the survival of the middle class? Under Obama we will sink even deeper into a high spending manic and with Romney more latitude for Wall Street. Just the TEA PARTY will reroute America on a path of Success, if they can significantly displace the usual, spineless politicians with new ideas, which will elevate this country to a decent future for all. It would be highly complementary to also dump the Governors, Mayors, Police Chiefs and every elected official with TEA PARTY associates and rid ourselves of those bodies who pamper special interest groups, Obama fodder and the whole slew of individuals are working against the greater good of ALL Americans.
If you want to read the specifics concerning the lawlessness traitorous actions within Washington, then bookmark the ‘AMERICAN PATROL’ website. AMERICAN PATROL is a up to date disclosure site of the nationwide E-media and newspapers, blogs and commentary that the Liberal press prefers to keep from the public. Daily, the truth is revealed about illegal immigration and the corruption in Washington and state Capitols. PAY ATTENTION TO ILLEGAL ALIENS VOTING IN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS FOR OBAMA .
Interesting enough my message cannot get into the mainstream Liberal press, where I am banned for telling the truth.
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