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November 10, 2004

President Pushes Legalizing Illegal Aliens

I greatly admire and respect George W. Bush, as anyone who regularly visits this site is well aware. But the president's bid to legalize illegal aliens, which he hinted at earlier this year, is where the president and myself respectfully part company.

We cannot get into the business of creating amnesty for people who have illegally crossed into the United States. It is a slap in the face to all who have gone through the legal process of becoming U.S. Citizens, and it will encourage many more to attempt to illegally cross into the country. The harm to the country will outweigh the benefits. I cannot emphasize how strongly I disagree with the president on this matter.

Many Republicans in Congress also are of the same belief. Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, is one of them:

"Their amnesty plan was dead on arrival when they sent it to the Congress in January, and if they send the same pig with lipstick back to Congress next January, it will suffer the same fate," he said.

Others are also quite forcefully against the president's proposal:

With the House and Senate already clashing over border security and deportation provisions in the pending intelligence overhaul bill, some Capitol Hill aides said it's almost impossible that Congress could agree on a broader immigration proposal.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said he "suddenly went from calm to stressed out" after learning of the president's renewed push for immigration relaxation.

He predicted the plan would continue to meet vigorous opposition from House Republicans.

"If the House wouldn't deliver this bill before the guy's election, when he claimed he needed it for the Hispanic vote, why would they deliver it after the election, when their constituents overwhelmingly oppose it?" he said. "Why would House leaders follow the president over a cliff?"

Could this move be "payback" to the Hispanic voters who supported the president on November 2nd?

White House officials insisted the move was not "payback" to Hispanic voters who supported Mr. Bush in greater numbers last week than in 2000. Although the president first proposed relaxing immigration shortly after taking office, he mothballed the idea after September 11, 2001, and downplayed it on the campaign trail.

"The president has long believed that reforming our immigration system is a high priority," White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan said yesterday.

Mr. Stein said Mr. Bush is already a "lame duck president" whose proposal "has no credibility." He expressed astonishment that the president resurrected the plan before pushing other second-term agenda items, like tax simplification or Social Security privatization.

"There's a sense of obstinacy in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's a losing approach," he said. "I mean, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result."

Though most members of Congress agree on the need for a guest-worker program to fill unwanted jobs, House Republican leaders, including Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, have panned other parts of the president's proposal as an amnesty.

Mr. Stein's comments are a bit too strong, and not the language that I would have used. But he is expressing the frustration and incredulity that some of us are experiencing over the president's proposal.

I support this president strongly, but I am not going to rollover blindly to ridiculous and counterproductive proposals. I believe that this amnesty idea for illegal aliens is a bad idea. I hope that the president will come to the same conclusion and drop the idea - quickly.

Posted at 04:57 PM Pacific