Saturday, September 21, 2013

Slow Saturday Special: The End of Immigration Reform

What I read today should effectively kill it, thankfully, after I was told it was being postponed; however, I still think the work visas will be folded into other legi$lation despite what they heard at town hall meetings.

"Residents along Texas border brace for immigration law" by Ed O’Keefe |  Washington Post, September 08, 2013

‘‘If immigration reform doesn’t happen, that doesn’t say good things about our democracy, that everybody wants it but Congress couldn’t pass it,’’ said Pete Gallego, a Democrat who won the seat by 5 points last year and has been trying to assure constituents that Congress will do something about immigration soon, during a recent dinner meeting with constituents. 

Everybody wants? More like nobody except agenda-pu$hers who will benefit do.

Heads around the table nodded, but folks didn’t seem as confident as the congressman; they worry that whatever Congress does may be the wrong thing.

It does seem to be a pattern of theirs!

El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles commands a jurisdiction of about 1,000 square miles and his 260 deputies are often called upon to assist the US Border Patrol with immigration-related crimes, forcing them to abandon neighborhood patrols.

I'm sure criminals love seeing that.

Cuts in federal spending have cost Wiles more than $1 million in funding for an antinarcotics unit and a school antiviolence program, so the push and pull from Washington is frustrating.

‘‘There have been many congressmen who want to come down and take a picture with you at the border crossings. I don’t do that anymore, because we never see any results,’’ Wiles said.

Wiles said other places along the border might need more federal agents and a fence, ‘‘but when they put one up here, they just put it up next to two other fences. That’s a waste of money.’’

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I just want to remind you of who is for reform:

"Panel urges a path toward citizenship; Aim is to help move debate in Congress forward" by Erica Werner |  Associated Press, August 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — A high-profile bipartisan task force chaired by former governors and Cabinet secretaries endorsed eventual citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally as part of a package of recommendations Thursday.

Uh-oh.

The proposals were aimed at influencing the debate on immigration, with Congress on a five-week summer recess and Senate-passed immigration legislation stalled in the GOP-controlled House.

The immigration task force, convened by the Bipartisan Policy Center, is co-chaired by former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, both Republicans; along with former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell and former housing secretary Henry Cisneros, who are Democrats.

And globalist $hits all!

The group’s recommendations included calling for a strong visa program to bring foreign workers into the economy, coupled with stricter penalties for employers that hire or exploit workers living here illegally.

With record unemployment and people having given up looking for work. And they want to bring in le$$ co$tly foreign workers who will never complain about exploitation? What is up with immigration work visas, 'eh?

‘‘We find it’s possible to reach common ground on some basic principles that do get a broad agreement from people coming at the problem with different political perspectives,’’ said Michael Chertoff, a former US homeland security chief

Who then went off into the airport $canner bu$ine$$ after his service in the Bush administration.

‘‘We’re hopeful that the country, when we all take a deep breath over the summer, looks at how broken the system currently is [and] will see that the value of coming up with a broad consensus reform far outweighs the benefit of the status quo.’’ 

Summer is over as of today, and on this i$$ue the status quo will have to do for now.

But the task force criticized the Senate’s approach to border security, a last-minute compromise aimed at securing GOP votes that sets aside $46 billion to double the number of agents along the Mexico border, to complete hundreds of miles of fencing, and to beef up technology from drones to helicopters to watchtowers.

Fortre$$ AmeriKa! 

Think of it as a jobs program!

The approach ‘‘does not provide outcome-based border-security metrics that are trustworthy and verifiable,’’ the report said, calling for the creation of such measures that would be audited by an independent commission and made public.

Those guys complaining about tru$tworthine$$? 

My cup of hypocri$y runneth over!

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RelatedImpasse over immigration turns on path to citizenship

That and the border is what took up most of the attention and focus of my corporate pre$$.

Also see:

Immigrants can fight old verdicts, SJC rules
Cardinal’s letter calls for immigration reform

Just another reason not to attend mass in my bible.

Ex-Salvadoran military colonel’s sentencing begins

Massachusetts sheltering war criminals? It really is a sanctuary state!