With the Senate on the verge of regurgitating a huge amnesty bill and the House of Representatives likely just waiting to bring up a twin measure, this Democrat is cringing with disbelief at the perfidy and chutzpah of these elected officials.
Much to the chagrin of the Washington elites, including the Washington Post, the screams from the grass roots of America (strongly bipartisan, by the way) are reaching the ears of state legislatures. Finally, the Post did a June 25th story entitled "Illegal Immigrants Targeted by States| Impasse on Hill Spurs New Laws." (by Darryl Fears.)
No more "Waiting for Godot" for these states—the first real sign of state action since California Governor Pete Wilson's attempt to get Federal compensation for those illegal immigrants and since California citizens voted in favor of Proposition 187.
This is not a partisan issue—the fact that both major parties, the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican White House, are both trying to ram it down our throats.
As the Post reports,
"Frustrated with Congress's inability to pass an immigration overhaul bill, state legislatures are considering or enacting a record number of strongly worded proposals targeting illegal immigrants.
"By the time most legislatures adjourned in May, at least 1,100 immigration bills had been submitted by lawmakers, more than double last year's record total, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. This year's total is expected to grow as the issue continues to dominate debate in statehouses still in session.
"These laws limit illegal immigrants' ability to obtain jobs, find housing, get driver's licenses and receive many government services. They also empower state law enforcement agencies to inquire into an immigrant's legal status and hold for deportation those deemed to be here illegally. The idea is to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they will leave the state—if not the country."
Hey, ain't that grand? States are demanding the right to ask these illegal aliens if they are here legally! At least the Post article doesn't use the term "undocumented workers" in this piece.
Everyone talks about needing more workers. But we seldom talk about upgrading the technology in the work place, particularly places where manual labor can now be far better employed, as in agriculture. Jobs Americans won't do don't exist, except where the pay levels are not adequate.
Finally, after years of trying to get help from the Federal Government, patience has run out at the state level, so
"At least 18 states have enacted laws concerning illegal immigrants. Most of the legislation is seen as punitive, and it reflects legislators' anger at the federal government's inability to seal the southern border and at provisions in the Senate bill that would allow the 12 million illegal immigrants already here a path to citizenship."
And our morally and politically bankrupt President is whining to Congress urging them to "summon the political courage" to pass a bill like the one the Senate is expected to take up this week.
But the main play of this current legislative game may well be not this S1639 at all. Listen up!
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) founder, Dr. John Tanton recently commented to me that this new Senate bill (S1639) seems to him analogous to the Trojan Horse stratagem used by the Greeks when attacking Troy.
Dr. Tanton puts his case very neatly,
"The
whole Senate bill is the Trojan Horse, but the secret
the Trojan Horse contains is section 413 (see below),
which will be taken as authorizing the SPP (Security
and Prosperity Partnership), which is mentioned by
name, and is behind in fact an eventual
North American Union (NAU). Here is what Robert
Pastor, American University professor and chief
architect of the NAU concept, writes in his book Toward a North American Community
"NAFTA is just a free trade area, whereas the European Union passed that threshold decades ago, on its way to becoming a customs union (with a common external tariff), a common market (with free movement of labor and capital), and finally an economic and monetary Union."
Could it be, as Dr. Tanton suspects, that Bush sees full blown North American Union on a continental scale as his ultimate legacy—one that through its "free movement of labor" provisions that will vitiate most immigration control legislation. In Bush's eyes, NAU would overshadow in the long run the blunder of the Iraq war. The Senate immigration bill is just the "carrier," the "stalking horse" for this larger ambition.
What follows here is a section from this Security and Prosperity Partnership initiative which Dr. Tanton mentions above:
SEC. 413. BILATERAL EFFORTS WITH MEXICO TO REDUCE MIGRATION PRESSURES AND COSTS.
(a) Findings- Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Migration from Mexico to the United States is directly linked to the degree of economic opportunity and the standard of living in Mexico.
(2) Mexico comprises a prime source of migration to the United States.
(3) Remittances from Mexican citizens working in the United States reached a record high of nearly $17,000,000,000 in 2004.
(4) Migration patterns may be reduced from Mexico to the United States by addressing the degree of economic opportunity available to Mexican citizens.
(5) Many Mexican assets are held extra-legally and cannot be readily used as collateral for loans.
(6) A majority of Mexican businesses are small or medium size with limited access to financial capital.
(7) These factors constitute a major impediment to broad-based economic growth in Mexico.
(8) Approximately 20 percent of Mexico's population works in agriculture, with the majority of this population working on small farms and few on large commercial enterprises.
(9) The Partnership for Prosperity is a bilateral initiative launched jointly by the President of the United States and the President of Mexico in 2001, which aims to boost the social and economic standards of Mexican citizens, particularly in regions where economic growth has lagged and emigration has increased.
(10) The Presidents of Mexico and the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada, at their trilateral summit on March 23, 2005, agreed to promote economic growth, competitiveness, and quality of life in the agreement on Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.
(b) Sense of Congress Regarding Partnership for Prosperity- It is the sense of Congress that the United States and Mexico should accelerate the implementation of the Partnership for Prosperity to help generate economic growth and improve the standard of living in Mexico, which will lead to reduced migration, by—
(1) increasing access for poor and under served populations in Mexico to the financial services sector, including credit unions;
(2) assisting Mexican efforts to formalize its extra-legal sector, including the issuance of formal land titles, to enable Mexican citizens to use their assets to procure capital;
(3) facilitating Mexican efforts to establish an effective rural lending system for small- and medium-sized farmers that will—
(A) provide long term credit to borrowers;
(B) develop a viable network of regional and local intermediary lending institutions; and
(C) extend financing for alternative rural economic activities beyond direct agricultural production;
(4) expanding efforts to reduce the transaction costs of remittance flows in order to increase the pool of savings available to help finance domestic investment in Mexico;
(5) encouraging Mexican corporations to adopt internationally recognized corporate governance practices, including anti-corruption and transparency principles;
(6) enhancing Mexican efforts to strengthen governance at all levels, including efforts to improve transparency and accountability, and to eliminate corruption, which is the single biggest obstacle to development;
(7) assisting the Government of Mexico in implementing all provisions of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (ratified by Mexico on May 27, 1997) and urging the Government of Mexico to participate fully in the Convention's formal implementation monitoring mechanism;
(8) helping the Government of Mexico to strengthen education and training opportunities throughout the country, with a particular emphasis on improving rural education; and
(9) encouraging the Government of Mexico to create incentives for persons who have migrated to the United States to return to Mexico.
(c) Sense of Congress Regarding Bilateral Partnership on Health Care- It is the sense of Congress that the Government of the United States and the Government of Mexico should enter into a partnership to examine uncompensated and burdensome health care costs incurred by the United States due to legal and illegal immigration, including—
(1) increasing health care access for poor and under served populations in Mexico;
(2) assisting Mexico in increasing its emergency and trauma health care facilities along the border, with emphasis on expanding prenatal care in the United States-Mexico border region;
(3) facilitating the return of stable, incapacitated workers temporarily employed in the United States to Mexico in order to receive extended, long-term care in their home country; and
(4) helping the Government of Mexico to establish a program with the private sector to cover the health care needs of Mexican nationals temporarily employed in the United States.
Read that above SPP text again. It means that SPP obtains the cheap labor supply forever for business at the expense of us taxpayers and creates a tri-country union of Mexico, the US and Canada which virtually eliminates borders.
Imagine, open borders without any way to stop the flow! Where will our revered citizenship have gone?? We'd be part of Mexico!
SPP only discourages reform in Mexico, which has resisted reform forever. Why should the Mexican elite improve conditions at home, when its citizens can avail themselves of jobs and tax-supported services in the US? C'mon, get real!
Hey, folks, remember the old 1947 #1 hit song, "Open The Door, Richard". It tells of a man who has been out very late (very slow to get things right) and now is trying to find the way to get his buddy to let him in the house: He (Read Bush and Kennedy) sings,
"Open the door, Richard
Open the door and let me in
Open the door, Richard
Richard, why don't you open that door?"
We don't know from Count Basie's lyrics whether Richard opens the door. But we do know about the experience with the last Congressional immigration reform effort act in 1986 and we do know that with Mr. Cheney's capacity to subvert our democracy and his boss's willingness to let Dick do it, that the chances are good that Dr. Tanton's image of the Senate bill as simply the stalking horse for the un-legislated North American Union could readily become reality.
Remember what happened to the Trojans?!
Anericans contacting their Senators have made THE difference on the first go round.
This new, bad bill, and what it is likely to unleash, NAU, should be killed dead right now. This Democrat will keep calling those Senators. All patriotic Americans will do the same.
Donald A. Collins [email him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.
