Hopefully there will be an adequate number of House field hearings about immigration to explore the many relevant issues. A couple more hearings were mentioned in today's AP story as being planned [Immigration Hearing Held at Border, AP 7/7/06].
Republican-led House committees will hold hearings outside Washington later this month on making English the nation's official language, and how enforcement of immigration laws affects American workers.A hearing the week of Aug. 14 in Arizona will focus on costs to local and state governments "caused by an unsecured border."
Some hearings might usefully be dedicated to uncovering the many downright awful provisions tucked away in the Senate bill, including the wretched "Widows and Orphans" unlimited refugee scam.
The hearings have already revealed at least one Senate time bomb: when Prof. Kris Kobach appeared on a July 5 panel in San Diego, he described how Section 240D of the Senate bill strips local police of their capacity to arrest illegal aliens.
Section 240D would restrict local police to arresting aliens for criminal violations of immigration law only, not civil violations. The results would be disastrous, and would significantly undermine the United States in the war on terrorism.
Also, a panel of crime victims or their relatives would be powerful and a good balance to the wonky policy stuff. Plus there are still some genuine environmentalists out here, not happy about the skyrocketing population numbers, e.g. 400M Americans predicted by 2041 (just 35 years from now)!
And let's get some decent-sized rooms, so a lot of local people can attend. (Like the time when Rep. Darrell Issa invited Homeland Security honcho Asa Hutchinson to speak in southern California, and radio hosts John and Ken invited their audience to come and listen — hundreds of people showed up on a weekday morning for a famously lively event.)
Come on, House guys, let's rock and roll! We're trying to save the country here. It's no time to hold back.
