Immigration bill: same empty promises
All that was missing at the press conference unveiling of the Senate’s version of immigration reform (amnesty) was the participants wearing sombreros.
The focus could have been Ken Salazar conducting the press conference in Spanish while draped in the Mexican flag.
Nothing said was to the benefit of the American citizen. They didn’t unveil how many more immigrants (poor and uneducated) would be able to enter the country (some estimates are 40 million to 60 million) and at what cost to the American taxpayer and worker (my guess is it will be in the trillions of dollars).
The American citizen is getting the same rhetoric and empty promises that were made in 1986. And guess what? Today’s promises are being made by a number of the same characters (i.e., Edward Kennedy, John McCain, etc.). Congress granted amnesty but didn’t provide enforcement and now they are trying to sell the same bill of goods.
This is not reform, this is amnesty cloaked as reform. We don’t need reform — we need the enforcement of the existing laws!
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Steven Page, Lakewood
Who are these people think they are fooling. Ilegals are to go back home after they pay thier $5000 fine then return home ? What a joke they won't go home, nor will they bother to pay the fine. Why should they. As Ilegals they have the best, free medical, never pay for insurance and can break they law when and where ever they want then scream profileing and harrassment by the police. No one except the politicians are being fooled with this AMNESTY bill. It is a proposed money grab and nothing more. It will not solve nor detere ILLEGALS from invadeing this country and stealing from the hard working American Citizens.
Posted by Tom on May 22, 2007 05:31 AMHopefully the voice of America will be heard and this bill won't stand a chance. Everyone needs to call their representatives (whether they will listen remains to be seen). I have noticed the amount of letters against the illegal invasion has grown. The politicians had better wake up and realize who voted them into office. It is our tax money that is supporting the illegals and I have had enough.
Posted by on May 22, 2007 06:24 AM6:24
You and every other American Citizen. We are all tired of paying for housing, education, health, welfare, food stamps for illegal aliens using forged documents and or stolen identities. To many news articles about American Citizens being hunted down by the IRS, Credit Card Companies because their information is being used by 1 or more illegal aliens. This country has become insane and we need stop the insanity.
Posted by Pam on May 22, 2007 06:33 AM[To Can I get an AMEN!:
Another reader would like to get in touch with you about children's math books. If you would fill in the Email address with your next post (on any topic) I will forward his request. Email addresses are not displayed or distributed. -- denver-admin]
Since they haven't released the whole bill yet.They are trying to pull the wool over the public's eyes.
This bill was drafted in secret.I thought we had an open government except where national security or secret intelligence information was concerned.
I've heard nothing about deporting illegals with criminal records.I guess they will qualify for Z visas too.
A $5,000 fine for not paying taxes?Our government has been putting Americans in prison for not paying taxes.If we make a mistake on our taxes they come after us with hefty fines and interest.We don't get 8 years to pay our tax fines. That is what the bill states. the illegals get 8 years to pay the fine,while they are claiming 5 dependents and getting income tax credits,because the only will work the low paying jobs that Americans won't do because they drove down the wages.
This is not immigration reform. This is immigration deform.
There is also nothing in the bill that says if you can't support yourself and family you have to leave. We should not continue to foot the bill for illegals breeding like rabbits,so they can anchor themselves with citizen children. Now we are at a point where the anchor babies are having anchor babies.
There was an article in the RMN yesterday about teen pregnancy and surprise,suprise, most of them were hispanic.
The Politicians are not listening to the citizens,the people they are supposed to be representing.We have been yelling for at least a year. We've been writing them,e-mailing and leaving messages by the millions.Both parties are not listening and this bill is a complete disaster.
They sold us down the river and they are still not listening.I urge everyone to keep close tabs on your congressmen or congresswoman and senators. If they vote for this piece of crap legislation,vote them out of office.Everyone who votes for this should never hold office again,not even as a dog catcher.
When the lefties finally roll out of bed, the excuses why we should love this peice of s--- will fly.
Posted by truthy on May 22, 2007 07:10 AMWe should enforce the border -- between California and the rest of the country. California is lost. It's only a matter of time before it separates from the Union. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will become President of Greater Mexico of America.
Posted by John II on May 22, 2007 07:55 AMI have sure heard and read a lot of people complaining about this but I have not seen or heard anyone with a viable solution. Can anyone tell me what we should do about illegal immigration? Something realistic and not Gestapo like. How will we pay for the solutions? Anyone??
Here is what I have found so far relating to figures, verbiage, etc.... It isn't set yet, so keep contacting your elected officials and advise them what you think either way.
One of the most controversial points of the bill is the plan to issue illegal immigrants “z visas” that would give them legal working status. The “z visa” would be endlessly renewed as long as its holder paid the associated fines and passed criminal background checks. Critics say the hidden costs associated with giving low-skilled workers “z visas” would cost taxpayers trillions. For this reason Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow, said “this is the most expensive bill the U.S. taxpayer has ever seen.”
Rector explained, “Every person that gets the Z visa, and that would be about 12 million people, 9 million of which are adults--is immediately eligible for Social Security. They start to contribute to that system. They start to earn eligibility for Medicare. The White House has claimed they don’t get welfare benefits. That is absolutely untrue. For the first 10 years or so they are in the country, the adults would not get welfare benefits, but the children would. They are going to be here for fifty years. For the first 10 years they don’t get means tested welfare, but for the next forty they are going to be eligible for every single type of means tested welfare.”
Rector said it would cost the government $2.4 trillion to pay out these benefits to z visa holders. He characterized the bill as an “amnesty bill with a blank check on the U.S. taxpayer.” Entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare programs, are already on pace to go bankrupt due to the exploding costs of retiring baby-boomers. Rector said adding the additional retirement costs of a low-skilled population to these programs would be a “financial catastrophe.”
Writing for National Review Online, Byron York states, "Rector found that in 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, low-skill households received an average of $32,138 per household--the great majority in the form of means-tested aid and direct benefits.... Against that, Rector found that low-skill households paid an average of $9,689 in taxes.... In the final calculation, he found, the average low-skill household received $22,449 more in benefits than it paid in taxes..."
According to World Net Daily, "If the lower figure of 12 million illegal aliens is used for estimation purposes, the [current] total tax burden translates to $2.2 trillion."
Addressing the Knights of Columbus in 1915, Theodore Roosevelt warned, "The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."
That is what is guaranteed to happen if a mass amnesty is implemented by our elected traitors.
Jay,
So the writer says that a low-skill household received an average of $32,138 in benefits, and paid an average of $9,689 in taxes. Did the writer also say what was done with the $22,000+ difference, like maybe buying food, clothing, paying rent, and covering medical, living, and other expenses?
Or is the idea one that "benefits" should never exceed taxes, with whatever hardship that might entail?
Or is the idea one of just wiping out "benefits" entirely - for the low-skilled anyway - and making taxes equal income from any source?
Or is it a matter of "low-skill household" always meaning "immigrant", or "illegal alien"? And if so, what about "benefits" measured against taxes for citizens?
Did you VOTE for any of those "elected traitors" you now trash? If so, does that make you a "sympathiser" with "treason"? (Watch out! The Patriot Act is in the wings, along with Homeland Security.) And, if it does not, have you ever bothered to read the Constitution concerning what actually constitutes treason under the Law in the United States?
Posted by Old Grouch on May 22, 2007 10:13 AMRealistic,
Enforcement first. Stop the invasion, punish the enablers, deport the law breakers and then we will talk about letting others in. When the house is on fire, you don't worry about how you will
remodel, you put out the fire. No racism, no Gestopo just a bunch of people that follow the law and expect others to do the same.
10:12 AM,
And what are the logistics, and cost estimates, for your proposal? And, how is this supposed to be made to happen?
Posted by Old Grouch on May 22, 2007 10:17 AMO.G. there is only so much tax money to go around. If we invite another 20 or 40 million illegal immigrants in, combined with the retiring baby boomers, all social benefits programs will be depleted much quicker than even the most skeptical of this situation say it will. Taking from those who work to pay for the lives of those who won't, or who come in illegally, regardless of what they do, is another shade of socialism. There are way too many problems facing the USA already to invite this kind of fiscal drain on the taxpayers. Of course, Congress doesn't care, they have their own separate golden parachutes, they won't have to depend on Social Security or those kinds of programs. The only ones who will pay and pay are the middle class taxpayers.
Posted by Jay on May 22, 2007 10:36 AMAbsolutely no welfare benefits of any kind to any illegal should be the first thing we do!!!! A lot will go home if they can't have the American's paying for eveything they get in life.
Our "American" kids are losing their house as we speak because of medical bills that their insurance didn't totally cover and we are giving free medical to people that have no respect for this country. Does that make any sense???? We have got to stop making everything so easy for illegals to break the law and also to live here. This country speaks English and if they don't understand they should have to adapt as every other immigrant in history (other then Spanish) has had to do.
In Canada they are allowed to come and work but nobody gets to become a Canadian citizen I heard. I am not sure what all the laws there are but maybe we should see how they do it.
I think the liberals in this country are so anxious to give this country away they don't even realize they are leaving nothing here for our own kids.
Old Grouch the Patriot Act protects this country even if you don't think it does. You are wrong kind sir!!!!! I know you think you are never wrong but you are wrong!! If you aren't a member of the trerrorist community you have nothing to fear from the Patriot Act. I for one have nothing to hide. Sorry but I would rather have that then people plotting to blow up the US and I suppose you think people like that don't exist right?
Posted by on May 22, 2007 10:47 AMPeter Boyles should be given Profiles in courage; he is quite vocal with what I have said: Is America being assisted in her suicide by both parties and unlike Jesus Christ the transmogrified Jew who opted for suicide, America is not a happy camper over the prospect. Me, your friendly deicide happy over the lightning bolt that struck the counterfeit statue of the transmogrified Jew that looks like a blue-eye Norweigen on Mother Cabrini Shrine.
Posted by Richard Grimes Risen Ape r22037@yahoo.com (ffrf.org) on May 22, 2007 11:09 AMRealistic
1. A hold should be placed on immigration for 10 years. Work from the people in our country now. We do have enough folks to work EVERY job in the U.S. without going outside our country.
2. After 10 years, do an allotment that only allows, say 10,000 per year into the U.S., and only based on what is honestly needed. Some companies do not like to pay more than minimum wage, so they wont like this idea.
3. Stop importing people into this country and lets deal with what is going on and fix our own problems first.
4. Finish Iraq, help our own destitute folks, get our country back the proud American way before selling it to the lowest interset.
11:13:
Amen and Amen. Good post.
Posted by JV on May 22, 2007 11:32 AMSimpson Mazzoli in 1986 promised us:
1) Border Security
2) Employer Enforcement
3) No more tolerance for illegality
The government broke all three promises to us and 3 million illegal immigrants has become 12 - 20 (I believe it is closer to 30 million).
Now, in a secretly negotiated agreement they are trying to sell us the same bill of goods, only worse. That they are trying to fast track this nearly 1000 page bill and get it voted on suggests to me that they hope that Senators won't have time to really study it and the public will be kept in the dark on the details, where the devil resides. The full text of the bill should be posted on the net in full and enough time be allotted for a full, honest and open debate.
These folks, who believe that they are smarter than the rest of us expect us to believe that our Immigration and Customs Services, unable to find or account for nearly 600,000 illegals already ordered deported is suddenly going to become competent? The new bureaucracy needed to implement this bill is staggering in size, scope and cost.
Perhaps we the people who oppose this bill just believe that the $$ won't be appropriated for border security, that employers will continue to hire illegals with no accountability, that interior enforcement will continue to be ignored and that this disaster of a bill will further encourage another 50 million to flood into this country.
I urge you to write, call or email your Senators and Representatives. I emailed Salazar yesterday, urging him to allow enough time for a full debate on this bill and stating the above concerns. I doubt he will listen since he helped write the bill. But I told him that he and his cronies on this sham will not be re-elected if he votes for it.
Posted by RU Serious on May 22, 2007 11:36 AMI wrote Ken Salazar last week and got a response yesterday. Basically, he wants you, the taxpayer, to pay for the added costs to social security when the 12-20 million new citizens retire.
Even if this bill doesn't pass, you know it's going to come up again so.....
VOTE OUT KEN SALAZAR!!!
10:47 AM,
Have you really read the Patriot Act; and are you really familiar with the provisions for the WARRANTLESS and secret - and "mobile" - wiretaps. The "mobile" part allowing the FBI and Homeland Security to not only bug a specific phone line, or location, but also BUG YOU, or anyone else "under suspicion", anywhere you go, or shop, or regularly meet with others?
The operative word there, in case you are in doubt is "SUSPICION". And "suspicion" of what? The FBI & Co. do not have to tell anyone what!
Do you happen to have an acquaintance who is Moslem? Do you happen to visit that person's home on a "regular" basis? Without any warning at all, YOU could be taken, off the street, or from your home, and "interrogated" about your "relationship".
And, right here in Denver, under the Act, a young black man (born and raised in America, of a generations long family of Americans) who converted to Islam was seized in the middle of the night - with a kicked in door - and hustled off to . . . ? It took something close to 2 and 1/2 years, before he was even allowed to have a lawyer, much less contact his family, and for people to find out where, or why, he was being held.
In those years, he was "interrogated". After a "confession" - that he had known someone who was a Moslem, and who - so claimed the FBI - was SUSPECTED of being involved in "terrorism"; and they had talked about religion and other things, while the young black man was becoming a convert - he was sentenced to . . . ? Wherever . . . ? might be today. For a term of . . . ? For the "crime" of . . . what?
Look it up in the newspaper.
Are you even remotely acquainted with the Bill of Rights? Maybe you don't care about that - in favor of "protecting the country" - but there are sill a few AMERICANS left who do.
Posted by Old Grouch on May 22, 2007 12:39 PMOld Grouch,
"Look it up in the newspaper."
Sure, Old Grouch, I'll just look up "young black man in denver" on google and read all about it.
Posted by John II on May 22, 2007 01:57 PMRUS,
Who is "Simpson Mazzoli"? And what do his promises have to do with what the government did, or did not, do about them? As well as what do those promises have to do with the proposed plan today?
John II,
The story was featured in the Rocky. I don't generally use Google; so I have no idea of how that has anything to do with the subject.
Posted by Old Grouch on May 22, 2007 04:08 PMOh, I rarely read the Rocky. You should post a link to the story.
Posted by John II on May 22, 2007 04:14 PMStop this train wreck now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Can I get an AMEN! on May 22, 2007 04:58 PMOG
Simpson-Mazzoli was the last "Comprehensive Immigration" Bill in 1986 that has been a collossal failure. This latest bill is the same old thing, repackaged with other mischief in it, as well.
Old Grouch 12:39-
The poor,misuderstood man you speak of is James Ujaama.
HE PLEADED AND WAS FOUND GUILTY OF CONSPIRING TO SUPPORT THE TALIBAN. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/04/14/Ujaama.plea/
I remember when he was arrested. All the usual suspects came crawling out of the woodwork decrying racisism and Islamophobia.Guys just like you.
Well the facts are out and he was guilty as sin.
You really ought to look into that google thing. You can find alot out about any subject.