Thread: Feinstein's Sneak

Feinstein's Sneak
Her last-minute quickie immigrant legalization play.
By Mickey Kaus
Updated Saturday, May 17, 2008, at 9:53 PM ET

"Forget 'Comprehensive.' Just Give Us the Amnesty!'--Senate Version--

Senator Dianne Feinstein's quickie last minute amnesty sneak play--tacking a 5-year amnesty for 1.5 million agricultural workers onto the Iraq supplemental--has been approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. ... Full Senate vote expected next week. ...

Note that this isn't what I've called a "semi-amnesty." It's not that "semi". What illegal ag workers have to do to get the 5-year legalization appears to be minimal--no learning English, or paying back taxes, etc. Just a $250 "fine." ... I don't know whether there is a serious threat of Feinstein's bill passing, or if she's just trying to show big farmers and Hispanic groups that she's trying. Or to see if the other side's machine guns are still working. ... Best to assume it's a serious threat. ... Bush would surely sign the bill if it passes. ... Other than that, comments on the House's earlier sneak play apply to the Senate's version.:

a) Bad for McCain, right? Just when he's papered over his split with the right on immigration, this would reopen the wound. Maybe that's the Dems point. ...

b) Bad for Rahm Emanuel's swing-district Democratic first-termers who campaigned on tough-on-illegal-immigration platforms, no? If it ever comes to a vote, will they reveal to their electorates that it was all just a pose? ...

c) But not an unclever strategy, if you are a pro-legalization Congressperson and want to strike while Hispandering Season is at its height. ...

d) Presumably McCain is now honor bound to oppose this, having pledged to push legalization only after "widespread consensus that our borders are secure." (If he sticks to his word, it might actually wind up helping him in November, you'd think.)

e) Can you pass a big bill like this in a presidential election year? Well, welfare reform passed in 1996. The key difference? Welfare reform was overwhelming popular, virtually across the board. The fight was largely over who could claim credit for it. Congressmen weren't worried that someone might run an ad accusing them of making welfare recipients go to work.

f) Is this a tacit admission by the legalization caucus that a semi-amnesty might not be as easy to pass in the next president's first two years than you might think (given that all three contenders are formally pro-legalization). ...

g) Or is this an expression of fear that local get-tough enforcement measures, in states like Oklahoma and Arizona, might already be having a surprising effect (at encouraging emigration

P.S.: Is there a clearer way to signal to potential new illegals, now in Mexico and Central America, that they should come on over--because if they make it across the border and work for a couple of years, their employers will have the lobbying muscle to get them legalized? ... Note also that the House version of the quickie last-minute amnesty was designed to hitch a ride on Rep. Shuler's popular border security bill (the SAVE Act). There's no such immigration-related locomotive for Feinstein's bill...

P.P.S.: Feinstein's website features a pathetically unimpressive trio of ag horror stories, including the now-familiar Bush appointee who stopped growing tomatoes in order to plant corn, and Steve Scaroni:

Steve Scaroni couldn't find enough workers to work at his lettuce processing plant in California. So he moved the plant to Guanajuato, Mexico to get the labor force that he needed. He now has 2,000 acres in Mexico and 500 employees. He exports to the United States about 2 million pounds of lettuce a week.

Is it crazy to ask why the Scaroni horror story is horrifying? We still get the lettuce. Mexican workers still get the jobs (which, according to Feinstein, were jobs Americans weren't willing to do anyway). Mexico builds its economy, and we don't have to create a group of disenfranchised second-class residents. Nor do we open the borders to workers who can then compete, not just in ag jobs but in all sorts of other jobs that unskilled, hard-pressed Americans will do.

Seems like a sensible deal. If this is really an "emergency situation" requiring a last-minute sneak addition to a must-pass Iraq war bill, you'd think Feinstein would be able to come up with more gripping examples. Some crops rotting, maybe? Wilting a little around the edges? Losing their traditional succulence? Have the Farm Bureau put an intern on it. ...
http://www.slate.com/id/2191404/?from=rss

Presumably McCain is now honor bound to oppose this, having pledged to push legalization only after "widespread consensus that our borders are secure." (If he sticks to his word, it might actually wind up helping him in November, you'd think.

I find the above statement to be "Wishful Thinking" by the citizens . I have No respect for McAmnesty or his "Word".

I alsp think the author missed a important point . Feinstein could have very possiably been on a fact finding mission . To see if the "Resistance" is still solid against immigration reform . Of course We are the resistance and i'm proud to say "Yes, Were all here . Watching guarding Waiting".

ACTION ALERT!

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115596.html

FIGHT BACK - Post to use

You will find at the article link of most all articles posted here at ALIPAC, a comment section. Posting a blurb about the amnesty now in the Senate and a link to ALIPAC is agood way to get the word out and spur people that don't know what to do to action.

If we all take time to post a blurb like the one below (or one of your own making, if you prefer) on blogsites and article comment sections, it could get more people involved in the fight.
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Amnesty for illegal immigrants has once again reared it's ugly head with Senator Feinstein (D-CA) slipping in her amnesty for agricultural workers into the Iraq Supplemental Spending bill being voted on this week in the Senate. This would amount to amnesty for over 3 million illegal aliens. Her amendment is not only not germane to the bill's intent, polls indicate 80% of Americans are opposed to amnesty on principle.

Unless Americans immediately, once again, pepper the Senate with complaints, amnesty could come to pass. Want to fight against sellout politicians, illegal immigration and amnesty? Here's how:
http://www.alipac.us/article-3191--0-0.html
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115596.html

Feinstein could have very possiably been on a fact finding mission .

She's on a mission alright. And, that's to get as many foreign workers into this country as possible with that bogus "temporary" status. In a three to five year time frame there are any number of ways they can be legalized AKA ( given)amnesty. Actually, the NAU could be full blown by then, and the question of amnesty would be irrelevent.

There's an old saying " There's Nothing So Permanent, As A Temporary Situation"

McCain has already said, if a "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill crossed his desk, he's sign it" !

Everyone, please spread the word to call the Senate and oppose Sen. Feisntein's huge AgJobs amnesty scheme!