Thread: House GOP Pushes Just For Show Bills on Immigration

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... KDTN21.DTL

House GOP pushes 'just for show' bills on immigration
Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego Union-Tribune

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

(09-20) 04:00 PDT San Diego -- I DON'T FULLY understand how Congress works. But after the latest round of gimmicks by House Republicans over immigration reform, I have a pretty good idea of why it doesn't.

My first hint that Congress was dysfunctional came a few months ago during an interview with House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a major player in the immigration debate and the author of an enforcement-only bill passed by the House last year.

Sensenbrenner said that he opposed amnesty and believed that Congress should first strive for border security. He also said that the illegal immigrants who were already here had to return home, yet once there, he might support expediting their re-entry into the United States through legal channels.

Fine. There's nothing wrong with any of that. What's wrong is that Sensenbrenner and other House Republican hard-liners don't know how to take "yes" for an answer, and that raises questions about their motives.

Near the end of the interview, Sensenbrenner said that he opposed the compromise plan proposed by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

Later, during an appearance on CNN, Sensenbrenner dismissed the Hutchison-Pence plan as "amnesty lite."

I thought that was curious because Hutchison-Pence rejects amnesty, puts border security first and requires illegal immigrants to go home before re-entering the country legally as guest workers. In other words, everything that Sensenbrenner says he wants done.

So what's the problem? I thought then, and still think now, that this was mostly a political turf war, and that Sensenbrenner got his ego bruised when Pence, a rising star in the GOP, started lining up support for his plan after House Republicans had already passed the Sensenbrenner bill. That legislation was supposed to be the definitive word from the House on immigration, and here was Pence daring to offer an alternative.

Now, less than two months before the Nov. 7 midterm elections, House Republicans -- desperate to avoid the wrath of conservative voters, who might be angry at lawmakers who offer nothing on immigration reform but talk -- seem to have brushed aside the Sensenbrenner bill, the Hutchison-Pence plan and the possibility of working out differences with the Senate bill, which offers illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Instead, Republicans have cobbled together a slate of 10 just-for-show enforcement measures intended to make voters think the illegal immigration problem can be fixed with a little spit and glue.

Last week, the House approved the first measure: 700 miles of border fencing. Republicans say that this will cost about $2 billion, while Democrats put the cost at closer to $7 billion. Either way, the House fence bill didn't include a way to cover the tab.

That's not the worst of it. Fencing sounds good, but it doesn't work. At best, it might redirect human traffic, as it did in the 1990s when cracking down in San Diego and El Paso squeezed more illegal immigrants through Arizona. Besides, as any Border Patrol agent will tell you, there's no fence long enough, high enough or deep enough for the desperate not to go around, over or under it.

Still to come on the House enforcement agenda: hiring some 1,200 more Border Patrol agents, stepping up prosecutions of immigrant smugglers, an end to the "catch and release" program (which the administration has already discontinued), a ban against alien gang members entering the United States (as if we didn't already have a ban against the entry of undocumented aliens) and criminal penalties for building or financing border tunnels to allow for smuggling (as if smuggling itself wasn't already a crime).

None of these efforts will do any good, of course, without first addressing the magnet that draws illegal immigrants here in the first place -- jobs, jobs and more jobs provided by U.S. employers. Interestingly enough, nowhere in the GOP's 10-point enforcement plan do you find any mention of stiffening employer sanctions even though that provision was in the Sensenbrenner bill.

That's just perfect. It's a clear illustration of why Republicans -- as the political party that is most beholden to business, and thus the most reluctant to punish employers -- are always at a disadvantage when tackling illegal immigration. Even after five years of debating this issue, that hasn't changed.

All House Republicans are doing now is trying to hoodwink conservative voters into thinking that lawmakers are dedicated to finally addressing this issue when all they're really dedicated to is preserving the only jobs they care about: their own.

Rest assured. That facet of Congress works just fine.

I'm amazed that Navarette got through writing a whole article without charging anyone with racism.

Originally Posted by Kate

I'm amazed that Navarette got through writing a whole article without charging anyone with racism.

That makes 2 of us, Kate!

It sounds almost reasonable so I didn't realize Ruben had written it!

Of course the 'Pence plan' is WORSE than S.2611 because it gives businesses unlimited immigrants for the first 3YEARS!

Of course the 'Pence plan' is WORSE than S.2611 because it gives businesses unlimited immigrants for the first 3YEARS!

It also allows those law breakers that originally entered the United States to come right back in legally almost immediately after being booted out. Forgiving them of their crime and allowing them back within the same year they depart is amnesty. Furthermore, who in their right mind could honestly take such a proposal seriously? Does Pence and Hutchinson actually think all the illegals are going to depart the country just because we ask? Let's assume 4 million leave, that still leaves us with anywhere from 8 - ? million left in the country, yet the Pence/Hutchinson plan will be rolling. Does that remind you of anything? Remember the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986? The bill was a failure because the only result from the bill was that over 3 million illegals received amnesty. The promises of enhanced border security and interior enforcement never materialized.

Excerpt:

President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, an ill-conceived amnesty program that promised--but never delivered--strict enforcement of our immigration laws. The immigration reform proposals that have thus far garnered the most support in the Senate have much in common with the 1986 amnesty. While I favor a second chance for hard-working illegal aliens currently within the United States, I cannot in good faith support any proposal that will repeat the failures of the 1986 amnesty.

The legislative history of the 1986 bill and its progeny--the floor debates, committee reports, and the like--reveal how similar the current immigration reform debate is to the one twenty years ago. Beginning in the early-1970s, Congress held scores of hearings and considered dozens of proposals to address the issue of illegal immigration. Like today, those Congresses debated how to best secure America's borders, enforce our immigration laws at the workplace, and bring out of the shadows millions of illegal immigrants living and working within this country. And, like today, the most difficult policy choice centered on what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants already inside the United States.

The 1986 amnesty bill emerged after nearly two decades of unsuccessful attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Amnesty was the major sticking point that killed dozens of earlier reform proposals. Amnesty was first proposed in 1975 in the House of Representatives as an alternative to the arrest and deportation of hundreds of thousands--if not millions--of the illegal aliens that resided in the United States. The 1975 House bill also contained employer sanctions as a way of "removing the economic incentive which draws [illegal immigrants] to the United States as well as the incentive for employers to exploit this source of labor." In December 1976, President Ford's cabinet-level Domestic Council Committee on Illegal Aliens issued a report urging a comprehensive approach that included, among other things, employer sanctions, increased penalties against smugglers, and amnesty for illegal aliens already in the United States. The Carter Administration followed with a comprehensive package of its own, which also included amnesty for illegal aliens.

Unsatisfied with these initial reform proposals, Congress enacted legislation in 1978 creating a 16-member Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. The Select Commission unanimously recommended amnesty as part of a comprehensive reform package. The Select Commission, however, feared that amnesty unaccompanied by strict border and worksite enforcement would fail to solve the crisis. According to its chairman, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, the Select Commission recommended amnesty "on one condition: that somehow the sieve that we call a border could be tightened up, that somehow we would bring our illegal immigration under control. Otherwise . . . legalization would be just another magnet to add to employment opportunity…." According to the author and sponsor of the 1986 legislation, Sen. Alan Simpson, the bill contained a "one-time only legalization program." The "one-time only" promise was backed by a commitment to strong border security and, for the first time in our nation’s history, federal penalties for employers who hire illegal aliens. Proponents of legalization argued that strict enforcement of the immigration laws going forward would ensure that an amnesty would not beget more illegal entry.

The compromise struck in 1986 granted amnesty to those immigrants who illegally entered the United States prior to January 1, 1982, otherwise lacked a significant criminal record, demonstrated basic knowledge of U.S. citizenship, and paid an application fee. Studies placed the number of illegal immigrants in the United States in 1986 at between three and six million—estimates that included hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of illegal aliens who arrived between 1982 and 1986. We now know that almost three million illegal aliens adjusted to legal permanent resident status under the 1986 amnesty.

With twenty years of experience, we know now that the "one time" grant of amnesty led only to increased illegal immigration. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the current illegal population is around twelve million, and an additional 850,000 illegal aliens enter every year (approximately 2300 a day). What is most disconcerting is that approximately forty percent of illegal immigrants in the United States have arrived since 9/11--proving that the modest increases in border security in the past few years have been woefully inadequate.

We also know that the federal government has not lived up to its promise of strict enforcement. Efforts to enforce U.S. immigration laws, especially those at the workplace, have been frustrated by a lack of political will in Congress and the Executive. Between 1999 and 2004, the number of notices of intent to fine employers for improperly completing paperwork or knowingly hiring unauthorized workers decreased from 417 to three. The Department of Homeland Security apprehended over a million illegal aliens along the southern border last year, yet the Department has approximately 20,000 detention beds. The Border Patrol has only 11,268 agents to control 7000 miles of border; in contrast, New York City alone has 40,000 police officers.

http://thepocketpart.org/2006/05/cornyn.html