Thread: Poll: High Stakes in Immigration Debate

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/...oll/index.html

Poll: High Stakes in Immigration Debate

Illegal immigration is an important topic to a large majority of Americans, though only about one in seven said it will be the only issue that matters in November's elections, according to a CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation.

The poll, released Monday, underscores the high political stakes in the congressional debate on the issue.

On Monday, the Senate entered the second week of discussion on the issue, with Majority Leader Bill Frist predicting that legislation will pass this week.

What that legislation might look like remains unclear.

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill last week that would include a temporary guest-worker program and a means for undocumented immigrants to eventually work toward citizenship. President Bush supports the first measure but opposes the latter.

In December, the House passed a bill focused on security and enforcement that includes neither a guest worker program nor a legalization process.

When several of the House legislation's proposals were spelled out for poll respondents, 47 percent said they favored the bill and 44 percent opposed it.

The poll, conducted through telephone interviews with 1,010 adult Americans from Friday through Sunday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for most questions.

The House bill would build fences along 700 miles of the border with Mexico, increase criminal penalties for illegal immigrants caught inside the United States, make it illegal for organizations such as churches or charities to provide food or medical care to illegal immigrants, and increase penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Although the debate in Congress has not broken down clearly along party lines, that poll question did show a divide between Democrat and Republican respondents.

Among Republicans, 54 percent favored the House bill and 37 percent opposed it, and the numbers for independents were almost identical. But among Democrats, 35 percent favored the bill and 59 percent opposed it. That question alone had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

Eighty-eight percent of those responding said illegal immigration will be at least somewhat important to them when they vote in November.

Of those, 14 percent said it is the only issue that will matter to them, while 43 percent said it is very important and 31 percent somewhat important. Another 9 percent said it is not important at all.

Seventy percent said they were sympathetic toward illegal immigrants and their families: 24 percent of them very sympathetic and 46 percent somewhat so. Twelve percent said they felt somewhat unsympathetic toward illegal immigrants, and 14 percent very much so.

I think the only reason 44% opposed HB 4437 is because of the provision making it illegal for churches to provide food and medical supplies to illegal aliens. The average person who doesn't understand the problem and the contribution to this problem by churches may be a little hard to swallow.

Is that what the bill actually says?

I'm going to check into this.

Sure most Americans are sympathetic towards illegals. That does not mean we want them here, to have amnesty, or our tax dollars.

You would get a very high reading on any poll asking people if they are simply sympathetic towards something or someone.

Who in the world would want to answer. Hell no, im not sympathetic at all?

W

This poll, like every poll ever made, can skew the results however it chooses simply by way the questions are phrased.

Well, I just spend the last 2 hours perusing the bill and I can't find where it actually says that about the churches providing food and medicine.

Does anyone know what section that is in?

Let me know if you do.

I think the church concerns probably come from an interpretation of paragraphs 1(D) and 1(E) along with 2(A).

The authors of HR4437 offered to amend 4437 to specifically exclude humanitarian aid from places like homeless shelters, soup kitchens, chruches. So, one might suspect that the cry of "it will put priests in jail" is more to sabotage the entire bill rather than actual concern about priests being put in jail for handing out soup.

Those who favor illegal immigration have a 30 year history of using psychological and language manipulation to achieve their goals.


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SEC. 274. (a) Criminal Offenses and Penalties-

`(1) PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES- Whoever--

`(A) assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to come to or enter the United States, or to attempt to come to or enter the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to come to or enter the United States;

`(B) assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to come to or enter the United States at a place other than a designated port of entry or place other than as designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security, regardless of whether such person has official permission or lawful authority to be in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien;

`(C) assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to reside in or remain in the United States, or to attempt to reside in or remain in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States;

`(D) transports or moves a person in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to enter or be in the United States, where the transportation or movement will aid or further in any manner the person's illegal entry into or illegal presence in the United States;

`(E) harbors, conceals, or shields from detection a person in the United States knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to be in the United States;

`(F) transports, moves, harbors, conceals, or shields from detection a person outside of the United States knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien in unlawful transit from one country to another or on the high seas, under circumstances in which the person is in fact seeking to enter the United States without official permission or lawful authority; or

`(G) conspires or attempts to commit any of the preceding acts,

shall be punished as provided in paragraph (2), regardless of any official action which may later be taken with respect to such alien.

`(2) CRIMINAL PENALTIES- A person who violates the provisions of paragraph (1) shall--

`(A) except as provided in subparagraphs (D) through (H), in the case where the offense was not committed for commercial advantage, profit, or private financial gain, be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both;

`(B) except as provided in subparagraphs (C) through (H), where the offense was committed for commercial advantage, profit, or private financial gain--

`(i) in the case of a first violation of this subparagraph, be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both; and

`(ii) for any subsequent violation, be imprisoned for not less than 3 years nor more than 20 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both;

`(C) in the case where the offense was committed for commercial advantage, profit, or private financial gain and involved 2 or more aliens other than the offender, be imprisoned for not less than 3 nor more than 20 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both;

`(D) in the case where the offense furthers or aids the commission of any other offense against the United States or any State, which offense is punishable by imprisonment for more than 1 year, be imprisoned for not less than 5 nor more than 20 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both;

`(E) in the case where any participant in the offense created a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person, including--

`(i) transporting a person in an engine compartment, storage compartment, or other confined space;

`(ii) transporting a person at an excessive speed or in excess of the rated capacity of the means of transportation; or

`(iii) transporting or harboring a person in a crowded, dangerous, or inhumane manner,

be imprisoned not less than 5 nor more than 20 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both;

`(F) in the case where the offense caused serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of title 18, United States Code, including any conduct that would violate sections 2241 or 2242 of title 18, United States Code, if the conduct occurred in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States) to any person, be imprisoned for not less than 7 nor more than 30 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both;

`(G) in the case where the offense involved an alien who the offender knew or had reason to believe was an alien--

`(i) engaged in terrorist activity (as defined in section 212(a)(3)(B)); or

`(ii) intending to engage in such terrorist activity,

be imprisoned for not less than 10 nor more than 30 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both; and

`(H) in the case where the offense caused or resulted in the death of any person, be punished by death or imprisoned for not less than 10 years, or any term of years, or for life, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both.

It was never the intent of the bill's authors to make it a crime for churches to give humanitarian aid, it was solely put there to help convict human smugglers. The part about making illegal immigration a felony, was supposed to be lowered to a misdemeanor, but the DEMOCRATS in the House, voted to keep it a felony, so they could use it against the Republicans later and to instigate the mass protests. As one observer put it, "not exactly a shining example of democracy" by the Democrats in the House.