Thread: Response Letter From the Nebraska Traitor

Here's my letter from Hagel:

Dear Mayday:

Thank you for contacting me regarding immigration reform legislation.

On May 25, the Senate passed S.2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, by a vote of 62 to 36. I co-authored this legislation and voted for it.

Immigration is a difficult, complicated and emotional issue for our country. For years, Congress has ignored the hard decisions required to secure our borders and fix our broken immigration system. As a result, our nation has paid a heavy price for our neglect.

I believe the Senate bill puts our country on a responsible course to fix the problem. The bill enhances border security, interior enforcement, and employer enforcement. It improves technology and manpower at the border, while making it impossible to get a job without proper fraud-reesistant work authorization. It more than doubles the number of border patrol agents over the next six years to 25,983 and authorizes use of the National Guard at the border. In addition, the bill creates a temporary worker program and provides a common sense solution for the estimated 11-12 million illegal aliens living in our country today.

The Senate bill will now go to a House-Senate-Conference Committee where differences between the House and Senate bills will be reconciled. The Senate bill is not perfect, but it represents a significant step forward in our effort to address this critical national security, economic, and humanitarian issue.

In the coming months, I will continue to work with President Bush and the leaders in the House and Senate to ensure that we pass comprehensive immigration reform into law this year.

Enclosed is a recent Lincoln Journal Star editorial that explains the Senate bill.

Sincerely,

Chuck H



Here's the editorial he sent me:

Sen. Chuck Hagel played a valuable and potentially historic role in helping his colleagues put together a comprehensive immigration reform bill that tackles all of the necessary issues.

His work on immigration reform has been constructive and responsible.

Sen. Ben Nelson, on the other side of the aisle, seems more concerned about how the issue could be used in his campaign battle with challenger Pete Ricketts.

It’s with considerable wonderment that we watched Nelson join with the jeering throng far to the right of President Bush in calling the Senate legislation an “amnesty plan.”

That’s an unfair characterization of the legislation introduced and shaped by Hagel and Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., that won 62-36 approval in the Senate.

First, the Senate bill takes the necessary first step of closing the border to the flood of illegal immigrants.

The bill calls for constructing hundreds of miles of new fence at the Mexican border and building 20 new detention facilities. It calls for doubling the number of border patrol agents to more than 25,000, with a 70 percent increase in the number of immigration and customs enforcement officers.

In that sense, the Senate legislation is similar to the one-dimensional bill that passed the House earlier this year, which focused too exclusively on border security.

Hagel’s bill also would increase maximum fines to employers for hiring illegal workers to $20,000 for each worker and impose up to three years of jail. It would require immigrants and guest workers to show a machine-readable, tamper-resistant identification card that includes a digital photograph of the individual and would establish an employee electronic verification system to verify that newly hired employees are legal.

But the Senate bill, thanks to Hagel’s work, takes a pragmatic approach to the dilemma created by the estimated 10 million to 12 million immigrants already in the country illegally.

It would create a guest worker program and a path to citizenship. For example, an undocumented immigrant who has been in the United States five years or more would have to pay a $3,250 fine and back taxes, pass national security and criminal background checks, prove he or she has worked for at least three years, register for military service and demonstrate knowledge of English and U.S. civics. All other undocumented immigrants would have to leave the country and re-enter legally.

The bill is a major improvement on the crude and incomplete effort passed by the House earlier this year. If House conferees are sincere about trying to actually trying to solve America’s problem with illegal immigrants, the final compromise bill should retain the basic elements of Hagel’s plan. To correct decades of failed immigration policy, Congress can’t leave the job half done.


http://www.journalstar.com/articles/200 ... 690589.txt

If you go to the online version there are a lot of viewer comments by upset people who don't agree with the editorial.

Correct it, grade it and send it back!!!!!!!!

Now now May, don't be "difficult and emotional" about "comprehensive immigration reform".

Enclosed is a recent Lincoln Journal Star editorial that explains the Senate bill.

How insulting! Dumb country bumpkins don't know what's going on in the big city.

Dixie

Dixie-That's what I thought when I received it in the mail earlier this week. I opened it, skimmed through it, was disgusted and then threw it in my junk pile and just now read it as I typed it for Alipac.

Correcting it, grading it and sending it back is the right thing to do.

Now that's just classic...the guy sends an editorial glorifying himself. Wow I'm glad I don't have that prima donna as MY senator. It's as if he's trying to say: Look...see? This guy loves me now so should YOU!