Press Releases :: April 13, 2006

Will Adams, 202.226.6997



http://tancredo.house.gov/press/PRArtic ... ewsID=1177

Tancredo: Surge in Illegals Shows Senate Pact is Amnesty

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chairman of the 96-member House Immigration Reform Caucus, said a surge in illegal aliens entering the in recent weeks shows that the Senate’s immigration pact is widely understood as amnesty among potential illegal entrants and that amnesty encourages more illegal behavior.



An AP article published yesterday documented a wave of recent illegal aliens who passed through safe houses in Arizona :



“The [illegal alien] shelter's manager, Francisco Loureiro, said he has not seen such a rush of migrants since 1986, when the allowed 2.6 million illegal residents to get American citizenship.



This time, the draw is a bill before the Senate that could legalize some of the 11 million people now illegally in the while tightening border security. Migrants are hurrying to cross over in time to qualify for a possible guest-worker program - and before the journey becomes even harder.



‘Every time there is talk in the north of legalizing migrants, people get their hopes up, but they don't realize how hard it will be to cross,’ Loureiro said.



South-central Arizona is the busiest migrant-smuggling area, and detentions by the U.S. Border Patrol there are up more than 26 percent this fiscal year - 105,803 since Oct. 1, compared with 78,024 for the same period a year ago. Along the entire border, arrests are up 9 percent.”



Tancredo responded, “Proponents of McCain-Kennedy can call their plan whatever they like – earned legalization, a path to citizenship, bringing people out of the shadows, and similar euphemisms – but illegal aliens aren’t stupid. They know amnesty when they see it, and rewarding illegal aliens in the is amnesty with a capital ‘A’.”



Tancredo concluded, “Once again, we have empirical proof to show that rewarding illegal behavior encourages more of the same. New illegal aliens know that they can forge documents to make it look like they’ve been in the for years. And, illegal aliens know our government’s record well—they know that this won’t be ‘the last amnesty.’ Our government must show a good-faith effort to secure our borders instead of keeping our doors wide open to more illegal aliens.”



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