Along with a health care reform bill, it would be a fitting tribute to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) if Congress could act on his other great unfinished cause: immigration reform....The original bill wouldn't have done anything to secure the borders and would have guaranteed a flood of new illegals seeking their own amnesty deal. McCain realized his presidential hopes would be destroyed if he continued with the immigration bill. The voters didn't want it, and especially conservatives who would have abandoned McCain during the election even more than they ended up doing.
Kennedy’s death undoubtedly will elicit calls to get health care reform legislation passed in his memory, but reforming the immigration system was also one of his major goals yet unreached.
Kennedy worked with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Bush in 2006 and 2007 to fashion a compromise that would allow illegal immigrants with clean records to earn their way to permanent status.
The bill also would have ended the unconscionable delays that keep family members of recent immigrants waiting years — sometimes decades — to be admitted.
And though his motives for reform might have been primarily humanitarian — especially, getting 12 million illegal immigrants “out of the shadows” where they can easily be exploited economically — he understood the need to get America’s borders under control.
Kennedy and McCain came painfully close to passing reform legislation in 2007, but fell just seven votes short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
It came close despite a hysterical campaign mounted by right-wing groups and talk show hosts that the bill would grant “amnesty” to illegals. It’s akin to the current demagoguery over “death panels” supposedly created under pending health legislation.
McCain, running for president, abandoned his own bill and declared that the lesson of the reform failure was that Americans were demanding that the borders be secured before other aspects of reform should be considered.
I wonder what other lefty priorities we'll have to pass in order to honor Teddy?
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This is nonsense. The Cape Cod Orca was knee-deep in the immigration bill signed into law by Reagan. THAT bill was supposed to end illegal immigration too. And I disagree with the contention that the louse was concerned with border security. Border security could have been effected without implementing a comprehensive immigrateion plan, but I don't recall Kennedy blovianting about security, only the rights of the illegals.
Instead of pandering to the business community, our elected politicians must execute E-Verify as permanent tool to draw illegal workers away from the workplace? It must not be voluntary to be enforced, with serious penalties for employers who disregard the law. Heavy fines should be imposed, along with asset confiscation and for hiring a large force of illegal foreign workers a lengthy prison sentence. Nobody in the workplace should be exempt from being positively identified as a Citizen or a US permanent resident. Even the longest employed worker should be checked through the system. E-Verification should be built upon, with any new innovations desired to stop jobs being stolen from those legally allowed to work.
Many ICE raids across the nation have proved beyond doubt the extent of illegal nationals taking jobs of citizens and how expeditiously these unfilled jobs were taken back by bona-fide workers in the poultry industry. Americans in the working environment should report any illegal activity to ICE, so they can investigate. E-Verify is the only substantial program in immigration armory that must not be weakened. It is evident that it’s operational owing to the tireless assault of the ACLU, US Chamber of Commerce to silence its function in the courts. Now is the time to pressure your reluctant elected official, specifically in California. This Sanctuary Refuge for illegal aliens and their families have been overloading schools, hospitals and government welfare benefits to pacify special interest lobbyists.
Voters should also immediately mandate installation of E-Verify nationwide in vetting the janitor to an engineer, from a sheet metal worker to an advertising executive. When the welfare state of California nearly financially collapsed, it can be partially attributed to the massive population of illegal immigrants. The time is ripe to shout aloud of the decades of inflated taxes supporting education to K-12, free medical care and considerably more which stays intentionally undisclosed to the public. MAKE A NOTE OF THIS WASHINGTON SWITCHBOARD NUMBER 202-224-3121. Like never before we need the Nation Guard to patrol the border on a permanent basis, to support the undermanned region.
Democrats declare in the town hall meetings, that foreign nationals have--NO--access to benefits in Obama's health care reform.
But if a path to citizenship or AMNESTY is not--TABLED--in the coming Immigration Reform session, then one-and-all, will automatically be provided for as new citizens into the health care program. In addition we must consider the gigantic onslaught of millions more who will try to join those already here? WE CANNOT EVEN PROVIDE MEDICAL FOR OUR OWN POPULATION? I CONCUR WITH A PUBLIC OPTION-BUT NOT FOR FOREIGN NATIONALS.
STOP IT ONCE AND FOR ALL NOW AND START A POINTS SYSTEM FOR HIGH ECHELON WORKERS. The poor, uneducated will never stop breaking our laws, for an opportunity reserved for AMERICANS AND LEGAL RESIDENTS. LEARN THE CONSEQUENCES OF IRREVERSIBLE OVERPOPULATION, THE COSTS TO TAXPAYERS AT NUMBERSUSA, HERITAGE FOUNDATION & JUDICIAL WATCH.
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