Friday, June 21, 2013

America Inches toward Questionable Immigration Reform

The US Senate is close to an agreement to vastly increase fencing, patrols and high-tech monitoring along the US-Mexico border. The detailed amendment formally unveiled in the Senate makes it likely that a sweeping immigration bill, with the inclusion of the amendment, is headed for passage next week with substantial bipartisan support. President Obama also supports the bill. The new amendment adds thousands of patrol agents, hundreds of miles of fencing, and a budget of billions of dollars to be spent on everything from helicopters to drones to watchtowers. Republican Senators John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee were instrumental in drafting the amendment and getting GOP support lined up. "We really are trying to secure the border in a way that we hope can get bipartisan support and that Americans want," Senator Hoeven told the AP in a phone interview Friday. "We're hopeful to have a good bipartisan majority." Arizona Republican Senator John McCain said that "if there's anyone who still will argue that the border is not secure after this, then border security is not their reason for opposing a path to citizenship for the people who are in this country illegally." Hoeven developed the amendment along with Republican Senator Corker, in consultation with McCain, Senators Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer, and other members of the so-called Gang of Eight senators who wrote the immigration bill. It prevents immigrants now here illegally from attaining permanent resident status until a series of steps has been taken to secure the border. In addition to the border guards, the new amendment calls for unmanned surveillance drones, 350 miles of new pedestrian fencing to add to 350 miles already in place and an array of fixed and mobile devices to maintain vigilance, including high-tech tools such as infrared ground sensors and airborne radar. The timetable for implementation is 10 years, which matches the 10-year path to a permanent resident green card that the bill sets out for immigrants here illegally. During that time, the immigrants could live and work legally in a provisional status. Senator Hoeven said the 10-year cost of the border security amendment included $25 billion for the additional Border Patrol agents, $3 billion for fencing and $3.2 billion for other measures. Senators who had been uncommitted on the immigration bill are now prepared to support it, assuming the amendment is adopted. Senators Dean Heller and Mark Kirk announced their support for the deal Thursday. Republicans have insisted that green cards be made conditional on catching or turning back 90% of would-be border crossers. Schumer, other Democrats and Obama himself rejected this trigger, which they feared could delay the path to citizenship for years. The Democrat-Republican cooperation was made possible by a Congressional Budget Office report Tuesday concluding that the bill would cut billions of dollars from the deficit. Schumer's top immigration aide, Leon Fresco, had the idea of devoting some of those billions to a dramatic border buildup. With the budget office finding in place, Fresco met with Schumer and Corker and said, "OK, let's go big." The idea immediately appealed to the left and the right. For Republicans, it provided concrete assurances of seriously heightened border security. For Democrats, it offered achievable and measurable goals. ~~~~~ But, dear readers, there is no light at the end of the immigration tunnel just yet. Leading Republican opponents of the bill held a news conference to denounce the deal as little more than an empty promise. And the US House of Representatives, Republican-controlled and more conservative than the Senate, still has to pass its own immigration reform bill. When both the Senate and House bills have been passed, a joint House-Senate committee will try ro reconcile them. The one positive sign in all this is that everyone agrees that "something" has to be done. The choices range from a general 'amnesty' granting green card status to all illegal immigrants to forcng all illegals to go back to their country of origin and apply for admission under the current US visa program. The worrisome aspect of the Senate's beefed up border control program is that it has not worked to date and simply building a few hundred additional miles of fence and adding more border patrol capability looks to me like a game of mirrors and whistles to cover over the insurmountable problem of sealing a 2,000-mile land border when thousands of Mexicans and other Latin Americans are determined to get to America, whatever it takes.

5 comments:

  1. I don't think that we are one bit closer to immigration reform in this Country. And why Reform??? They're illegals. Send them back.

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  2. Stand Up And Be CountedJune 21, 2013 at 7:24 PM

    I find some real humor in all these "BILLIONS" of dollars for added border patrol personnel,fences,drones, helicopters, etc. And yet these same senators and congressmen says we can't afford to sent these ILLEGAL. UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS home to their country of origin.

    Add up the numbers that Casey Pops shared with us ... that's $31.2 BILLION DOLLARS over next 10 years. Give me the $31.2 Billion dollars and I'll send them home and have a lot of billions left over.

    These people are lawbreakers, trespassers, thief's, drug dealers, simple laborers for the most part. Given the state of the US economy the past 5 years under Obama there are many Americans who would accept these low income jobs.

    We can't afford to keep them either. they are breaking our medicare/Medical medical system with their visits to hospital emergency rooms for colds and cut knees on the kids. They are also exploiting the Food Stamp program while getting paid in cash and paying ZERO taxes and getting federal tax refunds for all their children.

    Come to America, live the promised life ... but come the legal way and pay your fair share of the ride your taking.

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  3. The US has had this Immigration problem for quiet a few years now. What is the hurry to rush through a NEW IMMIGRATION BILL that has not had the time for the ink to dry on the draft of the bill. Why don't we take the time to cross every "T" and dot every "I". let's be sure what the meaning of IS is as Bill Clinton once said during his darkest days.

    Everyone wants to correct this problem and maybe we all wanted to have it done yesterday. But yesterday is past and tomorrow is not quit here. So lets take that time in between yesterday and tomorrow and get this right the first time.

    our priorities should be what is best for America. Not what is best for the Illegal Immigrants, and possibly some politicians in Washington who have their heads in a noose over other issues and desperately need to change the subject on the evening news broadcasts.

    Is this as Nancy Palosi said about the Obamacare Bill ... "we must pass it first to know what's in it?"

    NO Nancy we MUST know what's in it first.

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  4. "Divide and Conqueror". We must decide what engagements we must take on and proceed. We are engaged in Afghanistan Pakistan, about to be in Syria, in all the Middle East as a whole, we have some 5 or 6 attempts to circumvent the Constitution, and now of all times we want to rush through a critical piece of legislation concerning some 15 to 20 million illegal immigrants living and working unlawfully in the US.

    How many balls can we juggle in the air at one time folks.

    Could all this confusion and disarray be part of a master plan to dislodge our government?

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  5. I know it's relatively easy to find fault with others work. but this Immigration Bill just doesn't really do anything. It creates new problems and covers up the old ones in a bunch of legalese and hopes & dreams.

    I think a serious look needs to be made at the clause that is granting immediate citizenship if a child is born in the US. I do not think that was the intention of the founders at all.

    Maybe a seasonal work visa with "guarantees that the worker returns at the end of the visa and checks in every month while here.

    A big problem is that when a child is born in the US the parents name the child EXACTLY the same name as the Mother or father. So then the corresponding parent has a Social security card with it's name on to go out and work and get a drivers license. INSTANT DOCUMENTATION. It needs changed. maybe something printed on the SS card such as "Born 00-00-0000" in the background of the card. Presently there is NO date on the card at all.

    Control of illegal immigration is more than building a fence and a few extra feet on the ground at ground zero.It's all about the procedure of being legal and what do we do if they are caught being illegal.

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