Monday, December 12, 2005

Tough Immigration Bill up for Vote

The Seattle Times

WASHINGTON — Driven by the rising anger of constituents, House Republicans are pushing ahead with tough legislation to tighten control of U.S. borders and clamp down on the hiring of illegal immigrants —without offering new avenues for such immigrants to find lawful employment. why should that be our priority, especially when we have high unemployment in the United States anyways?

President Bush and Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman have implored House leaders not to take up what they call an "enforcement-only" bill, arguing that such a punitive measure could jeopardize years of Republican outreach to Latinos greed... they are only concerned about how many votes that they can get and they don't care how they get them. Believe it or not, there was actually a time when politicians ACTUALLY were concerned about the welfare of the American people

Under the bill, employers would be mandated to confirm the authenticity of employees' Social Security numbers against a national database of legitimate numbers. All illegal immigrants apprehended at the border would have to be detained, and deportation processes would be streamlined.

Latino political organizations are incensed by the bill. Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, says the measure would overwhelm the nation's jails and law-enforcement agencies without effectively stemming the flow of illegal immigrants.

The business lobby is not happy, either. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has expressed disappointment that there is no temporary-worker program and called the bill's mandate on employer verification impractical and unrealistic.

I still fail to understand why we're more concerned about Latinos and Hispanics over any other group.

It makes me wonder if the old "follow the money" rule applies here

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