Kill S.2611!

[MARIO]

One Reporter's Opinion: Kill S.2611!
George Putnam
Friday, May 19, 2006

It is this reporter's opinion that next November, 435 congresspersons and one-third of the Senate have some serious long-lasting choices to make. Currently, the Senate is juggling the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611). If enacted, S.2611 would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 to 100 years. The immigration challenge is not going to go away.


In its overall impact, the bill would rival other historic milestones, such as the creation of Social Security and Medicare. The bill would give amnesty to 10 million illegal immigrants and quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the U.S. Under CIRA, the annual inflow of immigrants with the option of becoming legal permanent residents would rise from the current level of 1 million per year to more than 5 million per year. Within 20 years, 103 million new immigrants will have entered the U.S. – about one-third of our current population.


Another feature of CIRA is that those here could bring spouses and minor children into the country and they would be granted permanent residence, along with the primary immigrant, and may also become citizens. And there are no numeric limits on the number of spouses, dependent children and parents of naturalized citizens that may be brought into the country.


CIRA also creates an entirely new temporary guest worker program. Foreign workers could enter the U.S. as guest workers if they have a job offer from a U.S. employer. (The guest worker program is actually an open-door program based on the demand of U.S. business.) It would allow an almost unlimited number of workers and dependents to enter from anywhere in the world and become citizens. It is an open-border provision.


Under CIRA, immigrants could enter the country or attain lawful status within the country through eight channels, and in each of the channels immigrants would be granted permanent residence and the right to become citizens.


The first channel represents immigrants who entered under current law.

The second channel represents illegal immigrants currently in the country, who would be given legal permanent residence under the bill.

The other six channels represent new inflows that would occur as a result of the bill.

If guest worker immigration grows at the maximum rate permitted under CIRA (20 percent per year), the total number of new immigrants coming to the U.S. over the next 20 years would be 193 million. And recently, one estimate said that if we don't stop the influx now, by the year 2050 there will be 300-500 million in the U.S. and by the year 2100, 1 billion!


If this insane legislation prevails, it will change the character, the economics and the culture of the America we have so loved – not to mention the politics. These illegals don't care about America, our culture or assimilation. They don't even want to learn our language; all they want is a free ride.


Common sense dictates: If we close the borders, severely penalize those who hire illegals and cut off the freebies, they'll be bound to go back home. The president and the Senate's schizophrenia and delusional views on immigration explain their poor ratings and greater vulnerability come Election Day, which makes the voter very powerful.

It's up to the American people to start by killing S.2611 or make some changes come next November.

[AmericanPride]

I want my country back.

[cameron]

americanpride2 said:

I want my country back.

No one has taken your country away.

[101ABN]

"No one has taken your country away. "

How long have you lived here?

How would you know?

[cameron]

Well I moved here with my mom when I was 14 (was in my teens flipping between living with my dad in Canada and my mom here) and now I am 43 so that's 29 years. Growing up watching American television broadcast from Buffalo I forget how old I was when I realized we weren't Americans hahahaha.

Even before that we used to travel down the east coast of this country every summer on camping trips. Not sure how old I was when we first went to Washington. It was at the Lincoln memorial were I became an American in my heart, or at least where the seed was planted. My dad had to drag me away from it, just kept reading Lincoln's second inaugural over and over.

This theologically intense speech has been widely acknowledged as one of the most remarkable documents in American history. The London Spectator said of it, "We cannot read it without a renewed conviction that it is the noblest political document known to history, and should have for the nation and the statesmen he left behind him something of a sacred and almost prophetic character."

Journalist Noah Brooks, an eyewitness to the speech, said that as Lincoln advanced from his seat, "a roar of applause shook the air, and, again and again repeated, finally died away on the outer fringe of the throng, like a sweeping wave upon the shore. Just at that moment the sun, which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor, and flooded the spectacle with glory and with light." Brooks said Lincoln later told him, "Did you notice that sunburst? It made my heart jump."

According to Brooks, the audience received the speech in "profound silence," although some passages provoked cheers and applause. "Looking down into the faces of the people, illuminated by the bright rays of the sun, one could see moist eyes and even tearful faces."

Brooks also observed, "But chiefly memorable in the mind of those who saw that second inauguration must still remain the tall, pathetic, melancholy figure of the man who, then inducted into office in the midst of the glad acclaim of thousands of people, and illumined by the deceptive brilliance of a March sunburst, was already standing in the shadow of death."

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral [sic] address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissole [sic] the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.