Iraq and immigration

Iraq and immigration
Rodel Rodis, Jun 20, 2007

The two most polarizing issues confronting the major political parties in the U.S. are Iraq and immigration. Iraq is dividing the Democrats while immigration is bedeviling the Republicans. The moderate middle ground that may bring people together on those issues has been largely abandoned by the major presidential candidates who have chosen to cater to their parties’ core bases.

The timing of these two issues has been uncanny. President Bush announced major immigration reforms on the 4th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He vetoed the Democratic bill that would set timetables for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq on the very day when hundreds of thousands rallied around the U.S. for immigration reform.

Hypocrisy is also at play here. The conservatives, who oppose the immigration bill that may provide a “path to citizenship” to the estimated 12 million aliens who are illegally in the US, argue that the bill would reward illegality. But they are the first to also argue that even if the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq was illegal (as it was sold to the American people on the package of lies that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, was an immediate threat to the U.S., and was connected to 9/11), we’re stuck and we can’t leave Iraq because chaos and genocide would ensue if the U.S. left.

Those who favor immigration reform concede that there was illegality in the entry but that we now have to deal with the reality of 12 million “illegals” in the U.S. and what to do about them. As Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stated three years ago, it is not in the interests of U.S. national security for the government not to know the names, addresses and backgrounds of 12 million people who live in the shadows. President Bush said that it would be impossible for the U.S. to deport the 12 million people and that the best alternative is to find a way to legalize them so that they will voluntarily register and the U.S. can then keep track of them.

While all that may be reasonable thinking, it just doesn’t resonate with the Republican base who oppose any bill that may offer “amnesty” to illegal immigrants. (They favor amnesty for Scooter Libby, however, even though he was found guilty of committing federal felonies.)

The latest Republican hopeful to enter the presidential derby, former U.S. Senator and current TV actor Fred Thompson, denounced the immigration bill by charging that the United States is “beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women and children around the world”.

Lou Dobbs of CNN has been waging a daily attack on illegal aliens by constantly injecting inflammatory facts that turn out to be false. “The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans,” Dobbs announced on his April 14, 2005 TV program. A CNN correspondent then came on and said that “There were about 900 cases of leprosy in the last 40 years. There have been 7,000 cases in the past three years.” Dobbs has repeated this charge on his daily TV show.

It turns out that while there have been 7,000 cases of leprosy (Hansen’s Disease), they have occurred in the last 30 years, not the last three. The peak year, according to the National Hansen’s Disease Program, was in 1983 when there were 456 reported cases. In 2006, there were 137 cases.

This week The New York Times reports that “the left-for-dead Senate immigration bill should be up off the slab, lurching toward a final vote.” It had been bogged down with “poison pill” amendments intended to kill it but it has now been repackaged with an additional $4.4 billion package for border security, “a super-heavy-duty enforcement” gesture to the anti-amnesty minutemen constituents. Instead of hundreds of amendments, the bill will now just face 10 before the vote. Here are some of them:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) has an amendment to send applicants for legalization on a “touchback” trip abroad before getting their Z visas, a proposal that may work for 8 million Mexicans but not for the 600,000 Filipinos. The amendment of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nevada) would prevent those who paid into Social Security as illegal immigrants from ever getting that money back, and cut off their young children from death benefits. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) would seek to require that all state and local laws that forbid government employees to ask people’s immigration status be stricken before other provisions of the bill take effect. Sen. Christopher Bond (R- Missouri) would prohibit holders of Z visas from ever getting green cards.

And then there’s Sen. Lindsey Graham, whom the New York Times previously reported as having “spoken movingly about the need for reasonable, decent treatment of immigrants, especially immigrant families.”

Because he is up for reelection next year, he has now become “Sensenbrennerized”, proposing the killer amendment, to criminalize aliens who overstay their visas, subject to minimum 60-day prison sentences.

The New York Times counseled that “the only workable immigration reform will be one that values being smart over being reflexively tough. It will be one that combines enforcement at the border and in the workplace with a path to legal status, even citizenship, for the immigrants already here, and a lawful and orderly flow of future workers. That’s the dream, anyway. Congress had a bill like that once, a while back, but the dream is in great danger of slipping away.”

Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com.

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Lillian Guerrero
Jun 20, 2007 07:26:00

Some comments on this column:

(1) To make an analogy between illegal immigration ahd the Iraq war is disingenuous. The 12 to 20 million aliens we are dealing with now came here in violation of immigration laws. No question about that. The Iraq War, on the other hand, was not illegal, having been authorized by Congress on the intelligence available at the time. In retrospect, there were flaws in that intelligence, but that does not make it illegal. Whether to withdraw now or not is irrelevant to this debate.

(2) I get the feeling Mr. Rodis wants to legalize these aliens. Does he, as a lawyer, still believe in the rule of law? Is it not clear that amnesty would be rewarding illegal behavior?

(3) Those amendments offerred by Senators Hutchinson, Ensign, Bond, Coleman and Graham are quite reasonable. In fact, Atty. Rodis has not mentioned amendments rejected by Democrats that would deport criminals and those 700,000 absconders who continue to hide despite court orders.

(4) Atty. Rodis again fails to mention that this immigration bill is opposed not only by Republicans, but by Democrats as well. That's true in all the polls.

(5) Lou Dobbs, a liberal on CNN, is singled out in this column for a minor error, but not for his cogent arguments he has been telling us for the past one year. He has been helped in this regard by "talk radio" which Trent Lott recently accused of ruling this country. No, Senator Lott, those are the voices of most Americans on this issue, not just of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.

(6) Lastly, Atty. Rodis invokes a statement from the NY Times about a dream that now has become a bubble. The Times, once a paper of record, has become a liberal voice, printing all the news it wants to print, whether unfit as long as it adheres to its agenda. It has become less and less credible with its propaganda and its continually declining circulation.

The compromise bill may have been revived, but its chances of being resuscitated successfully are nil. There just is no way to force it down the throats of most Americans, unless you happen to love Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid.