Where Bad Ideas Come From
Congressional Republicans have been scrambling to return campaign donations emanating from Jack Abramoff and his clients and have been grabbing every microphone in sight to provide justification for the White House's decision to spy illegally on American citizens. It's no wonder that they had little time this close to the holidays to keep one of their wackier members on a tight leash. The result has been one of the most unAmericanly bizarre pieces of legislation ever to come from the House of Representatives: the new build-a-fence immigration bill sponsored by Rep. Tom "We should nuke Mecca" Tancredo of Colorado. The NY Times has the story.
For nearly a decade, Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, has been dismissed by his critics as little more than an angry man with a microphone, a lonely figure who rails against immigration and battles his own president and party.
So radical were his proposals - calling for a fence along the United States border with Canada, for instance - and so fierce were his attacks on fellow Republicans who did not share his views that many of his colleagues tried to avoid him. Mr. Tancredo said Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, had told him not "to darken the doorstep of the White House."
But last week, the man denounced by critics on the left and on the right suddenly emerged as an influential lawmaker. Pressured by conservative constituents angered by the continuing flow of illegal immigrants into the United States, Republicans rallied around Mr. Tancredo to defy the president and produce the toughest immigration legislation in more than a decade.
Mr. Tancredo and his allies fought successfully to strip the measure of any language offering support for Mr. Bush's plan to provide temporary legal status for illegal immigrants working in the United States. And he helped win support for provisions that once seemed unthinkable to many lawmakers, like the construction of five fences across 698 miles of the United States border with Mexico.
...With midterm elections looming,[Arizona Rep. Jeff] Flake said, many Republicans simply wanted to address voter concerns about securing the border.
"We weren't so much making law as making a statement here," Mr. Flake said. Mr. Tancredo's allies countered that his support from fellow Republicans was more than a matter of political expediency; they said it signaled a shift in the immigration debate. [Emphasis added]
Whatever the reason behind the bill's passage, and I personally favor the the theory of the upcoming election season, the bill itself has raised a firestorm, and not just with immigrant rights groups. The US Chamber of Commerce is not happy with the bill, and corporate agriculture (which depends heavily on cheap seasonal labor to harvest crops from California to Florida)must be fuming.
What is especially noteworthy about the bill, which was passed during the "Merry Christmas" season, is its sheer mean-spiritedness.
The border security measure would make it a federal crime to live in the United States illegally, which would turn millions of immigrants into felons, ineligible to win any legal status. The bill would make it a crime for employees of social service agencies and church groups to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants.
The legislation would also require the mandatory detention of some immigrants, would withhold some federal aid from cities that provide immigrants with services without checking their legal status and would decrease the number of legal immigrants admitted annually by eliminating a program that provides 50,000 green cards each year.
What's next from Mr. Tancredo, racial purity laws?
For nearly a decade, Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, has been dismissed by his critics as little more than an angry man with a microphone, a lonely figure who rails against immigration and battles his own president and party.
So radical were his proposals - calling for a fence along the United States border with Canada, for instance - and so fierce were his attacks on fellow Republicans who did not share his views that many of his colleagues tried to avoid him. Mr. Tancredo said Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, had told him not "to darken the doorstep of the White House."
But last week, the man denounced by critics on the left and on the right suddenly emerged as an influential lawmaker. Pressured by conservative constituents angered by the continuing flow of illegal immigrants into the United States, Republicans rallied around Mr. Tancredo to defy the president and produce the toughest immigration legislation in more than a decade.
Mr. Tancredo and his allies fought successfully to strip the measure of any language offering support for Mr. Bush's plan to provide temporary legal status for illegal immigrants working in the United States. And he helped win support for provisions that once seemed unthinkable to many lawmakers, like the construction of five fences across 698 miles of the United States border with Mexico.
...With midterm elections looming,[Arizona Rep. Jeff] Flake said, many Republicans simply wanted to address voter concerns about securing the border.
"We weren't so much making law as making a statement here," Mr. Flake said. Mr. Tancredo's allies countered that his support from fellow Republicans was more than a matter of political expediency; they said it signaled a shift in the immigration debate. [Emphasis added]
Whatever the reason behind the bill's passage, and I personally favor the the theory of the upcoming election season, the bill itself has raised a firestorm, and not just with immigrant rights groups. The US Chamber of Commerce is not happy with the bill, and corporate agriculture (which depends heavily on cheap seasonal labor to harvest crops from California to Florida)must be fuming.
What is especially noteworthy about the bill, which was passed during the "Merry Christmas" season, is its sheer mean-spiritedness.
The border security measure would make it a federal crime to live in the United States illegally, which would turn millions of immigrants into felons, ineligible to win any legal status. The bill would make it a crime for employees of social service agencies and church groups to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants.
The legislation would also require the mandatory detention of some immigrants, would withhold some federal aid from cities that provide immigrants with services without checking their legal status and would decrease the number of legal immigrants admitted annually by eliminating a program that provides 50,000 green cards each year.
What's next from Mr. Tancredo, racial purity laws?
posted by Diane at 5:08 AM
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