Immigration bill is promoted for 2010--Janet Napolitano wants Amnesty

[bobbyw24]

Stephen Dinan

Declaring success in border security and immigration enforcement, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that the federal government has done its work and now it's time for Congress to pass a broad bill to legalize illegal immigrants.

Her speech signals President Obama will make good on his promise to push Congress to pass an immigration bill next year - adding yet another hot-button issue to an already long and contentious list.

Ms. Napolitano said members of Congress and voters who balked at an immigration bill two years ago, fearing a repeat of the 1986 amnesty that only made the problem worse, can be assured this time is different. She said in those two years, the flow of illegal immigrants across the border has dropped dramatically and the government is doing more to catch fugitive aliens inside the U.S.

"The security of the southwest border has been transformed from where it was in 2007," she said in a speech to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "The federal government has dedicated unprecedented resources to the Mexican border in terms of manpower, technology and infrastructure - and it's made a real difference."

But Republicans said her declaration of victory on border security was premature.

"How can they claim that enforcement is 'done' when there are more than 400 open miles of border with Mexico, hundreds of thousands of criminal and fugitive aliens and millions of illegal immigrants taking American jobs?" said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

The number of illegal immigrants being caught on the border has fallen - a measure Border Patrol officials say means fewer are trying to cross - and Ms. Napolitano said the government has hundreds of miles of fencing on the border, has boosted the number of Border Patrol agents to 20,000 and has begun to deport illegal-alien criminals being kept in U.S. prisons and jails.

The number of illegal immigrants apprehended by immigration authorities is down from 1.8 million in 2000 to 556,041 in fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, and demography experts say the number of illegal immigrants remaining in the U.S. has actually begun to fall.

Ms. Napolitano said both a slowing economy and better enforcement account for the changes, which she said creates a window for Congress to act.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee, said Ms. Napolitano



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/14/immigration-bill-promoted-for-2010/

[Dunedain]

By making all illegal immigrants legal then the problem is not solved. Why? The problem isn't illegal immigration but immigration itself. We have way too much LEGAL immigration for the country to sustain.

So they are arguing about whether to close the flow by a third or open it even more. Wrong argument.

[LibertyEagle]

The number of illegal immigrants apprehended by immigration authorities is down from 1.8 million in 2000 to 556,041 in fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, and demography experts say the number of illegal immigrants remaining in the U.S. has actually begun to fall.


No doubt, because the jobs are drying up.

[WClint]

Imagine the new voting block, they will vote for Obongo. HOHO they cant lose the 2010 election. OBONGO.

[BlackTerrel]

I thought this was about the judge for a sec

[devil21]

Another article on the amnesty proposal. Must be nice for the Dems to basically just legislate themselves into power forever. 12 million (yeah right, try 20) fresh votes will make a big difference, not to mention the additional illegals that storm the border to get into the country before any bill passes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/politics/14immig.html


Nov 13 09
The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press

Janet Napolitano laid out the administration's plans Friday.
In her first major speech on the overhaul, Ms. Napolitano dispelled any suggestion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — would postpone the most contentious piece of immigration legislation until after midterm elections next November.

Laying out the administration’s bottom line, Ms. Napolitano said officials would argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and employers who hire them and a streamlined system for legal immigration, as well as a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”

With unemployment surging over 10 percent and Congress still wrangling over health care, advocates on all sides of the immigration debate had begun to doubt that President Obama would keep his pledge to tackle the divisive illegal immigration issue in the first months of 2010.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano unveiled a double-barrel argument for a legalization program, saying it would enhance national security and, as the economy climbs out of recession, protect American workers from unfair competition from lower-paid, easily exploited illegal immigrants.

“Let me emphasize this: we will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows,” she said, adding that the recovering economy would be strengthened “as these immigrants become full-paying taxpayers.”

Under the administration’s plan, illegal immigrants who hope to gain legal status would have to register, pay fines and all taxes they owe, pass a criminal background check and learn English.

Drawing a contrast with 2007, when a bill with legalization provisions offered by President George W. Bush failed in Congress, Ms. Napolitano said the Obama administration had achieved a “fundamental change” in border security and enforcement against employers hiring illegal immigrants. She said a sharp reduction in the flow of illegal immigrants into the country created an opportunity to move ahead with a legalization program.

Some Republicans were quick to challenge Ms. Napolitano’s claims that border security had significantly improved or that American workers would be helped by bringing illegal immigrants into the system.

“How can they claim that enforcement is done when there are more than 400 open miles of border with Mexico?” asked Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. He said the administration should “deport illegal immigrant workers so they don’t remain here to compete with citizen and legal immigrant job seekers.”

But Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, agreed that it was time to open the immigration debate. “My commitment to immigration reform has not changed,” he said in a statement Friday. “I am interested in seeing a proposal sooner rather than later from President Obama.” (ANOTHER RINO THAT NEEDS TO BE VOTED OUT!)

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and the chairman of that subcommittee, has been writing an overhaul bill and consulting with Republicans, particularly Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Mr. Schumer said that the administration’s agenda was “ambitious,” but that he was “confident we can have a bipartisan immigration bill ready to go under whatever timeline the president thinks is best.”

Ms. Napolitano has been leading the administration’s efforts to gather ideas and support for the immigration overhaul, meeting in recent weeks with business leaders, religious groups, law enforcement officials and others to gauge their willingness to go forward with a debate in Congress.

Framing the administration’s proposals in stark law and order terms, she said immigration legislation should include tougher laws against migrant smugglers and more severe sanctions for employers who hire unauthorized workers.

Ms. Napolitano said that the Border Patrol had grown by 20,000 officers and that more than 600 miles of border fence had been finished, meeting security benchmarks set by Congress in 2007. She was echoing an argument adopted by Mr. Bush after the bill collapsed in 2007, and by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in his race against Mr. Obama. They said Americans wanted to see effective enforcement before they would agree to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants.

Some immigrant advocates were dismayed by Ms. Napolitano’s approach. Benjamin E. Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, praised her package of proposals, but said some enforcement policies she outlined “have proven to do more harm than good.”