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Immigration Amnesty Bill Overview

I was looking at Chron.com and they have an item up from the AP that details the major provisions of the Amnesty Bill. This is not all inclusive because the Bill is nearly 1000 pages long so if it took that many pages to come up with just this, we have bigger issues.

— Major provisions of the bipartisan immigration compromise:
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CURRENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

_They could come forward immediately and receive probationary legal status.

_Bill creates a four-year, renewable “Z” visa for those present within the U.S. unlawfully before Jan. 1, 2007.

_Undocumented immigrants may adjust status to lawful permanent residence once they pay $5,000 in fees and fines and their head of household returns to their home country.

_People under age 30 who were brought to the U.S. as minors could receive their green cards after three years, rather than eight.

_Undocumented farmworkers who can demonstrate they have worked 150 hours or three years in agriculture can apply for green cards.

_No green cards for “Z” visa holders can be processed until “triggers” for border security and workplace enforcement have been met, estimated to take 18 months. Processing of green cards for holders of “Z” visas would begin after clearing an existing backlog, which is expected to take eight years.
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BORDER SECURITY

_Hire 18,000 new border patrol agents.

_Erect 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

_Erect 70 ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern border.

_Deploy four unmanned aerial vehicles and supporting systems.

_End the program in which illegal immigrants are released upon apprehension.

_Provide for detaining up to 27,500 aliens per day on an annual basis.

_Use secure and effective identification tools to prevent unauthorized work.
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WORKPLACE ENFORCEMENT

_Require employers to electronically verify new employees to prove identity and work eligibility.

_Increase penalties for unlawful hiring, employment and record keeping violations.
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GUEST WORKERS (requires border security measures to be in place first)

_Create a new temporary guest worker program with two-year “Y visas,” initially capped at 400,000 per year with annual adjustments based on market fluctuations

_Workers could renew the Y visa up to three times, but would be required to return home for a year in between each time. Those bringing dependents could obtain only one, nonrenewable two-year visa.

_Families could accompany guest workers only if they could show proof of medical insurance and demonstrate that their wages were 150 percent above the poverty level.
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FUTURE IMMIGRANTS

_Spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and permanent residents would be eligible for green cards based purely on their family connections, but other relatives such as adult children and siblings would not.

_380,000 visas a year would be awarded based on a point system, with about 50 percent based on employment criteria, 25 percent based on education, 15 percent on English proficiency and 10 percent on family connections.

_Apply new limits to U.S. citizens seeking to bring foreign-born parents into the country.

_Visas for parents of U.S. citizens would be capped annually at 40,000 and those for spouses and children at 87,000.

First of all it is important to note that this bill will only grant amnesty to people who were here prior to January 1st, 2007. There is no real way of know this and the government just stuck it in there to make you think they are trying to prevent people from rushing in here to receive their entitlements. In reality, people will lie about when they got here. If this Bill passes the coyote trucks full of immigrants will be working overtime and Jose and the family will be making a trek into the US because they can lie about when they got here. The government is relying on the honor system so in essence, the government is relying on people who broke the law to get here to tell the truth about when they got here. We have a bunch of dolts in the government.

Also, these are all nice gee whiz things but they will not stand. These issues for security triggers are all nice to look at and it sounds good to say that we will not begin processing people for green cards until certain security triggers are met but that will not happen. When they sit down to hash this out there will not be enough money for 18,000 border patrol agents so that will be cut. Other items will be cut and if they were really interested in security why did they reduce the length of the fence? In October they passed a bill that was signed into law to build a fence nearly 800 miles long. This bill cuts the fence length in half which seems like an apathetic attitude toward border security. I know there are those who say that they will use all the gee whiz high tech stuff the military uses. Ask yourself how well that is working in Iraq at keeping insurgents from crossing the border and you will know what to expect in Mexico. Also, electronic devices only tell you someone is there and they can be ignored. Think Clinton ignoring drone pictures of bin Laden. A wall is a physical barrier that will keep people out. There are also others, like Ted Kennedy, who will tell you that after this bill there will be no more problem. Kennedy authored the immigration amnesty bill in the mid 80s that granted amnesty to about 4 million ILLEGALS and he swore we would never face this again because of the security measures. A quarter of a century later and we have 3-5 times as many ILLEGALS and Kennedy wants to allow them in and promise it won’t happen again. Do your homework and read about the last amnesty that Kennedy was involved in. He is giving the country away.

ILLEGALS will be able to pay $5000 to remove that ILLEGAL tag. On the Ron Smith show on WBAL in Baltimore some employers were calling in about this and one guy said that the immigrant workers were saying they paid a coyote to get here they are not paying the government 5 grand as well. A commenter at Chron indicated that Kennedy is the new coyote demanding $5000 for them to stay here. Most of these people do not want to be legal and they do not want to be citizens. They come here because this is where the money is and they work to send it home to Mexico. Their labor does not benefit this country economically because they send most of their money home so little of it gets spent here. The economic benefits are to businesses that are overburdened with taxes and payroll. They hire ILLEGALS at lower than market rate to ease their burden. If these people wanted to be legal and they became so, does anyone think they will continue to work for low wages? They will then be eligible for the minimum wage (whatever it ends up being) so any small benefit of their presence will be lost in the salary increase.

This bill is packed with stuff to make it look good and right now the bipartisan support is very weak. A change in any item could lose support for this bill but change is what it is all about. Once this passes it will be easier for them to make changes. Hell, they can add items to other bills to screw with this one just like they add earmarks. Kennedy screwed America once with his last amnesty bill (he must need lots of Mexicans to do his landscaping) and I am ashamed to say Reagan signed it. I am also ashamed to say that Bush will sign this bill because he believes in open borders and he is looking for a legacy.

That legacy will be failure. It will be the legacy of a president who signed the bill leading to the downfall of America.

We need to defeat this bill. Call 202-224-3121 and ask for both of your Senators and your Representative and tell them you OPPOSE SB 1348 and that you will not vote for anyone who votes for that bill.

Together we can take back our country.

Big Dog Salute to AOW

Big Dog