Immigration sparks -ahem- spirted debate Posted by: mcq
on Wednesday, August 23, 2006
I have no doubt this isn't what Sen. Larry Craig expected when he decided on a series of 8 townhall meetings in Idaho on the issue of immigration:
A town hall meeting with Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, dissolved into angry shouts and walkouts when Craig began discussing the controversial issue of immigration.
"I am sick of listening to these lies," one woman said, interrupting Craig as she left the Tuesday meeting, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported.
Stan Hess, candidate for the North Idaho College Board of Trustees, screamed at Craig as others booed. Before leaving, Hess yelled at a woman, his face inches from hers, as several people tried to separate them.
So much for civilized debate.
Craig's position?
He's promoting a plan that would allow some of the 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to apply for citizenship if they meet certain requirements, including having been in the country at least two years and having paid taxes.
"The reality is that there are 2.5 million jobs here that Americans won't do," Craig told the 60 people at the Coeur d'Alene meeting. "For 20 years, immigration laws have failed. We know there's a problem and we're working on it. The first step is securing the border and we're doing that."
Seems there's little sympathy in Idaho for the position which worries about citizenship for illegals.
Now I'm sure that the issue will be played out in a less dramatic fashion in other places, but to me this underscores the passion this subject generates and will continue to generate through '08.
Again, the issue that wins that election is immigration. Not Iraq. Not the war on terror. Not health care. Not the price of gasoline or the corruption of Congress.
It should be noted that Coeur d’Alene is only about a 30-40 minute drive from Hayden Lake, which has been a center of Aryan Brotherhood activity. It is not surprising that immigration is a hot button issue there. I’m not convinced that, nationwide, immigration is as important an issue as you do. In the Washington Senate race, it isn’t an issue at all (at least yet). Time will tell.
"The reality is that there are 2.5 million jobs here that Americans won’t do," Craig told the 60 people at the Coeur d’Alene meeting.
Truth is there are not 2.5 million jobs that Americans won’t do. There are 2.5 million jobs that employers either won’t pay an American to do because an immigrant will do it for less or the employer can’t afford to pay more than he is paying an immigrant.
So the senator wants to take the illegals that are doing these 2.5 million jobs that Americans won’t do and make them Americans. He just said Americans won’t do these jobs. Is he dumb or just pretending?
Oh and immigration isn’t that big of a deal to me but dumb politicians is at the top of my list. The guy that campaigns on getting dumb politicians out of office has my vote.
2.5 million jobs, yet we have 12 million illegal immigrants. Evidently the average illegal immigrant household has 4.8 members(assuming one job per household).
Again, the issue that wins that election is immigration. Not Iraq. Not the war on terror. Not health care. Not the price of gasoline or the corruption of Congress.
This would be true, if the parties clearly differed over the issue. But when a GOP Senator from a deeply red state is talking about amnesty, who do the anti-amnesty voters vote for?
Isn’t that what the whole immigration issue is all about?
The corporate CARTELS do not want to pay a decent wage, health benefits to U.S. citizens, consumers don’t want expensive produce, Certain Senators will inform you that Americans don’t want the jobs, so the bottom line is cheap labor. "The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth, a liberal spin, newspaper rhetoric, a farce, and a lie.
There is no such thing as "cheap labor." EXCEPT TO EMPLOYERS!
Take, for example, an illegal Mexican, someone from Jamiaca, or Guatemala or anywhere who sneaks across our porous border with his wife and five children. Once an illegal alien pregnant mother steals into our homeland, the baby automatically becomes a citizen. (In truth, this amendment to our Constitution was never meant for this ) But as Anchor babies they are allowed the same rights as a citizen.
He finds a job for five or six dollars an hour.
At that wage with six dependents he pays NO income tax, yet at the end of the year if he files income tax return he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 FREE.
The family qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
The family qualifies for food stamps.
The family qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.
Their children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
The county also spends a total of $316,232 annually on children’s services for illegal immigrants, including child care, medical treatment, foster care, preschool services, child welfare and food stamps. However, the county is reimbursed at least $173,683, or 55 percent, for some of these children’s services, according to the report.
Their children get bilingual teachers and books.
The family qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If he gets hurt, he gets Free Emergency hospital care. In many instances, the employer has him dropped off at the Institution.
If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for medicare.
All of this is at that taxpayers expense.
He doesn’t have to worry about car insurance, life insurance.
The government of the foreign national aliens, has reduced their liabilities and removed millions of poor, uneducated people on America, and we get saddled with the bill.
In conclusion, the disgusting anti-American Senate bill gets passed, we will be supporting between 66 to 100 million more immigrants within 20 years. This is according to the non-profit Heritage Foundation, authored and calculated by Robert Rector. In addition, the estimate for this so called comprehensive immigration travesty is estimated to cost the taxpayers approximately 90 billion dollars a year.
Mr. Donegal shows that he can read a map. But demonstrates litte, if any, knowledge of the politics of north Idaho, or more specifically the Couer D’Alene (CDA) area.
Hayden Lake is pretty much metro CDA and is now a haven of $500k+ homes, as much of CDA has become with the recent influx of left coasters. The Aryan’s departed years ago after losing their compound in a court case and, last I heard, had taken up residence in north central PA. Couer D’Alene comparatively speaking is substantially more liberal than most of northern Idaho (Sandpoint being the most left leaning place around) but it’s still very middle America, and a far cry from the likes of Berkeley. Perhaps Senator Craig expected a better reception there, I certainly hopes he shares his experiences with other members of the GOP because the current proposals are way out of line with the vasy majority of people in this area (and that includes Dems - most of whom tend to be of the old-school blue collar/union types.)
The local news machine has an article online talking about the unexpected outcome. Read some of the comments at the end to get a real flavor of Couer D’Alene.
