Kill the Bill or Fix It

As a member of We Need A Fence, I found it a necessity to pass this following text on to you from an ad that Let Freedom Ring intends to place in the Washington Post newspaper this week. It goes as follows...

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Immigration: Kill the Bill or Fix It?

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Can there be any serious observer of the Senate immigration debate who wants the Kennedy-Kyl-Bush immigration bill to pass in its current form?There are three broad categories of problems with Senate Bill 1348, the“grand compromise:”
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• Direct contradictions: As just one example, its supporters claim that it mandates that border security provisions are in place and additional border agents hired (the “triggers”) before the Z Visa amnesty program may be implemented, yet it provides for “probationary” benefits from the day after an illegal alien applies for a Z Visa that are essentially permanent and permit the alien to be employed, to travel freely and “not be considered an unauthorized alien.” Also, as long as the Z Visa program provides for an ultimate path to citizenship, the American public is likely to consider it amnesty, and therefore reject the entire bill as unacceptable.
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• Toothless “requirements:” Supporters claim that the bill requires that aliens who have been members of criminal gangs are deportable, yet the bill provides for a “renunciation of gang affiliation” that would permit the gang member to remain, inviting sham documentation.
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• Unrealistic assumptions: The staffing and logistical requirements to implement a registration and background check system to process 10 to 20 million applicants are so massive that it is likely that processing will become more of a rubber stamp than a thorough review.
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Let Freedom Ring is pro-immigrant and pro-immigration. We want to maintain America’s proud tradition as the most genuinely welcoming nation on earth, yet we think that it is simply common sense to insist on knowing whom we are welcoming. To do less in a post 9/11 world is irresponsible. Border security is a necessary precondition to realistic immigration reform, and true border security requires more extensive infrastructure, technology and staffing than the tokens specified in Senate Bill 1348.
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We should make illegal immigration harder and legal immigration easier.
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A good bill would be better than the status quo that ignores the rule of law, endangers national security and opens the door to worker exploitation. But the status quo would be better than the deeply flawed bill now before the Senate. Fixing our broken immigration system is our most pressing domestic issue, and it is unlikely that the current Senate bill can be sufficiently improved in three or four days of floor debate and amendment. If the Senate leadership insists on invoking cloture this week, responsible and patriotic Senators on all sides of the issue should vote to defeat the bill. We can do better!
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Let Freedom Ring, Inc.
West Chester, PA

www.LetFreedomRingUSA.com

June 4, 2007
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My thanks go out to Colin Hanna for the heads-up...
AubreyJ.........