By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
May 5, 2004
On January 9, 2004, President George W. Bush announced his immigration reform program, with the sponsor of the House bill, Republican Chris Cannon of Utah, who happens to be the Congressman in my district, and the sponsor of the Senate bill, Republican Larry Craig of Idaho attending the ceremony.
President Bush announced that beginning in January:
“We have begun using advanced technology to better record and track aliens who enter our country -- and to make sure they leave as scheduled. We have deployed new gamma and x-ray systems to scan cargo and containers and shipments at ports of entry to America. We have significantly expanded the Border Patrol -- with more than a thousand new agents on the borders, and 40 percent greater funding over the last two years. We're working closely with the Canadian and Mexican governments to increase border security. America is acting on a basic belief: our borders should be open to legal travel and honest trade; our borders should be shut and barred tight to criminals, to drug traders, to drug traffickers and to criminals, and to terrorists.“Second, new immigration laws should serve the economic needs of our country. If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our country a person who will fill that job.
“Third, we should not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully, or hope to do so.
“Fourth, new laws should provide incentives for temporary, foreign workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired.”
Note that Bush stated clearly “we should not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully”. The next day, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, the so-called “so spin” guy, spun the president’s immigration proposal by saying “this program is basically an amnesty situation, if you play by the rules, which you've already broken by coming here illegally in the first place.”
Actually, Bill O’Reilly is totally wrong. The Cannon bill and its companion bill in the Senate, S1645, state that any alien benefiting from the new program “must establish” that he or she is “admissible to the United States under section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182).” That is the section of the immigration law that defines “inadmissible” aliens. It is about 82 pages long and one of the ways to become an “inadmissible” alien is to come into this country illegally. O’Reilly and others, such as Matt Throckmorton who hopes to unseat Chris Cannon with this issue, claim that the President and Chris Cannon have an “amnesty” program going on also claim that a sudden rise in the number of illegal aliens coming across the border is due to the bill.
It isn’t the bill that is causing any increase in people sneaking across the border. It’s the misinformation being spread by people like Bill O’Reilly and Matt Throckmorton. Anyone who would like to send home aliens who have sneaked across our borders illegally would SUPPORT the Cannon bill. According to the Bush plan, any alien in this country who cannot prove they came into the country legally will NEVER, under section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, be allowed to become a citizen.
Not surprisingly, this Immigration reform program has become the hottest issue in the 2004 Congressional campaign in Utah – not just between Democrats and Republicans, but also between those claiming to be “conservative” Republicans and all other Republicans in the state of Utah.
The game is to paint Cannon, who has just about the most conservative voting record in the US House of Representatives, as a “liberal.” This election is all about labels, not facts. If, by Saturday May 8, 2004, they can succeed in sufficiently confusing at least 60% of the approximately 1100 state delegates who will be voting Saturday at the Republican State Convention that Chris Cannon actually wants to give illegal aliens citizenship, Congressman Chris Cannon and his immigration reform bill will be defeated.
Yesterday as one of those 1100 Republican Delegates to the State Convention, I received a video from Matt Throckmorton featuring Bill O’Reilly’s misinformation on the subject. District State Delegates who will be voting Saturday were told in that video by Throckmorton, “If you support amnesty for illegal aliens, vote for Chris Cannon. There is a fundamental difference between the two of us. We need to send someone back to Washington who represents your values and has a track record so you know how they will handle the pressure.”
In my 56 years of political activity, I have seen a lot of efforts to win elections with lies. When that happens, check out the political alliances, not political commentary. During the 1968 Presidential Election, as a Democrat I watched in amazement as anti-war riots by so-called “Democrats” at the Chicago Democratic Convention trashed Hubert Humphrey who had proposed most of the Democrats’ most workable legislation.
The question not asked then, and still today is unasked, was: Whose program were those anti-war rioters supporting? Who were their allies? What group of people in the world was most opposed to the United States forces being in Vietnam and who were determined to get them out? Those who most opposed to the United States being in Vietnam, of course, were the North Vietnamese communists. The Americans lost the Vietnam War and the communists won the Vietnam War, basically, in the streets of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention. At the time, the socialists of the world really did unite and succeeded in changing U.S. Foreign policy by convincing a lot of Americans with a massive propaganda war in which they claimed to be representing the values of the "average" American.
Who is it these days that would be most upset by the Bush Immigration reform programs being implemented? Read the World Socialist Website’s response or AFL-CIO President John Sweeney’s response. Rep. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey calls it “a glorified guest worker program with no new path to legalization while Matt Throckmorton, Republican challenger to Chris Cannon in Utah says it is an “amnesty” program for illegal aliens.
The Bush program it ISN’T an amnesty program. Read the bill and check out which aliens are “inadmissible” under current law, in Section 1182 of Title 8, Chapter 6 of the U.S. Code under “inadmissible aliens.”
Then, ask yourself why is there so much well-financed opposition to Bush’s immigration reform and who exactly benefits by opposing it?
To Comment: Mary Mostert