The Philadelphia Daily News tries to rewrite recent history
The Philadelphia Daily News had this editorial today that just smacks of lies, half-truths and even some revisionist history. To be honest, they expect everyone to swallow it hook line and sinker because well Philadelphia is a city where we’ve had Democrat rule for 40 some years while conditions get worse and worse. Things are so 1 party here that even when Philadelphia is averaging enough murders a day to make it “America’s Baghdad” people will still vote in a Democrat Mayor (heck most don’t even know who the Republican running for Mayor is). Let’s take a look at some of the stuff in this “editorial” aka hit piece.
LAST WEEK, the Senate bowed to extremists on both sides of the aisle and rejected a compromise bill that would have provided an imperfect yet much-needed solution to the immigration problem.
Can you really say it’s “extremists” even if you play neutral by saying it’s from both sides? A Rasmussen poll May 23rd said only 26% favored the bill in the Senate with 48% against it and 26% not sure. Now simple math here, even if every single ‘not sure” switched to the “favored” column there would be enough dissenters to say it’s not a clear mandate. Fast forward to June 25th and you see the numbers have gotten worst. 22% favored the bill, 50% opposed it and 28% said not sure.So now if you take all the “not sures” and put them in with the “favoreds” it’s a dead heat. Their claim of “extremists” is misleading, unless 50% of the country is an extremist. I guess the Editors of the Daily News feel that being against Ted Kennedy makes you an extremist?
No one seemed to care enough to bend, move to the middle and answer the long-overdue need for immigration reform.
Once again, misleading. The truth is there was a lot wrong here and the leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, did everything he could to stop amendments to the bill trying to fix what was wrong with it. He, much to the shame of Pennsylvanians was aided and abetted by our Senator Arlen Specter. They tried to restrict debate on the bill, to force it’s passage without debate. There can be no compromise, no reaching of middle ground without some give and take yet Reid, Kennedy, McCain, and yes Specter did all they could to restrict, deny, and divert any real debate on this bill. In effect, we were basically told that they know what’s good for us and we should sit back and take it. Sorry, as someone who has lived in and around Philly all of his life, I don’t “sit back and take it” from anyone. Ever.
On one hand, the restrictionist crowd objected to provisions that they said were tantamount to an amnesty. But that was a strained definition at best. Having to pay significant fines, reimbursing the government for back taxes, going through extensive security checks and waiting almost 13 years before you can get a green card is certainly better than deportation – but it’s hardly a fast (and easy) track to legalization.
Ok now we start getting to the crux of the lies and misinformation. Let’s examine this shall we? The fines were not “significant” when you consider what was at stake.Here is some true facts from the bill.
- All illegal aliens who claim to have been in the United States since January 1, 2007 would have up to two years to appear at an U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office, drop off a completed application for a “Z” visa, pay a $1,000 fine (plus $500 for each spouse, child, and parent living here illegally with them) and submit their fingerprints. USCIS would attempt to check their fingerprints against one or more criminal databases and, as long as fewer than three misdemeanors and no felonies showed up within 24 hours, USCIS would be required to grant them “probationary” amnesty in the form of a work permit and legal permission to remain in the United States until their Z visa application was adjudicated. Let’s be realistic, there is no way an adequate background check could be performed in 24 hours for 12-20 million people. Which means that there is the potential for many felons, drug dealers, “coyotes” etc to gain legal status here in America for less money then the cost of a week down the shore. In addition, for 2 years people could still come into the country illegally and claim to have been here on 1-1-2007 causing yet another flood of illegal immigrants.
- The employers of these newly amnestied aliens also would receive amnesty under the proposal. They would not be subject to fines or prosecution either for hiring the illegal aliens or for any tax fraud committed as a result. This part of the bill grants amnesty to the businesses that are supposedly the culprits for the illegal immigration problem. Typically papers like the Daily News are all over President Bush if he gives the business sector a pass, now all of a sudden they are for it? Heck, the businesses don’t even have to pay a fine for hiring the illegal immigrants in the first place. Shouldn’t they at least have to match the pittance being paid by the illegal immigrants?
On the other hand, there were those who opposed anything that smacked of “punishment.” The sympathetic faith communities, most immigration advocates and a number of labor and business groups were unrealistic in wanting Congress to grant legal status to the undocumented without requiring that they make amends for violating the law in the way they arrived in this country.
Absolutely right here, there were those who wanted no penalties at all for breaking the laws of America. However, those groups were the same ones saying “better this bill then no bill”.
Some people who believed in the rule of law were called “racists” and “nativists.” That was unfair hyperbole. Some people who wanted unconditional forgiveness were called “sellouts.” That, too, was unfair and inaccurate, given that a substantial number of Latino activists opposed the compromise bill on the grounds that the fines were too big and that it would make family unification too difficult in the future, among other objections.
You forget to mention the uproar from many LEGAL immigrants. Those are the folks that played by the rules, filed the forms, kept their info up to date, paid the fees, and took the citizenship test. What does it say about America when we reward the rule breakers? Is that the new “American Dream”?
And then there were the opponents who tried to link terrorism and undocumented busboys.
Tis a sad day when this newspaper can not recognize the risk posed by porous borders. Because it has not happened yet does not mitigate the risk. After all, don’t people buy insurance who have never had an accident on the off chance they might have one? Shouldn’t we as the “great satan” to most of the world take steps i.e. insurance to help prevent an accident? In addition the editors here take the almost racist stance that all illegal immigrants are like busboys?
But most upsetting were the senators doing the congressional version of the cover-your-butt dance, both liberals and conservatives playing to their bases. They missed the chance to arrive at a solution that would have benefited the economy, tightened our borders and dealt humanely (and pragmatically) with the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country.
Here’s a few things to remember. The uproar was tremendous, so it’s not just simply “cover-your-butt-dance” but rather “listening to their constituents”. Isn’t that something to be applauded? Additionally this bill would not “tighten our borders”. Not when you consider there are currently existing laws on the books to do that, laws that are ignored daily by the government. Remember the “fence”? We’ve built what, 11 miles of it even though Homeland Security received a billion dollars to build it. American’s did not have faith that these “new measures” would be followed. Ronald Reagan once said “Trust but verify”. If the Senate had framed the bill that the pre-approved fence be built before any other measure were to be taken a lot of the uproar would of been muted on the spot. The “benefit the economy” part is very much a straw man argument. To say these people are doing “jobs American’s won’t do” is a misleading statement, it’s simply that “there are wages American’s won’t work for or can’t work for”. In addition the Immigration Reform Bill would of severely taxed the social security fund, and overburdened a stretched to it’s limit health care system. Our own Senator Spector repeatedly responded to my emails and calls about this bill with form letter filled with misinformation and inconsistencies probably in the hope that I would not know any better. This is our representation?
Of course, there were plenty of good reasons not to like the bill.
As the activists complained, it did give short shrift to family ties while making it much more difficult for highly skilled workers to immigrate. It catered to the needs of the service industry, while ignoring the needs of the high-tech world. And it created an unworkable guest-worker program.
Most of all, it raised the ghost of Simpson- Mazzoli, the real amnesty bill that had a devastating effect on the immigration system 20 years ago. It reminded us that employers were never held accountable for illegal hires, as they were supposed to be, and made people suspicious that history was going to repeat itself.
And, in doing all these things, it made it far too easy for some people to slam the bill with the clever but misleading label of “shamnesty.”
The editors are correct that the ghosts of 20 years ago haunted this bill. However, what was causing remembrances of those ghosts are the provisions that are so similiar. The 2007 version of amnesty, did not punish employers for hiring illegals, did not provide measures that would stop this from being a problem again down the road, and quite frankly was proposed and attempted to be forced through in such a dishonest way that most Americans could not stomach it. This bill had so many loopholes in it that we would be dealing with these same issues 10 or 20 years down the road. Isn’t it time that we address this issue in such a way that makes it not be an issue for our children?
PERHAPS IF THE Senate backers of the bill and the president himself had had a less grandiose vision and first focused on improving enforcement – and only then on legalization – then maybe they would then have been able to convince a skeptical public that this reform was a good thing.
But given the intransigence on both sides of the divide, that’s unlikely. There was too much rhetoric coming from the megaphone on both sides of the aisle. The voice of common sense got lost in the noise.
So the extremists won by default. But it’s the rest of us who are the really big losers.
The editors never address the fact that they attempted to ramrod this bill through before anyone would notice it’s provisions. They also, once again, call 50+% of American’s “extremists” which as they continue to harp that line will become the revisionist history. The reality of it was this: Americans did not appreciate the railroading of this bill, did not see the neccessity to create more laws on securing the border when current ones are not enforced, and quite frankly we do not want to reward law breakers with rights over those who played by the rules. This is the time that we all need to call out our newspapers and the rest of the media as they try to parlay this failure of a bill into a revisionist history of it’s detractors being “extremists”. I think America won the day this bill was defeated. However, I’m afraid the fight is not yet over. Like a villain in a bad horror movie it will be back in some form again soon.
**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email stiknstein-at-gmail-dot-com and let us know at what level you would like to participate.
posted in CAII, Immigration | 2 Comments
