http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201229.html

<quote in-part>

Rally Draws Thousands of Immigrants to Capitol
As Senate Debates Complex Bill, Some Cite Simple Rights

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page A06

Waving tiny American flags, a crowd of several thousand people
-- almost all of Central American or Mexican origin --
rallied yesterday at the U.S. Capitol on a humid afternoon
to call for immigration reform and demand a fair path
to legalization for the country's estimated 12 million
illegal immigrants.

Although the peaceful gathering on the West Lawn was organized
to give immigrants a voice in the current debate on a
complex Senate immigration reform bill, the message of
many speeches from the stage and comments in the crowd was
a simpler, more universal appeal for respect and rights.

[ ... ]

According to some organizers at the rally, it was difficult
to persuade people to attend because of a widespread
mistaken belief among local immigrants that the bill
had already passed or was a fait accompli. [ ... ]

</quote>

Yes, it seems like the "immigrants" -- in the case of this rally, the
majority were actually Temporary Protected Refugees who could lose their
status overnight if the State Department changes its mind on the current
18-month extension of their ongoing rolling amnesty -- seem to think that
they've already won legal and public acceptance of the Invasion.

<quote in-part ibid>

[ ... ]

Many families included members with varying legal standing.
Some parents with temporary status in the country from
past amnesties had children who are U.S. citizens; there
also were couples in which one spouse is legal and the other
is illegal. Ana Espinoza, 31, from El Salvador,
came to the rally with her mother, who is a legal resident,
and her two children, one of whom is a U.S. citizen and
the other of whom is in the country illegally.

"We need legalization. I need legalization. We have
to get all of this in order," said Espinoza, an office cleaner
who has been here six years and owns a townhouse in Germantown.

"I like this country, because it has good rules and rights,"
she said. "If we had to leave, we would lose our home.
We would lose everything we have worked for."

Leonardo Gonzalez, 50, a Mexican immigrant who came with
a church group from Baltimore, said he prayed for legalization
because it would give him the courage to ask for a raise.
"I earn $9 an hour remodeling rooms, and I send $200 home
each month," he said. "I know my work is worth more than that,
but until I become legal, I am worth nothing."

</quote>

The _Post_ continues to use the official 2002 estimate of 12 million
illegal aliens, even though it has since reported elsewhere that at least
one million illegal aliens per year have successfully crossed into and
remained within the territories of the United States. By their own
reporting, they should raise that 2002 estimate to a current figure of no
less than 17 millions of illegal aliens in 2007.


Meanwhile, even as the illegals are rallying and begging for their
amnesty -- well, at least there are a few who don't think it's a done deal
and who are still begging -- a well-funded political action committee is
badgering Congress to remove the few essential actual teeth from the
abomination before the Senate:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201081.html

<quote in-part>

Employers Oppose Hiring Provisions in Immigration Bill

By Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page A06

As Congress reconvenes this week, businesses and their lobbyists are
gearing up to fight a series of proposed changes to immigration law that
they say will complicate hiring.

Their target is Senate legislation that would legalize an estimated 12
million undocumented immigrants but also significantly change employment
law. Among employers' top concerns is a provision imposing criminal
liability for employers if their subcontractors hire illegal workers. The
legislation would also increase civil penalties for employers caught
hiring illegal workers.

The maximum criminal penalty for a pattern of hiring illegal workers would
increase to $75,000 per illegal worker from $3,000.

Under the bill, a business might have to vet the employment files of its
subcontractors, which lawyers said would be an onerous task.

"They are not your people, [and] it is much more difficult to ensure there
are controls in place at another company," said Daniel Brown, a lawyer at
Paul Hastings in the District and a former general counsel for the
Department of Homeland Security. "That's a huge burden on a huge number of
employers."

Businesses say the legislation, which senators are to resume debating this
week, could result in a hiring nightmare because of a provision calling
for an expansion of a sometimes faulty worker database.

We've got grave concerns," said Susan R. Meisinger, chief executive of the
Society for Human Resource Management, which has 200,000 members.

[ ... ]

The businesses, working under an umbrella organization called the HR
Initiative for a Legal Workforce, have run advertisements in Capitol Hill
publications decrying the federal database. They have also been making the
rounds of congressional offices, hoping to sway legislators and find a
champion for their cause.

The database question is a "huge sleeper issue," said Heath Weems,
director of education and workforce policy for the National Association of
Manufacturers. Employers like to point out that meatpacker Swift & Co. was
voluntarily using the Basic Pilot screening program when a Department of
Homeland Security raid last year discovered that hundreds of workers were
illegal. Employers have complained that Basic Pilot's data is often out of
date, particularly when people have changed their names or immigration
status. If the database doesn't recognize the new name, the employee
cannot be legally hired.

[ ... ]

</quote>

The "database question" refers to, among other things, the REAL ID Act of
2005, which is already law. While there are problems with the current
implimentation of BASIC PILOT, most of those are expected to be resolved
within two years, as the maintenance and development is shifted to the
several States with implimentation of REAL ID in 2008. This will allow a
focus on timely management of new citizenship or deportation
judgements/actions information, and Social-Security/EIN/ITIN information.
Also, at long last, the FBI will be getting a new and competent set of
contractors to finally complete their IT modernization program, and the
finalized version of BASIC PILOT is expected to be extremely
"functionalized" by no later than 2010... assuming that this abomination
being considered in the Senate can be stopped like the mad hog that it
clearly is.


And of course, those who came here LEGALLY are a trifle incensed, for many
reasons, some of which appear to be irresolvably mutually-exclusive:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201019.html

<quote in-part>

Legal Residents Dismayed Over Latest Measures

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page A06

With the immigration debate focused on the estimated 12 million immigrants
who have come to the United States illegally, hundreds of thousands of
others who have obeyed the law are disappointed by the legislation now
pending in Congress.

They had hoped that immigration law would be changed to eliminate the
five- to 10-year wait before their spouses and children can join them. But
neither the compromise bill under debate in the Senate nor a House bill
introduced this year addresses the backlog.

"I feel like I'm stuck in limbo," said Guillermo Benitez, 34, a janitor
living in Hyattsville who has been waiting since 2002 to bring over his
wife and daughter from El Salvador. "Just imagine -- my little girl is
already 4 years old. I've already missed out on some of the nicest moments
you get with your child," he said.

Last year, 112,051 green cards, which allow legal permanent residence,
were granted to the more than 1.5 million spouses and minor children of
legal permanent residents who have applied for them. The backlog means
that, at best, applicants must wait five years to gain admission.

[ ... ]

These are taxpaying, law-abiding residents. . . . It is unconscionable
that they are being forced to choose between their family and their newly
adopted country," said U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who has
co-sponsored an amendment that would expedite the process in such cases.
The other sponsors are Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Robert Menendez
(D-N.J.).

Separating legal permanent residents from their spouses and minor children
"impedes the ability of immigrants to fully integrate into communities
here," Karen K. Narasaki, head of the Asian American Justice Center, said
at a news conference on Capitol Hill last week.

[ ... ]

However, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration
Studies, which seeks to limit immigration, says that Congress should bar
legal permanent residents from sponsoring their spouses and minor children
for green cards.

"That's a pretty awesome power," Krikorian said. "It's basically
privatizing the decision of who gets to come to the United States, and it
should be reserved for people who have bought into America" by becoming
U.S. citizens.

Although legal permanent residents are eligible to apply for U.S.
citizenship five years after getting their green cards, Krikorian added,
until they do apply, they are at best "prospective citizens" who deserve
fewer privileges. "People need to understand that you don't get to decide
who moves to America until you become an American."

[ ... ]

Several Washington area immigration lawyers say it is unrealistic and
cruel to expect legal permanent residents to avoid meeting and falling in
love with foreign nationals until they become U.S. citizens.

[ ... ]

</quote>


Basically, this bill pleases nobody, except for the millions of illegal
aliens who think that it has already granted them amnesty.

Furthermore, in various cities with "Sanctuary Policy", reliable rumor has
it that the rational being passed down through supervisory and policy
staffers in local police departments is: "we're definitely getting
amnesty, it's a done deal, so even if we authorized you to make arrests
based on immigration status, there wouldn't be any point in it because
there will be a 100-percent amnesty. So don't bother."

This is official defeatism being promoted in the law-enforcement
community. Simply stated, the official word in "Sanctuary Policy"
jurisdictions is "we were Invaded. Roll over and deal with it. Learn to
love it. If your job conflicts with the Invasion, let the Invasion win."

This sort of split personality has to be driving lots of people into near
insanity. Aside from being fundamentally irritating to career
law-enforcement officers, it's also fundamentally Anti-American in its
cowardice and surrendering defeatism.

But the truth of the matter is this: this abomination on the floor of the
Senate is not likely to pass, and if it does, it will be crushed in the
House.

Seen from the perspective of the Democrats, either way this goes, it's a
political win-win.

If the bill goes spiralling down to a well-deserved crushing defeat, in
the next election cycle, they can point out that those mean old
Republicans made it impossible to bring social justice to the poor
migrants. Furthermore, any Republicans who support this bill in its
current form is, with their support, trumpeting their own death knell to
the Conservative Base Republicans. None are likely to be re-elected, as
even now the Republican National Committee is discovering -- in the form
of massively decreased political contributions -- that the Conservative
Base is militantly opposed to any amnesty rolling over to Invasion.

If the bill passes the Senate and is crushed in the House -- probably by
it not even being taken up -- House Republicans can retain their base, and
the Democrats can get even more mileage out of it by touting those
Republicans as "anti-Hispanic racists" who "deny justice to the
hard-working migrants" in any close races.

If the bill passes the Senate, is confirmed by the House, and is signed
into law, the Democrats will be looking forward to gross apathy by the
Conservative Base Republicans for the next decade at the very least.
Almost every Republican will be ousted at the conventions and at the
polls. It will be 1992 all over again, only the totally-unseated party
will be the GOP.

Yet as the Parties plan their grand strategies, what of the impacts to the
voters?

Anywhere from 12 to 30 millions of illegal aliens are non-deportable.
Whatever jobs they are in, they can't be removed and are no longer under
the threat of deportability. Their wage opportunities will be the same as
those of the permanent resident aliens and citizens, and employers will
simply turn to new illegal aliens to satisfy their needs for
substandard-wage slaves. The only people who suffer are the new illegal
aliens and the people who have continued to see their earning power slide
in the face of competition from illegal aliens. Nobody wins on this one
other than unscrupulous employers and their political pets and PACs.

The voters will, if this bill is passed, vent their outrage at the polls.

If the bill is not passed, and no Enforcement First Enforcement Only bill
can be passed and signed into law by November 2008, the voters will vent
their outrage at the polls.

This bill is a dog and that dog won't hunt. The general public outright
hates it. The only people who like it are illegal aliens. No, this bill
isn't a dog, it is a turkey and it should be beheaded, roasted, and served
with gravy and stuffing. It should be on people's plates all day every day
until they scream that they're sick of stinky leftovers and they don't
ever want to see a turkey again and would someone please go feed that
stuffing to the birds.

The best hope for any Republican right now is to abandon all support for
this bill and for anyone who supports it in any way shape or form.




--
The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may
often assume the appearance, and produce the effects,
of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy.
--Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"