Democrats Shortcircuit Border Enforcement, Demand Path to Citizenship for Illegal Immigrants
Thursday, July 26th, 2007I’m sure that somewhere, someone has polled the issue of giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship because Democrats wouldn’t force the issue of citizenship over border security. That said, I can’t see them being on the right side of this debate:
Senate Democrats yesterday defeated a Republican effort to authorize $3 billion for new border security and immigration enforcement. Instead, the Democrats proposed a new agriculture workers program to bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and grant legal status to illegal aliens now working in the fields.
It was the first major skirmish on immigration since President Bush’s bill collapsed last month, and members of both parties are filing piecemeal measures to deal with various aspects of the crisis and leave for another day the issue dealing with the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens already here.
“We’re now moving to Plan B,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who took a bruising last month for his support for the broader immigration bill, and who was the chief sponsor of yesterday’s border-security amendment. “That will require us to address the major changes that must be made a piece at a time. Today, we’re addressing border security, visa overstays, sanctuary cities and other important issues.” (more…)