California Conservative

Ted Kennedy is calling the artificial immigration reform legislation that he’s negotiated with President Bush, John McCain and other spineless RINOs as “our last-gasp stand.” Here’s what he’s blustering about:

Congress should coalesce behind sweeping new compromise immigration legislation despite steep political obstacles because opportunities to confront the problem head-on are rare, Sen. Edward Kennedy said Friday. Kennedy, the lead Democratic negotiator with Republicans and the White House, acknowledged widespread criticism but called it “our last-gasp stand.”

The bill, which conservatives immediately attacked as an “amnesty” program, would provide a pathway to citizenship for some 12 million immigrants now in the United States illegally. It also would mandate tougher border security and workplace enforcement and provide for a guest worker program. Critics complained that it would reward the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants with a way of gaining legal status and staying in the U.S. permanently without being punished.

Asked about amnesty on CBS’s “The Early Show” Friday morning, Kennedy said, “That’s sort of a slogan and a cliche you’re going to hear a lot about.” He said fixing the nation’s “broken borders” is long overdue.

With a reputation like Kennedy’s, it’s impossible to take him seriously about his desire to enforce our borders. Instead, I think it’s likely that he and McCain decided after last year’s debacle that they’d hype border enforcement. What I think is happening is show and tell: They’ll show the enforcement provisions and tell us that they’re serious about enforcement. Given their track records, I don’t take those claims seriously.

Part of the reason for thinking that is because of the Democrats’ fundraising connections with groups like La Raza and other extremist groups. Here’s a brief glimpse of what La Raza stands for:

La Raza was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to oppose Patriot Act II on grounds that it “contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers … that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights”; it has endorsed the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, a project that tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act; it endorsed the December 18, 2001 “Statement of Solidarity with Migrants, which was drawn up by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and called upon the U.S. government to “end discriminatory policies passed on the basis of legal status in the wake of September 11″; and it endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) is a big supporter of Democrats, both in terms of campaign contributions and also in terms of helping in GOTV drives. Listen to NCLR’s agenda, then match it up with recent Democratic legislative initiatives:

• It supports access to driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.
• It opposes the REAL ID Act, which requires that all driver’s license and photo ID applicants be able to verify they are legal residents of the United States, and that the documents they present to prove their identity are genuine. According to La Raza, this law “opens the door to widespread discrimination and civil rights violations.”
• It opposes the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act (CLEAR), which would empower state and local law-enforcement authorities to enforce federal immigration laws. La Raza argues this would “result in higher levels of racial profiling, police misconduct, and other civil rights violations.”
• It lobbies for racial and ethnic preferences (affirmative action) and set-asides in hiring, promotions, and college admissions.
• It supports bilingual education and bilingual ballots.
• It supports voting rights for illegal aliens.
• It supports stricter hate-crime laws.
• It opposes the Aviation Transportation and Security Act requiring that all airport baggage screeners be U.S. citizens.
• It opposed President Bush’s signing of the “Secure Fence Act of 2006″ which authorized 700 miles of new border fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Just based on my relatively decent memory, I’d say that La Raza’s wish list is pretty similar, if not identical, to the Democrats’ immigration and homeland security agendas. I’d be shocked if Senate Democrats didn’t have almost perfect ratings from NCLR.

That alone is reason enough to vigorously oppose this abomination of legislation.

Technorati Tags: Ted Kennedy, John McCain, President Bush, Illegal Immigration, Immigration Reform, La Raza, Real ID Act, Patriot Act, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Activism, Author: Gary Gross, Corruption, Election 2008, Homeland Security, Immigration, Intel, Liberals, Mexico, Special Interests, Subversives, W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.