The Devil’s in the Details
The goal of yesterday’s hoopla and fanfare about a breakthrough on immigration was to make it sound like a signing ceremony was inevitable. I don’t believe it is. In fact, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are signaling that they’ve got concerns about the legislation. That’s music in my ears because their concerns aren’t that it needs to get tougher but that it gets more permissive. If changes happen during the legislative process, it’s possible to stall the legislation like it stalled last time.
“I have serious concerns about some aspects of this proposal, including the structure of the temporary worker program and undue limitations on family immigration,” Reid said. “We need to improve the bill as it moves through the legislative process.”
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, which must also pass the bill, echoed Reid’s sentiments. “While the bipartisan Senate agreement starts the process, I have serious concerns about some elements of this proposal, the bill must be improved in the Senate,” she said.
When Reid says that the legislation puts “undue limitations on family immigration”, he’s really saying that that section of the legislation isn’t lenient enough. If the legislation seems too permissive, then this bill will head to the trash heap fast.
Other things that could derail this is if someone like Tom Coburn insists on a longer fence or if the American public hears the cost of this bill in terms of Social Security & Medicare obligations that we’ll hit with.
Fred Thompson has weighed in on this legislation:
“With this bill, the American people are going to think they are being sold the same bill of goods as before on border security. We should scrap this bill and the whole debate until we can convince the American people that we have secured the borders or at least have made great headway.”
AMEN!!! Fred’s pitch perfect as usual. I’m not a Washington insider but I don’t think that’s important for me to predict this: I predict that yesterday was the high water mark in terms of popularity for this bill. We still don’t know if the federal government will take their responsibilities seriously. Until we see that they are, we should demand that this legislation be dropped.
Part of the problem for this legislation are the ‘faces’ of it. Having Ted Kennedy, John McCain and Arlen Specter as the face of it won’t help with Americans living in the Heartland. People see Ted Kennedy as untrustworthy, even criminal. Arlen Specter is a windbag who changes his mind with each opinion poll. John McCain is seen as a self-serving, promise-breaking, unprincipled preener.
At the end of the day, I predict that this bill collapses because each liberal provision will make it unpalatable to Republicans.
Technorati Tags: Illegal Immigration, Immigration Reform, Ted Kennedy, John McCain, Arlen Specter, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, President Bush, Fred Thompson, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
May 18th, 2007 at 4:02 am
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Terrorism, President Bush, Mexico, Kennedy, Harry Reid, Appeasement, Election 2008, Law Enforcement, Fred Thompson | [...]
May 18th, 2007 at 4:07 am
[...] Original post by Gary Gross and software by Elliott Back [...]
May 18th, 2007 at 4:35 am
I can see the “Employed” requirement getting bashed, both because an employer might threaten to fire someone thus threatening his status, and the sob sister “You are breaking up the family just because he lost his job”.
No change in status quo.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:32 am
The Devil’s not only in the details, but apparently with the pen writing the bill, too.
Vipers.