Selling out your country for a Pence

 

By William Buchanan and Robert Shoemaker -- Posted June 12, 2006

 

Rep. Mike Pence, a third-term Indiana Republican, heads something called the Republican Study Group.  According to its web page it supports all the good things like ìa limited and Constitutional role for the federal government, a strong national defense, the protection of individual and property rights, and the preservation of traditional family values.î Its membership includes almost all of our immigration reform heroes.

 

 

It must have been a shock then when members awoke to find Rep. Pence touting a massive new immigration program.  This shot from nowhere has rekindled the hopes of Democrats and the Bush/Fox team that toxic legislation, courageously opposed by the vast majority of House and Senate Republicans, might nevertheless become law.  Mike Pence, it turns out, belongs to a school of thought made famous during the Viet Nam war: ìWe had to destroy it in order to save it.î  Only instead of the town of Ben Tre, he has the United States of America in his sights.  Our friends on the Hill are worried.

 

First, letís describe the sterling Republican record in the House and Senate.

 

House bill H.R. 4437 is an enforcement-only bill.  House Republicans voted overwhelm-ingly in favor of it ñ 203 to 17, while Democrats voted overwhelmingly against it ñ 164 to 36.  Itís been five years since 9/11 and 20 years since IRCA, say most Republicans, and weíre not going to budge from enforcement-only until our borders are secure.  They know that immigration begins when the president sets down his pen but enforcement requires appropriations, review by the Supreme Court, and presidential resolve ñ about which they have good reason to be skeptical.

Senate bill S. 2611, on the other hand, is an ìopen bordersî manifesto, a nation killer.  We studied what we thought were the 17 most significant votes in the Senate debate.  Granted, even good amendments were so much lipstick on a male rat.  Nevertheless, in spite of the ìleadershipî of Frist and Specter and taking into consideration all 17 votes, Republicans voted right by 39 to 15 (72 %) while Democrats voted right by only 6 to 36 (14 %).  Moreover, 16 Republicans voted right on all 17 votes and an equal number of Democrats voted wrong on all 17.  On final passage, Republicans voted ìNOî by a vote of 32 to 23 while Democrats voted ìYESî by a revealing vote of 38 to 4.

 

So Republicans opposed open borders in the House and did their best in the Senate.  Pence has only given us an outline (The Chamber of Commerce, no doubt, will work out the details), but what would his ìBorder Integrity and Immigration Reform Actî do thatís so special?

 

Steps one and four piggy-back on H.R. 4437: Control the borders and worker verification.  Here Pence offers nothing new but only his praises for the strictures in H.R. 4437.

 

Step two:  No amnesty!  Itís not an amnesty, he says, if illegals return home and come in legally as guest workers with a 6-year path to citizenship.  He says.  Well, it IS an amnesty, Mr. Pence. Its purpose is to legalize 12 (or 20) million lawbreakers plus their families.  It looks an awful lot like the snake oil the Bush/Fox team has been retailing for the last five years.

 

Step three:  How about a privately-operated guest worker program with placement agencies called ìEllis Island Centersî located all over the world?  They would be licensed by the federal government, says Pence, to ìmatch willing guest workers with jobs in America that employers cannot fill with American workers.î  And in six years they can get a green card. Anything wrong with that?  Plenty!

 

1.  All history demonstrates workers who come, will stay.  Pence ups the ante with a built-in path to citizenship for illegal aliens.  It is a knock-off of the Senate bill!

 

2.  Under the Pence plan, criminal employers who currently have this field all to themselves, will be joined by honest employers to more openly game the labor market.  There will be a race to the bottom as American workers compete in an ever-softer labor market with foreign workers seeking not just pay, but also green cards, access to welfare/medical care, voter registration, and the opportunity to bring in their families.  No American worker can compete with that.  They will be discounted by what ought to be their advantage ñ their American citizenship, their attachment to place and family, and their connection to the history and values of America.

 

3.  Immigration benefits sprout like weeds on an abandoned farm.  DHS is incapable of administering the benefits and programs we have now.  Penceís privately-run ìEllis Island Centersî will add international intrigue and corruption to the mix.  Once in place, Penceís ìWî visa (for George W?) will be virtually impossible to kill ñ when was the last time an immigration benefit was eliminated?

 

4.  Never in American history have we explicitly arranged for immigrants to ìearnî their green cards.  You couldnít think of a worse idea!  They will not be doing public service work, but working for individual private businesses.  Many will emerge bitter and ungrateful.  We hear a lot about the failure of todayís immigrants to assimilate.  Expect those who ìearnî their green cards to assimilate?  They will tell you theyíve earned the right to be here and owe America nothing.

 

5.  The Republican Party ñ whose members, to repeat, in both the House and Senate said a resounding ìNOî to this legislation ñ will die a slow and agonizing death, pandering vainly to maintain some remnant of power.

 

6.  With all this talk about respecting (caving in to) îpolitical realities,î there are a few we ought to consider.  Itís a political reality that rewarding this many illegals with legal status means death for the ìrule of law.î  Itís a political reality that immigrants have already achieved sufficient numbers and political power to scuttle all but the most determined efforts at immigration reform. Penceís guest-worker bill would add tens of millions of guns to their arsenal.  The effects will be disastrous.

 

In presenting his plan to the Heritage Foundation, Rep. Pence claimed he was influenced by his grandfatherís migration to America in the early 20th century.  He even recited Emma Lazerusí poem!  Pence is either sunk in cynicism or a sentimental fool.  You would think America was considering an end to immigration when, in fact, we admit more immigrants than all other nations on earth combined.  When is someone going to write a poem about our children and grandchildren and how their schools, their natural environment, their communities, and their patrimony are being swept out from under them?

 

S. 2611 is as reckless and irresponsible a bill as has ever made its way out of the U.S. Senate.  Mike Penceís bill partakes of that recklessness and irresponsibility.  There is not, as Rep. Pence seems to think, a ìrational middle groundî in this debate.  If H.R. 4437 cannot be passed, then the only sensible course is to do nothing and await the election of a president who will faithfully execute the laws and defend our borders.

 

Call Mike Pence at 202-225-3021 and tell him that only H.R. 4437 is acceptable to you and that you oppose his Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act.  Call your representative and tell him or her: your vote in the fall depends on their vote for an enforcement-only immigration bill.  Be sure to register your contempt for Mike Penceís proposal.

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