HispanicVista Columnists

Where is Reason?

By Raoul Lowery Contreras/HispanicVista.com

May 23, 2005

                Congressmen front and center on illegal alien problems, please. We now have a serious bipartisan immigration bill in Congress that will organize a system that may solve the illegal alien problem for all time.

          THE SECURE AMERICA AND ORDERLY IMMIGRATION ACT is sponsored by United States Senators John McCain (R) and Ted Kennedy (D) in the United States Senate and House members Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe (both Republicans) of Arizona and Puerto Rican Luis Gutierrez (D) of Chicago in the House of Representatives. Joining these original sponsors are Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and House members Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republicans. Where are Darrell Issa and Duke Cunningham?

          The bill calls for legalization of guest workers. It requires criminal background checks; medical examinations, a $2000 fine when applying for the new visa authorized by this bill and a 6 year waiting period before the new visa holders could apply for permanent residency.

          Concurrently, employers would be required to electronically verify the legality of all workers and fines for violations of this law would double current fines. The electronic verification is new and resembles the use of a credit card swipe.

         President George W. Bush, Senators and Congressmen are leading the charge to intelligently solve illegal alien problems, where are the rest in Congress?

          Some are twisting slowly in the wind, alongside psuedo-Republicans like Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo. Tancredo is banned from the White House and receives no help from the Republican Party. In response to my inquiry, my longtime Representative in the House, Randall (Duke) Cunningham locks himself into rigidity that affronts his membership in the Republican Party and insults his district that reflects national views on a reasonable solution to the problem of illegals; to wit, he says:

          "I (Randall Cunningham) do not, and will never, support any immigration policy that affords legal status to people who enter this country illegally. To reward illegal immigration with legal status is an insult to every other person who has gone through the process to enter this country by legal means. The problem of illegal immigration should be addressed at the border. If there is a true need for immigrant workers to fill jobs that Americans will not take, then those precise needs should be validated. If necessary, we should develop immigration policies that respond to those demands in a more coherent way without rewarding illegal immigration. Through my position on the Appropriations Committee, I will continue to work to increase funding for the Bureau of Immigration and customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide for better enforcement of our immigration laws and will not support policies which undermine them."

          While heavyweight Senate Republicans John McCain, Sam Brownback (both Presidential candidates), Lindsey Graham (Clinton Impeachment Manager) and influential Republican congress members from Florida are leading a reasonable bipartisan effort to solve the illegal alien problem, Cunningham rejects them, their reasonable proposal and his Republican Party. Regretfully, he joins Tom Tancredo as another irrelevant Washington player. He also rejects the will of most Americans.

          A March national survey by the Tarrance Group concludes that 75% of all Americans support an effort that includes this bill’s features. More than three in four agree with these statements:

  • "The immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed."
  • "If an immigrant has been in this country working, paying taxes, and learning English, there should be a way for them to become a citizen."
  • "Fixing our immigration system to make it safe, legal, and orderly, will make us more secure from terrorists."

          Who is right, the American people or a handful of head-in-the-sand congressmen led by outcasts from the majority party? We have been here before.

          The Republican Party solved the slavery issue just as it will solve the illegal alien problem.

          "I (fill in the name) do not, and will never, support any immigration policy that affords legal status to people who enter this country illegally (or who are African and have black skin as decreed by the infamous Supreme Court’s Dred Scott Decision that led to the Civil War)." "Never," as a word about slavery’s demise ended at the bloody Battle of Gettysburg. It will end now in the halls of Congress.

Contreras’ newest book – THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA—published by Floricanto Press (www.floricantopress.com) intellectually destroys the Haynes/Spence/CRA cabal and the "putsch" they are trying to pull off in California. It can be purchased at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com