Fred’s immigration proposal.
By Paul J Cella Posted in 2008 | Fred Thompson | Immigration — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Former Sen. Fred Thompson has released his immigration proposals (as diarist Brad G informs us), or at least the principles that would guide actual proposals. They are very promising. I note three points that strike me as most valuable:
First, his second principle (after no amnesty) is “Attrition through Enforcement,” which he rightly presents as a “reasonable alternative” to the “false choices” of mass deportation or amnesty. At a stroke half the crowd — the most obnoxious and stupid — in this bitter debate is silenced, or at any rate should be, until it decides to think and learn. Second, he proposes, in no uncertain terms, to hit the “sanctuary city” preeners and subversives right where it counts:
[B]y cutting off discretionary federal grant funds as appropriate to any community that, by law, ordinance, executive order, or other formal policy directs its public officials not to comply with the provisions of 8 USC 1373 and 8 USC 1644, which prohibit any state or local government from restricting in any way communications with the Department of Homeland Security regarding the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of an alien in the United States.
The same goes for the even more insufferable prigs in academia: federal education funds will be withheld from institutions that offer in-state tuition to citizens of a foreign power but not citizens of another State in the Union. Finally, he revives the principle of English as our official language, a wildly popular policy that has so far been thwarted largely by a combination of usurpation and spinelessness.
Read on.
These three are the ones that ought to be emphasized. The first is the surest policy option available to us: the surest way to reestablish the sovereignty of the nation, which of course is the very root question at issue here.
The second, in addition to being wise and just (I am inclined to call the sanctuary city policy a piece of brazen sedition, the coddling of foreign nationals in defiance of American law), shrewdly positions Thompson to undermine Rudolph Giuliani’s greatest strength as a candidate (law and order) every time immigration arises as an issue.
And the third shows a willingness to, all at once, defy political correct oppression, embrace good policy, and reach out to the American people, that is refreshing and— do not hesitate to employ the word — Reaganesque. This is the democracy of Conservatism at its finest. Let men try to argue against it. Let a Democrat go and campaign in blue collar Michigan or Ohio, among labor union men almost Marxian in their economics, and slam her opponent for favoring English as a national language. Let them dare try that.
This should not be taken as an endorsement of the candidate, as I have not examined Thompson’s other policy positions in equal detail; but this proposal I judge to be sound and impressive.
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Fred’s immigration proposal. 6 Comments (0 topical, 6 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
She'll hedge and fudge like she has with the Spitzer thing...and her surrogates will fan out to tell Latinos that the GOP is the Racist Party.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
will keep illustrating the rationale of Rudy's policy of not reporting illegals to the immigration authorities who report criminal behavior to the police.
That being said, there's a lot to like in Fred's plan.
Except Rudy's sanctuary city plan didn't just prevent the reporting of illegals who were victims of crime. It prevented the reporting of illegals under most other circumstances as well- getting pulled over, applying for welfare, etc.
Like sanctuary city policies in other cities he tries to justify it as a measure to protect illegals from crime, but the fact is that he just wanted to protect them from deportation:
"Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens," Giuliani said at the time. "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair."
While reading it, I was astounded at how the campaign managed to hit every single angle of the issue from a traditionally conservative POV. It repudiates nearly every politically correct notion about immigration that there is.
It is the first plan that I've seen proposed, aside from Tancredo's, that would actually reduce total immigration. If a President Fred could actually get Congress to eliminate the diversity lottery and restrict chain migration as proposed, it would be the first time in more than 80 years that such provisions were enacted. This is something we sorely need. As in the past, benefits of such restrictive changes probably would not be realized by our generation, but they would certainly strengthen broad cultural bonds for today's children when they reach adulthood.
I'm in the camp of those who believe that this nation requires periodic and fairly lengthy time-outs from net positive migration flows. We are now in the midst of our longest continual mass-immigration influx ever. Previous generations benefited from lulls caused by wars, economic conditions and Congressional action. Historically, these periods of near-zero-net immigration have served to unite us...breaking down diasporas by cutting off their sources of replenishment.
My only quibble with the whole package is that Thompson reiterated the "nation of immigrants" meme that I loathe. While I understand that the concept is widely accepted as fact, it is an inexact representation of history, at best. It just makes no sense to me to label any group of people, the founding generation in this case, using the very term they coined to differentiate themselves. Had our ancestors not considered themselves somehow different from the immigrants...those who came after blood and lives and treasure were risked...then why would they ever have had use for the term? To me, the constant reinforcing of this misleading platitude makes normally rational people adhere to the fallacy that all immigration is a de facto good in every instance, when obviously this just cannot be true.
Still, it's just a quibble, and I think it was smart that the campaign made this it's one concession to political correctness. Taken as a whole, the package makes Thompson a far more attractive candidate to me than he was yesterday.
Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security. --Edmund Burke
Blog: TMYN
It is a good start and there are many points that I find agreeable but the details are over looked.
There is no discussion of worksite enforcement, current penalties for businesses are only $250 to $2000 per worker, which still makes the practice of hiring illegals an acceptable financial risk to many employers. Unless you take away the jobs, the illegals will continue to cross the border.
The "attrition through enforcement". Is that essentially a policy of hoping that the illegals volunterily leave on their own? The proposal outlines removing federal funds and federal education funds from local governments but are illegals crossing the border to go to community colleges or to work jobs?
Doubling ICE will cost an additional $5 billion per year and although mass deportation isn't the goal, an increase in ICE interior enforcement is tracking down expired visas, finding foreign students who overstay, ect. this would lead to more illegals being caught, which means more costs in detention facilities and deportations. How is this paid for? He propose the doubling of an entire agency and their is no hint of a budget.
well done. I completely agree with your take.
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).