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November 28, 2011
Memo to Gingrich: 'Red card' is path to amnesty
Memo to Gingrich: 'Red card' is path to amnesty
by Tom Tancredo
Memo to Newt: That's not a back-door amnesty program, it's a front-door amnesty program.
If Newt Gingrich is a "policy wonk" as his friends proclaim, he is a very lazy one. He should have read the Kriebel Foundation's "Red Card Solution" before endorsing it as a non-amnesty solution to our immigration conundrum.
The so-called Red Card Solution purports to create a new guest-worker program that solves all of our immigration problems. It strengthens border security, helps employers fill low-skilled jobs, bars criminals from participation and does all of this by "empowering the private sector" without use of taxpayer dollars. Maybe in the fine print it also wipes out the national debt.
The problem is, it does none of those things, and anyone who takes time to actually read the full 41-page "white paper" instead of the press handout will see this.
Buried deep in the proposal is a statement that ought to send a chill up the spine of any American who opposes amnesty. The plan makes endless statements that foreign nationals who participate in our work force through the Red Card non-immigrant visa are "on a totally separate track" from immigrants seeking citizenship. Yet, in the fine print the proposal admits that this is not actually true. Any worker could apply for a green card – and thus a path to citizenship – after completing several years in the program. The sole hitch? They could not go to the head of the line.
So, the Red Card program does not convey citizenship, but it does establish a legal path to citizenship for illegal aliens already in the country. Memo to Newt: That's not a back-door amnesty program, it's a front-door amnesty program.
A true "guest worker" program requires the worker to go home after completing the term of the work visa, but the Kriebel proposal does not do that. In the fine print, we learn that any worker can change jobs or renew the work permit indefinitely – and not by returning to their home country and reapplying, but by simply making a phone call to the private employment agency that issued the permit.
Does Newt Gingrich or any serious person really believe that after legalizing 10-20 million alien workers and welcoming them into our communities as legal workers, they would forever be kept in a legal limbo without a way to gain citizenship? The Red Card Solution is a dishonest non-solution on those grounds alone.
The press release version and the Helen Kriebel video are also deceptive in another respect. Kriebel implies that the program is aimed at assisting employers in recruiting foreign workers, but its real purpose is to allow the millions of illegal workers already in the U.S. to keep their current jobs after a quickie trip to a border "visa processing station."
The third joker in the Red Card deck is the laughable criminal background check that each foreign national will supposedly receive as part of the "job placement process." All applicants will be run through the FBI database and also the criminal database of their native country.
Now, pardon me, but I do have a question about this rigorous background check. How much do you trust the governments of Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Cuba, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan or Russia – to name a few – to maintain an accurate database free of corruption and bribes? Are those databases fingerprint-based to guard against fake names and aliases? And what crimes will be exempted from the background check after the ACLU and the American Immigration Lawyers Association finish their lobbying campaigns?
We can give the Kriebel proposal kudos for a few gems found buried in their plan as "background." They admit we need to eliminate the "birthright citizenship" misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment that gives automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens (and foreign students, business travelers and others). And they admit we have 15-20 million illegals in the U.S., not the ludicrously low U.S. Census estimate of 11.3 million.
The Gingrich endorsement of the misnamed Red Card Solution tells us how pathetically stupid the establishment GOP is in dealing with the immigration issue. It has learned nothing since the disastrous debate over the Bush-McCain amnesty proposals of 2006 and 2007. The so-called Red Card Solution is so fraught with loopholes and contradictions that after five-and-a-half years of alterations and refinements, it has yet to be introduced as legislation in Congress. The Secure Fence Act, passed by a Republican majority in the House in December of 2006 was sabotaged by later amendments – but who in Republican ranks is demanding it be implemented?
There is one non-amnesty strategy that has already proven that it works. In fact, it works so well it is continuously attacked by the open borders lobby and undermined by the Obama administration. That is "attrition through enforcement." Illegal aliens self-deport when denied access to jobs, and millions have gone home as jobs dry up in our recession.
Here's the bottom line. Any new guest worker program that offers legal status to illegal aliens without first securing the border is doomed to failure. Moreover, any plan that presumes competent and efficient enforcement of its complicated provisions before we have demonstrated we can enforce existing laws is not a proposal to be taken seriously.
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Wild Thing's comment......
I would also like to point out that Rick Perry has said several times that the border has got to be taken care of first above all else dealing with the illegals.
Posted by Wild Thing at November 28, 2011 05:50 AM
Comments
Amnesty with no voting rights would sweep the Democrats main motivator out from under them. We do have the flood of illegals that Bill Clinton let in that needs to be handled in some fashion. They have been here eight to sixteen years now and do have kids who were born here. If they served time in prison throw them out and I think that Newt will find that it is very hard to write a no voting residency law but it is something to waive in front of the Latinos.
I do not think that it is workable but like Reagan Newt needs to soften his image and I think we will hear more of this. It will give some of the Congressional Republicans wiggle room to run to the right of Newt Gingrich without opening anything for Obama. It may be too cute by half but I could see it tying the MSM up in knots for six months or more. Questions like “If an illegal alien is involved in a DUI where nobody was hurt does he have to leave? The right distraction can be critical to scrambling the MSM’s game and this is only a big distraction.
Posted by: Avitar at November 28, 2011 12:05 PM
Illegal immigration is a political football. Politicians have used it to garner votes for decades. They have catered to special interest groups whether it has been business interests looking for cheap labor subsidized by tax money or Latino groups. The anti illegal politicians have campaigned against illegal immigration knowing their numbers are not significant enough to pass strict laws. Too many politicians are too cowardly and self serving to take a stand on either side of this issue.
It seems to me that the best thing we can do is secure the borders. Then strictly enforce laws against hiring illegals. If they can't find work, most will leave.
As for those that have family roots here we need to find some middle ground. No amnesty, no voting rights, no citizenship. But maybe a semi legal status and a strict requirement that they obey the laws like paying taxes and having insurance. Let them know that one law violation will get them deported.
Posted by: TomR, armed in Texas at November 28, 2011 01:03 PM
Its very simple,Democrats want victims and the
Republicans want cheap labor.For another brick in
the wallIf we didn't have so many drug addicts in
this country the boarder crossers would wind down to a trickle..
Posted by: Gator at November 29, 2011 12:05 AM
Thank you everyone for your input.
Posted by: Wild Thing at November 29, 2011 02:03 AM
