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« Sen. Alexander Makes The Call | Main | Awash in Surplus Money, Legislature Raises Taxes Anyway » June 4, 2007Sen. Alexander Wants Border-State Governors to Verify Border Security Progress Before "Path to Citizenship" BeginsSen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, said he would try to amend the immigration reform legislation now pending in the Senate with a requirement that a group of people other than from inside the Beltway decide when the federal government has met the border security benchmarks necessary to trigger implementation of the "path to citizenship" provisions within the legislation for the 12 million illegal immigrants already here. "I believe that it ought to to be somebody other than just Washington officials who decide that the border security is functional," Alexander said during a 25-minute phone interview with BillHobbs.com which focused mostly on immigration. Alexander's proposal: amend the legislation so that a group of southern border-state governors plus one or two from states that border Canada would have to verify with Homeland Security that the benchmarks had been met, before the section of the legislation offering a "path to citizenship" to the 12 million illegal immigrants already in the United States became effective. You can listen to a 15-minute excerpt of the interview, dealing with the Iraq war and with immigration reform, by clicking here The proposed immigration reform legislation has two basic parts, Alexander said. The first part focuses on border security - the fence, more border patrol agents, more use of technology to watch the border, etc. - and on addressing the employer side of the equation, by implementing employer verification, etc. The second part addresses what to do about the 12 million illegals now in the country - it includes the fines and the "path to citizenship" requirements that so many critics call "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. The legislation, Alexander says, requires that the first part - the border security and employer verification aspects - be fully funded and operational before the second part - dealing with the 12 million - even begins. I asked Sen. Alexander if the second part of the legislation was necessary - couldn't Congress just do the border security and employer verification stuff first, and deal with the 12 million later. This "fence first!" approach would go a long way toward rebuilding Washington's credibility on illegal immigration, I believe. The Senator believes the legislation needs both sections in order to pass. Memo to the media: You may quote from the audio of the call, or download it and use the audio in your broadcasts. Must credit: BillHobbs.com or ElephantBiz.com. Posted in Immigration
Comments
I reported Sen. Alexander's e-newsletters as spam a long time ago. Wake me when he's over. Posted by: Donna Locke at June 4, 2007 9:47 PMBill: I live in Putnam County and it is about a 15 minute drive from my house to the meeting downtown in Cookeville. There was a registration table out front to sign people up and give out name tags. They also asked for your home and e-mail address. There were a lot of folks from out of town. I was a little late and could drive by the cars and see out of county tags on cars. I don't see what that has to do with it when you are the senator for the whole state. Putnam County has such a weak Republican party that it would be a miracle to get more than twenty people there on Saturday anyway. We were told early on that there would be a limited time that the Senator would be there because of another appointment in town. For this reason the format that the senator insisted on wasted more time than that re-election video he showed us. The format of talking to people individually just burned up more time. Your interview with him was more than 14 minutes, so how many one-on-one discussions would that make if there was a crowd of 70 people? There was an aggressive attempt to hijack the pre-set agenda and change the format. One person, I think his name was Jerry, asked for a show of hands on who liked the immigration bill. Nobody liked it. One person tried to point out the inconsistency in building a fence on the southern border and not the northern border. When people started calling out questions, challenges about the cloture vote and suggesting that people were losing confidence in the legislature to fix immigration, an unfortunate demand from the organizers of the meeting that the original format be respected killed whatever good rapport existed. I left without speaking to the senator at all. Lamar Alexander reminded me of Dr. Frankenstein trying to put this immigration monster together. He is still talking like it only needs a tweak here and there. What about the anchor babies? I would like to have asked why it is that the left sees this bill as being good for the Socialist Security System because it imports tax payers but they totally deny that there is anything wrong with the Socialist Security System from an actuarial point of view. It is hard to ask a serious question when the veins in your neck are popping out. So far, Bart Gordon, the Democrat Representative in this district, is representing me a whole lot better than Lamar Alexander is. On the way out, I heard a lot of pocketbooks slamming shut. I hope the guys who made that re-election video cashed the check already. Posted by: Danny L. Newton at June 5, 2007 3:34 AMI've contacted Lamar, Corker and Tanner on the issue...this amnesty reminds me of our lawmakers rewarding the criminals in our prisons with 'good behavior time off' their sentences simply to relieve over crowding.
The secure border is the thing. And, the federal government has very little credibility. It is key to secure the border. I am at a loss as to why people are getting hung up on this amnesty part of the bill. Forget about it. It would be absurdly resource intensive (expensive) to round-up, hold, process, and transport over 10 million people. Many of the children are citizens. Let them be for the love of Pete. Those who insist we do this forget that many thought it would be relatively easy to secure and stabilize Iraq. We did not enforce our immigration laws by failing to secure our border. It would be better policy at this point to provide some way to bring the current illegals up from the underground. The focus must remain on border security. Fighting amnesty is a distraction. Posted by: M Kennedy at June 5, 2007 10:10 AMTell Lamar to sell that stuff to somebody that's buying. He is a squish, always has been, and his bs on immigration is a perfect example of his attempt to obfuscate and cover his .... WHAT THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE THINK ABOUT S.1348 A MESSAGE TO SENATOR ALEXANDER - I HAVE SENT MANY OTHERS. June 6, 2007 ON THE GROUND FACTS ON IMMIGRATION BILL S.1348 FACT 1 FACT 2 FACT 3 Senator, the situation you describe may happen in the EXALTED CIRCLES IN WHICH YOU TRAVEL but I can assure you that ordinary, hard-working Americans do these jobs for themselves. HOW OUT OF TOUCH WITH REAL AMERICANS CAN YOU, GEORGE BUSH, and SENATOR KENNEDY GET???? Posted by: Mary Chamberlain at June 6, 2007 5:13 AMI believe Marsha Blackburn would make an ideal senator in '08!! Posted by: RABlack at June 6, 2007 12:01 PMWatching S.1348 temporarily go down the drain in the Senate on CSpan 2, on June 7, 2007, it occurred to me how many of those men, including Lamar Alexander, had been there too long. That this nasty piece of legislation was allowed to reach the floor of the senate, should be a reality check for Americans who continue to put into office men who have been in Washington too long to truly represent their interest. I got a letter from Bill Frist 2 weeks before he left office. After repeated phone calls to Frist on his immigration stand, he was writing to me to say he didn't have time now to address my concerns. Frist and Alexander DO NOT REPRESENT THE INTERESTS OF HARD-WORKING TENNESSEANS ON THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE. This is off topic, but I am hoping that "Mary Chamberlain" is the same Mary Chamberlain and author of the book "Fenwomen" published abt 1973. I met a friend of Ethel Gotobed in 1954/5 and would like to discuss Ethel with you. TRYING TO REVIVE S.1348 Senators Work to Revive Immigration Bill PROMISING MONEY TO SECURE THE BORDER IS LIKE GEORGE BUSH'S FENCE OF 2006. Sorry Reg, This Mary Chamberlain, 6th generation Tennessean with Cherokee, English, Scots ancestry writes no books. She spends her days phoning and emailing occupants of the Snake Pit a.k.a. Washington, D.C. This is the most important thing all "legal" Americans can do to kill S.1348 and if that doesn't work the Mary Chamberlain. Post a comment
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