‘Gang of Eight’ sham imperils U.S. financial, national security
The 3-year-old Senate Bill 1070, America’s toughest anti-illegal immigration law, has had a dramatic impact on Arizona. We are a better place.
Please consider: In early 2009, an ABC News report called Phoenix “the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City.”
The number of reported kidnappings has dropped significantly since 2008, and other crime statistics have improved.
Also, taxpayers have saved millions of dollars in K-12 education and social costs with fewer illegal aliens in classrooms and receiving services.
But a battle continues to rage that will determine whether our nation enforces its immigration laws and secures its borders or becomes a victim of its enemies.
We are a nation built upon the rule of law, and either we stand up for the principles that our Founding Fathers gave us to ensure lasting liberty, enshrined in a Constitution that protects those
RUSSELL PEARCE
liberties, or we destroy all that is sacred and the result will be a nation that commits suicide.
According to information from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Arizonans pay $2.6 billion per year to educate, medicate and incarcerate illegal aliens.
According to the Heritage Foundation, the billions we pay today are but one-third of our eventual tab a decade from now if the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill becomes law.
And there are other significant costs. More than a dozen Phoenix police officers have been killed or maimed by illegal aliens. Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz was murdered during the debate on SB 1070. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered near the border, and the list goes on.
Enforcement, as we have learned in Arizona, actually works. Just take the political handcuffs off our law enforcement.
According to a September 2011 Phoenix Law Enforcement Association press release, “Since SB 1070, Phoenix has experienced a 30-year-low crime rate. … When hardworking rank-and-file Phoenix police officers were given the tool of SB 1070, the deterrence factor this legislation brought about was clearly instrumental in our unprecedented drop in crime.
“And all this without a single civil-rights, racial-profiling or biased-policing complaint. To ignore the positive impact of SB 1070 in the City of Phoenix is to ignore the huge elephant in the middle of the room.”
During the SB 1070 debate, liberal doomsayers predicted widespread and rampant racial profiling by police. They envisioned anyone with so much as a tan being pulled over to verify his residency status.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Our professional men and women of law enforcement have implementing Arizona’s tough new law with great success — and with none of the problems envisioned by the anti-police, anti-1070 special interests.
However, despite the many advances we have made, the burdens of illegal immigration still are too high.
This is why I call upon my fellow citizens to join me in opposing the latest amnesty/ citizenship bill.
The group of eight U.S. senators’ legislation (including Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake) risks America’s financial and national security.
This bill is the epitome of everything that is wrong, backward and corrupt in Washington.
The Gang of Eight unveiled this latest sham “comprehensive” immigration reform as America continues to heal from the devastation of the cowardly Boston terrorist attack, allegedly carried out by one illegal alien who should have been deported years ago for domestic violence and another who was rewarded instead with citizenship.
The Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled hearings just two days later. Does anyone believe these U.S. senators and the “experts” testifying before the committee read 844 pages of legalese in just two days? No, of course not. I would have hoped the Senate would have learned with “Obamacare” how dangerous it is to pass a law without knowing what’s in the bill.
According to the Gang of Eight, the bill (longer than a Tom Clancy novel) does not create a special path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
And this same gaggle of senators claims the bill will finally secure the border (when have we heard that before?) and will also vastly improve workplace enforcement. Remember 1986.
Anyone who has studied Washington or Congress or the U.S. Senate’s recent dealings concerning immigration issues has learned that what senators tell us rarely has any sort of relationship with the truth. This sham of a bill: » Grants amnesty to 12 million to 25 million illegal aliens in the United States who arrived before 2012 and puts them all on a direct path to citizenship.
All that’s required is that the secretary of “Homeland Insecurity” issue plans to secure the border. (Note: Congress is not actually requiring any new border security, just more good intentions.)
» Not only rewards millions of illegal aliens with a path to citizenship, it puts those who entered before the age of 16 on an expedited path to citizenship in just five years regardless of their current age.
» Allows previously deported illegal aliens to apply for amnesty if they are the spouse, parent or child of a U.S. citizen or green-card holder.
» Waives all conditions and grants immediate green cards to amnestied illegal aliens if their case is tied up in court for more than 10 years.
» Grants amnesty, contrary to the senators’ initial promises, to employers who intentionally hired illegal workers using fake identification, according to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
» Adds 33 million foreign job seekers, not to the back of the line but mixed completely into the line of 20 million Americans waiting for a fulltime job.
Contrary to what the liberals believe, I support legal immigration with as much zeal as I oppose illegal immigration.
But America’s immigration system is broken. It keeps good people out while our open borders keep letting very bad people in.
The Gang of Eight bill isn’t a serious bill. Congress has a 10 percent approval rating because this is how it conducts business.
I urge my fellow Americans to oppose this bill while there is still time.