Debate answers on illegal alien crisis

Below is a very direct question that speaks to the crux of the illegal alien question.  Obama dances around his lack of effort.   Romney talks about enforcement of work permit laws and a hybrid DREAM Act.  These are important statements because they are made late in the campaign and to a large, general audience.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY PARTICIPATE IN A CANDIDATES DEBATE, HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY, HEMPSTEAD, NEW YORK

OCTOBER 16, 2012

SPEAKERS: FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY, R-MASS.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

CANDY CROWLEY, MODERATOR

QUESTION: Mr. Romney, what do you plan on doing with immigrants without their green cards that are currently living here as productive members of society?

ROMNEY: Thank you. Lorraine? Did I get that right? Good. Thank you for your question. And let me step back and tell you what I would like to do with our immigration policy broadly and include an answer to your question.

But first of all, this is a nation of immigrants. We welcome people coming to this country as immigrants. My dad was born in Mexico of American parents; Ann's dad was born in Wales and is a first-generation American. We welcome legal immigrants into this country.

I want our legal system to work better. I want it to be streamlined. I want it to be clearer. I don't think you have to -- shouldn't have to hire a lawyer to figure out how to get into this country legally. I also think that we should give visas to people -- green cards, rather, to people who graduate with skills that we need. People around the world with accredited degrees in science and math get a green card stapled to their diploma, come to the U.S. of A. We should make sure our legal system works.

Number two, we're going to have to stop illegal immigration. There are 4 million people who are waiting in line to get here legally. Those who've come here illegally take their place. So I will not grant amnesty to those who have come here illegally.

What I will do is I'll put in place an employment verification system and make sure that employers that hire people who have come here illegally are sanctioned for doing so. I won't put in place magnets for people coming here illegally. So for instance, I would not give driver's licenses to those that have come here illegally as the president would.

The kids of those that came here illegally, those kids, I think, should have a pathway to become a permanent resident of the United States and military service, for instance, is one way they would have that kind of pathway to become a permanent resident.

ROMNEY: Now when the president ran for office, he said that he'd put in place, in his first year, a piece of legislation -- he'd file a bill in his first year that would reform our -- our immigration system, protect legal immigration, stop illegal immigration. He didn't do it.

He had a Democrat House, a Democrat Senate, super majority in both Houses. Why did he fail to even promote legislation that would have provided an answer for those that want to come legally and for those that are here illegally today? What's a question I think the -- the president will have a chance to answer right now.

OBAMA: Good, I look forward to it.

Was -- Lorranna -- Lorraine -- we are a nation of immigrants. I mean we're just a few miles away from Ellis Island. We all understand what this country has become because talent from all around the world wants to come here. People are willing to take risks. People who want to build on their dreams and make sure their kids have an even bigger dreams than they have.

But we're also a nation of laws. So what I've said is we need to fix a broken immigration system and I've done everything that I can on my own and sought cooperation from Congress to make sure that we fix the system.

The first thing we did was to streamline the legal immigration system, to reduce the backlog, make it easier, simpler and cheaper for people who are waiting in line, obeying the law to make sure that they can come here and contribute to our country and that's good for our economic growth.

They'll start new businesses. They'll make things happen to create jobs here in the United States.

Number two, we do have to deal with our border so we put more border patrol on the -- any time in history and the flow of undocumented works across the border is actually lower than it's been in 40 years.

What I've also said is if we're going to go after folks who are here illegally, we should do it smartly and go after folks who are criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they're trying to figure out how to feed their families. And that's what we've done. And what I've also said is for young people who come here, brought here often times by their parents. Had gone to school here, pledged allegiance to the flag. Think of this as their country. Understand themselves as Americans in every way except having papers. And we should make sure that we give them a pathway to citizenship.

And that's what I've done administratively. Now, Governor Romney just said, you know he wants to help those young people too, but during the Republican primary, he said, "I will veto the DREAM Act", that would allow these young people to have access." His main strategy during the Republican primary was to say, "We're going to encourage self-deportation." Making life so miserable on folks that they'll leave. He called the Arizona law a model for the nation. Part of the Arizona law said that law enforcement officers could stop folks because they suspected maybe they looked like they might be undocumented workers and check their papers.

You know what? If my daughter or yours looks to somebody like they're not a citizen, I don't want -- I don't want to empower somebody like that. So, we can fix this system in a comprehensive way. And when Governor Romney says, the challenge is, "Well Obama didn't try." That's not true. I have sat down with Democrats and Republicans at the beginning of my term. And I said, let's fix this system. Including Senators previously who had supported it on the Republican side. But it's very hard for Republican's in Congress to support comprehensive immigration reform, if their standard bearer has said that, this is not something I'm interested in supporting.

CROWLEY: Let me get the governor in here, Mr. President. Let's speak to, if you could...

ROMNEY: Yes.

CROWLEY: ...the idea of self-deportation?

ROMNEY: No, let -- let -- let me go back and speak to the points that the president made and -- and -- and let's get them correct.

I did not say that the Arizona law was a model for the nation in that aspect. I said that the E-Verify portion of the Arizona law, which is -- which is the portion of the law which says that employers could be able to determine whether someone is here illegally or not illegally, that that was a model for the nation. That's number one.

Number two, I asked the president a question I think Hispanics and immigrants all over the nation have asked. He was asked this on Univision the other day. Why, when you said you'd filed legislation in your first year didn't you do it? And he didn't answer. He -- he doesn't answer that question. He said the standard bearer wasn't for it.

I'm glad you thought I was a standard bearer four years ago, but I wasn't.

Four years ago you said in your first year you would file legislation.

In his first year, I was just getting -- licking my wounds from having been beaten by John McCain, all right. I was not the standard bearer.

My -- my view is that this president should have honored his promise to do as he said.

Now, let me mention one other thing, and that is self-deportation says let people make their own choice. What I was saying is, we're not going to round up 12 million people, undocumented illegals, and take them out of the nation. Instead let people make their own choice. And if they -- if they find that -- that they can't get the benefits here that they want and they can't -- and they can't find the job they want, then they'll make a decision to go a place where -- where they have better opportunities.

But I'm not in favor of rounding up people and -- and -- and taking them out of this country. I am in favor, as the president has said, and I agree with him, which is that if people have committed crimes we got to get them out of this country.

ROMNEY: Let me mention something else the president said. It was a moment ago and I didn't get a chance to, when he was describing Chinese investments and so forth.

OBAMA: Candy?

Hold on a second. The...

ROMNEY: Mr. President, I'm still speaking.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Mr. President, let me finish.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: I've gotta continue.

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, you can make it short. See all these people? They've been waiting for you. (inaudible) make it short (inaudible).

ROMNEY: Just going to make a point. Any investments I have over the last eight years have been managed by a blind trust. And I understand they do include investments outside the United States, including in -- in Chinese companies.

Mr. President, have you looked at your pension? Have you looked at your pension?

OBAMA: I've got to say...

ROMNEY: Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?

OBAMA: You know, I -- I don't look at my pension. It's not as big as yours so it doesn't take as long.

ROMNEY: Well, let me give you some advice.

OBAMA: I don't check it that often.

ROMNEY: Let me give you some advice. Look at your pension. You also have investments in Chinese companies. You also have investments outside the United States. You also have investments through a Cayman's trust.

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: We're way off topic here, Governor Romney.

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: I thought we were talking about immigration.

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: I do want to make sure that...

CROWLEY: If I could have you sit down, Governor Romney. Thank you.

OBAMA: I do want to make sure that -- I do want to make sure that we just understand something. Governor Romney says he wasn't referring to Arizona as a model for the nation. His top adviser on immigration is the guy who designed the Arizona law, the entirety of it; not E-Verify, the whole thing. That's his policy. And it's a bad policy. And it won't help us grow.

Look, when we think about immigration, we have to understand there are folks all around the world who still see America as the land of promise. And they provide us energy and they provide us innovation and they start companies like Intel and Google. And we want to encourage that.

Now, we've got to make sure that we do it in a smart way and a comprehensive way, and we make the legal system better. But when we make this into a divisive political issue, and when we don't have bipartisan support -- I can deliver, Governor, a whole bunch of Democrats to get comprehensive immigration reform done, and we can't...

ROMNEY: I'll get it done. I'll get it done. First year...

OBAMA: ... we can't -- we have not seen Republicans serious about this issue at all. And it's time for them to get serious on it.

CROWLEY: Mr. President, let me move you on here please. Mr. President, (inaudible).

OBAMA: This used to be a bipartisan issue.

So many questions

Jose Antonio Vargas was stopped by police near the Minneapolis Airport last week because he was wearing headphones while driving.  He would probably have been educated about the law and sent on his way…except when they ran his drivers license they discovered that it had been cancelled by the state of Washington.

Why?  Because Vargas himself made headlines in June of 2011 declaring that he was an illegal alien.  He had been using a doctored Social Security Card for years.  It turns out that the government takes a dim view of such things.

And so a courtesy stop turned into a quick investigation by ICE.  Within three hours ICE let him go, not because he’s here legally but because they claimed to have bigger fish to fry.

So, here are the questions:

Why didn’t someone catch up with him and confiscate his drivers license?

How many times did he board an airplane with a known invalid license?  Isn’t that against the law?  Or is TSA too busy feeling up grannies and children?

What liability does the government have for allowing Vargas to travel around the country and rent cars?  (By the way, the rental company immediately towed his car once it was determined that his license is invalid.)

Does our government condone his various speaking tours by not enforcing the law?

After all that, why would ICE fail to detain him?  Does he have some sort of special immunity because he’s a DREAM Act advocate?  Forget the official explanation that he wasn’t “bad enough” to deport.  Here’s a guy criss-crossing the country speaking out against the law of the land and that’s not taken into account here.  He’s simply ignoring the law.

Who is funding the Vargas tour?  How is he legally paying taxes?

This has been a bad couple of weeks for Homeland Security.   Twice they have shown the failure of their very mission – to improve communication within and between law enforcement agencies.

The first case was when two different sets of Border Patrol agents fired on each other in the Arizona desert, resulting in the death of an agent and the wounding of another.

Where was the communication between responding teams?  If BP agents can’t even communicate properly, what hope do we have that these expensive inter-agencies will work when we need to talk between the local police/fire departments and federal agencies?

And regarding Vargas, why did he still have a license?  How long can someone go with a cancelled license?  (Apparently at least 15 months.)  Why wasn’t he placed on the No Fly list?  Where’s the communication between ICE and TSA?  Where does the PC/Affirmative Action mania in this country come into play when it comes to immigration enforcement?

So many questions…and sadly, Mitt Romney isn’t asking any of them.

Romney's 47%

Here’s another tempest in a teapot in the presidential campaign.  You know, the secret video of Romney saying that people getting free money from the government will never vote for him.

Gasp!  He’s right.

And it points out the same message Obama and Romney and Dinesh D'Souza have been trying to tell us all along.  It’s really a matter of semantics.  Political buzzwords are used to cloud the meaning, but it all comes down to this:

Obama believes that government exists to provide an equal quality of life for all, even if it means spending money we don’t have in order to do it.

Romney believes that government exists to preserve the rights we all have to pursue the quality of life we wish to have.

We could have long discussions about what it costs to achieve security (read – freedom from want), but we lose not only money in the form of taxation, but also liberty.

It is only natural in a campaign for one side to look at spending and ask, “Does Romney intend to cut Medicare as part of his plan to trim the size of government?”

Of course, such a question ignores all the wasteful endeavors of big government like grants, pensions and regulations.  Much of what government does is far afield of “social justice,” but you won’t hear liberals talking about that.

And Romney isn’t a real tough guy when it comes to limiting government.  He talks a rather moderate game, surely less strident than Ron Paul.

But Obama keeps promising the crowds that they will get relief from student loans, high mortgages and insurance premiums.  And he’ll throw in a cell phone and Internet bandwidth to boot.

So it really comes down to a candidate who sees government as the provider of relief from all your ills vs. a candidates who wants to dial down government a bit and work us back toward a self-reliant America.

Obama's Middle Class - Vocal and Upset

The timing couldn’t be worse.  The Chicago teachers are striking and Obama’s right hand man and fundraiser-in-chief is forced to side with the people over the union.

Obama had hoped to solve the recession problem in a couple of years when he took office in 2009.  So he sent stimulus cash to the school districts to make up their shortfalls.  The revenue would come back soon, he thought.  But he was wrong.

All that stimulus money did was delay the inevitable.  The public sector was running out of money and would need to cut jobs, wages and benefits. 

More public sector workers are being laid off these days than private industry.  That sounds unfair but it really isn’t.  The private sector made its big adjustments three or four years ago.  And they have been careful not to hire back too many people.

But the public sector has more union representation and are more soft-hearted than real management.  Besides, they keep their kingdoms by spending all their budgets and asking for more each year.

Even so, they eventually have to trim when the money is gone.  And they are trimming.

So, here we have a crass representative of the CTU by the name of Karen Lewis.  She is not going to budge and she has the perfect in-your-face attitude.  Some videos of her in action are viral You Tube clips.  Let’s just say she isn’t much of an example of a professional educator.

And their isn’t much sympathy for the plight of the school teachers in Chicago.  Look at their customers.  Unemployment in Chicago is third worst in the nation and a solid point higher than the national average.  Minorities fare far worse.  And even in the better neighborhoods, people are underemployed.

Did I mention the high property taxes in Cook County…or the sales tax…or the 5% income tax?

And the union turns up their noses at 3% raises, a nice health insurance plan, job protection and legendary vacation days.

Even the folks on welfare have seen cuts in their perks.  Some of the freebees are gone and qualifying takes added paperwork.

It all leads to parents asking the question, “What are the teachers complaining about?”  Good question.

So, Obama perpetuated the problem back in 2009 by sending free money to school districts that simply kept hiring and paying as though there was no recession.  They finally woke up to the problem and now must fight the unions to lower costs.  Karen Lewis is the personification of unions fighting back.  Welcome to Obama’s middle class.

Voldemort Economics

We've all heard of Voodoo Economics.

May I introduce Voldemort Economics.  It consists of dealing with our economic woes without mentioning the real problem.

Obama (and to a lesser extent, Romney) believes that the problem with our economy is confidence.  People are afraid to spend and business owners are afraid to expand.  It's sort of like FDR's tag line: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

But that simply isn't the case.  If that was the real problem we would have returned to normal when George Bush sent every couple $1,200 with instructions to go out and buy something.

As for stimulating business, Obama's trick to allow businesses to accelerate depreciation was a pretty good idea, but it was a one-shot deal that just gives a tax break early.

No, the real problem, the problem that must not be named, is that our money is worthless and we owe boatloads of cash to people who should be our competitors, if not our enemies.

Obama pays a bit of lip-service to bringing our jobs back home, but that is all it is.  Some days he talks of global expansion, but never isolationism.  To impact the balance of trade in our favor would require tariffs and embargoes...and tax breaks and regulation waivers at home.  No one's talking about such efforts.

At some point we will wake up to the fact that Fed manipulations of the interest rate (how much below zero can you go) and their Quantitative Easing are just not working.  They boost the stock markets but do nothing to actually fix the economy.  In fact, they are making it worse.

They have painted us into a corner by creating a dilemma where the thing we need (HIGHER interest to encourage savings) kills the golden goose of growth.  If interest rates go up, inflation will rise and businesses will stop borrowing.  But with the low rates we have today, people are forced to play the market to get any return at all.  That's fundamentally wrong and only proves that our money has no value.

So, watch for either candidate to talk about returning value to our money.  You're more likely to hear them call out, "Voldemort."

And we will continue to put our faith in the stock market, which is based on perception instead of reality.  By no means a firm economic foundation.

Obama accepts the nomination

President Barack Obama signed up for a second term Thursday night by accepting the nomination of the Democrat Party.

His speech was calculated to draw a contrast between his philosophy and that of Mitt Romney.  And it was a very progressive vision.  Essentially, he wanted to perpetuate and enhance the Nanny State and get the millionaires to pay for it.

But the Nanny’s purse is empty and her credit cards are all maxed out.  And taking it all from the millionaires won’t even pay the interest.

Remember the GOP debates?  Remember the young man who asked, “For every dollar I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?”

I suppose the Obama answer is that the young man should keep it all…and get subsidized tuition…and interest-free student loans…and free health care…and if he happens to be here illegally, citizenship.

This is a clear example of the difference between Obama and Romney.  As Obama has already proven, you simply cannot have the dream the Democrats are selling.  Someone has to pay for it.

The GOP makes some wild promises of its own, but at the end of the day Romney realizes that you have to make some serious cuts in spending and some folks are going to miss their entitlements.

Some of the cuts are easy.  You have to stop paying federal employees for sick days they didn’t use.  It’s simple, but the unions will squawk. 

And handing out free cell phones to welfare recipients is nonsense.  They’ve already got smart phones, so these toys are just given to their children to play with.

We’ve got entire departments in Washington that regulate everything from school lunch to CO2 emissions.  Less government means less expense.

Don’t expect Romney to have the big talk with America about doing without some of the perks.  That wouldn’t work.  He’d lose the election.

But come the inauguration, he must begin cutting deep…if we are fortunate enough to take the White House back from the progressives.

The GOP Platform 2012

Here's the actual text from the GOP Platform approved in Tampa this week.  The subject is immigration:

The Rule of Law: Legal Immigration

The greatest asset of the American economy is the American worker. Just as immigrant labor helped build our country in the past, today’s legal immigrants are making vital contributions in every aspect of our national life. Their industry and commitment to American values strengthens our economy, enriches our culture, and enables us to better understand and more effectively compete with the rest of the world. Illegal immigration undermines those benefits and affects U.S. workers. 

In an age of terrorism, drug cartels, human trafficking, and criminal gangs, the presence of millions of unidentified persons in this country poses grave risks to the safety and the sovereignty of the United States. Our highest priority, therefore, is to secure the rule of law both at our borders and at ports of entry.

We recognize that for most of those seeking entry into this country, the lack of respect for the rule of law in their homelands has meant economic exploitation and political oppression by corrupt elites. In this country, the rule of law guarantees equal treatment to every individual, including more than one million immigrants to whom we grant permanent residence every year. That is why we oppose any form of amnesty for those who, by intentionally violating the law, disadvantage those who have obeyed it. Granting amnesty only rewards and encourages more law breaking. 

We support the mandatory use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (S.A.V.E.) program – an internet-based system that verifies the lawful presence of applicants – prior to the granting of any State or federal government entitlements or IRS refunds. We insist upon enforcement at the workplace through verification systems so that jobs can be available to all legal workers. Use of the E-verify program – an internet-based system that verifies the employment authorization and identity of employees – must be made mandatory nationwide. State enforcement efforts in the workplace must be welcomed, not attacked. When Americans need jobs, it is absolutely essential that we protect them from illegal labor in the workplace. In addition, it is why we demand tough penalties for those who practice identity theft, deal in fraudulent documents, and traffic in human beings. It is why we support Republican legislation to give the Department of Homeland Security long-term detention authority to keep dangerous but undeportable aliens off our streets, expedite expulsion of criminal aliens, and make gang membership a deportable offense.

The current Administration’s approach to immigration has undermined the rule of law at every turn. It has lessened work-site enforcement – and even allows the illegal aliens it does uncover to walk down the street to the next employer – and challenged legitimate State efforts to keep communities safe, suing them for trying to enforce the law when the federal government refuses to do so. It has created a backdoor amnesty program unrecognized in law, granting worker authorization to illegal aliens, and shown little regard for the life-and-death situations facing the men and women of the border patrol.

Perhaps worst of all, the current Administration has failed to enforce the legal means for workers or employers who want to operate within the law. In contrast, a Republican Administration and Congress will partner with local governments through cooperative enforcement agreements in Section 287g of the Immigration and Nationality Act to make communities safer for all and will consider, in light of both current needs and historic practice, the utility of a legal and reliable source of foreign labor where needed through a new guest worker program. We will create humane procedures to encourage illegal aliens to return home voluntarily, while enforcing the law against those who overstay their visas.

State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked. The pending Department of Justice lawsuits against Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, and Utah must be dismissed immediately. The double-layered fencing on the border that was enacted by Congress in 2006, but never completed, must finally be built. In order to restore the rule of law, federal funding should be denied to sanctuary cities that violate federal law and endanger their own citizens, and federal funding should be denied to universities that provide in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens, in open defiance of federal law.

We are grateful to the thousands of new immigrants, many of them not yet citizens, who are serving in the Armed Forces. Their patriotism should encourage us all to embrace the newcomers legally among us, assist their journey to full citizenship, and help their communities avoid isolation from the mainstream of society. To that end, while we encourage the retention and transmission of heritage tongues, we support English as the nation’s official language, a unifying force essential for the educational and economic advancement of – not only immigrant communities – but also our nation as a whole.

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