Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The GOP Lauches Series of Hearings on Immigration!!

This is what I have been asking for!! An overhaul of the Immigration laws. There are to many Loopholes that are being jumped through such as marriage, that is a huge one. People are getting married for money, so they can get their green card, why it is so prevalent in this Country that they even made a movie out of it.

When I was in High School we even had two of our cooks that got married only so the one cook, could get his papers all lined up to get his Resident Green card, that way he didn't have to worry about getting taken back to Mexico and the owner of the Restaurant didn't have to worry about his Number one Cook getting deported. Then when he got his citizenship, he divorced his wife and brought his real wife from Mexico over and the cycle started all over!!

BSRancher

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URL: http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/state/article/0,1375,VCS_122_4822586,00.html



GOP launches series of hearings on immigration

One in San Diego to discuss border security

By Elliot Spagat, The Associated Press
July 5, 2006

SAN DIEGO — One day after the Fourth of July, congressional Republicans will offer a fireworks show of their own with the launch of summer field hearings on how to overhaul immigration laws.

The hearings begin today with dueling hearings 2,400 miles apart. A House subcommittee will meet at a San Diego Border Patrol station to discuss the vulnerability of the nation's borders to terrorists. The same day, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., will host a hearing in Philadelphia about the need for foreign workers.

House GOP leaders called the unusual hearings last month in a blow to President Bush's ambitious election-year plan that — like a Senate-approved bill backed by Specter — includes a guest-worker program and path to citizenship for millions in the country illegally. A separate House-approved bill focuses only on enforcement.

The parade of hearings will likely offer a wealth of material for cable television and talk-radio hosts just before congressional campaigns kick into high gear.

"This is an opportunity for one big rolling town meeting across the country," said Mark Williams, a conservative radio host in Sacramento.

Not to be outdone by immigration hard-liners, Specter's hearing in Philadelphia was scheduled to feature New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus planned to attend the San Diego hearing to demand that the House GOP answer for its "failed record" on immigration.

Democrats initially considered boycotting the hearings but will treat them as a platform to assail an enforcement-only approach to immigration reform, said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks.

"If they want to have a dog-and-pony show, that's fine," said Sherman, the ranking Democrat on the International Relations subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, which will host the San Diego hearing. "They have really ugly dogs and really mangy ponies."

The San Diego hearing — and another by the same panel Friday in Laredo, Texas, another border city — will likely be laden with references to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida leaders.

"My mission is to investigate our border security shortcomings post-9/11," said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, the panel's chairman. "The problem is that border security has become national security."

Republicans on the panel include Reps. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a leading voice for a crackdown on illegal immigration, and Peter King of New York, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who broke with the White House on immigration.

The government hasn't said whether terrorists have entered the United States through Mexico, but Royce said there are troubling signs. In February 2005, James Loy, former deputy secretary of Homeland Security, said, "Several al-Qaida leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry."

In a test last year of security at points of entry, undercover investigators slipped enough radioactive material to make two small "dirty bombs" across U.S. borders in Texas and Washington state.

Royce invited seven witnesses to speak today, including two border sheriffs, a Border Patrol official and the head of a civilian border watch group. Sherman invited Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

Republican-led House committees will hold hearings outside Washington in mid-July on making English the nation's official language, and how enforcement of immigration laws affect American workers.

A hearing the week of Aug. 14 in Arizona will focus on costs to local and state governments "caused by an unsecured border."

Copyright 2006, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved.

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