First Vote on Immigration Bill Tuesday

[RoyGBiv]

Just back from a local Tea Party meeting (Agenda Link) where the topic of the evening was border security and immigration. First, I'm pleased to report the meeting was well attended, with ~250+ Tarrant County folks on hand.

First speaker was Mike Olcott of Immigration Reform Coalition of TX (IRCOT). Mike spent his time picking apart the language in the Senate bill and discussing the impact of the bill. Bottom line is that there are over 1,000 places in the current bill where the DHS Secretary has discretion to create policy, or choose not to enforce policy. His opinion is that the Bill as it stands is nothing more than defacto amnesty, if that is what the DHS Secretary decides she wants. Unfortunately Mike's presentation is not posted online that I can find...

Next speakers were Dr and Mrs Mike Vickers. The Vickers live ~70 miles from the border in Falfurrias, TX where they are ranchers and Dr Vickers is a Veterinarian. They gave a first hand account of what is going on at the border. Scary stuff. The Vickers founded Texas Border Volunteers in 2006. This group works with Border Patrol and DPS to identify routes and activity so that law enforcement can intervene. They go out and locate trafficking trails, frequently finding groups of illegals, recording illegals through a variety of means (cameras, video, thermal imaging, etc) and guiding border patrol and DPS to intervene. Not a job for the faint of heart.

The wind up for the evening was a request to contact Senator Cornyn and ask him to vote against cloture tomorrow. The vote is set for 2:15 eastern. The way it appears right now (according to reports from speakers tonight), is that there are more than enough Senators that want the Bill to be debated, rather than killing it "right now". According to Dr Vickers, Senator Cruz has been actively pursuing evidence from Texas Border Volunteers and has his head in the right place on this bill, but Cornyn appears to need some convincing. Please, this is all second hand so, take it with a grain of salt... I've not spoken with Senator Cornyn's office about this yet.

Please keep a close eye on the debate over this bill.
Does anyone think we'll ever see a secure border if we allow amnesty to come before border security? /rhetorical



if anyone has some detail to add here, please do... I'm a bit short on time this evening.
If we pass amnesty without securing the border, I'm afraid the results will be tragic for our country.

[RoyGBiv]

From Sen. Cruz' office this morning....

PROMOTING COMMON SENSE IMMIGRATION REFORM

Last Tuesday, Sen. Cruz joined with Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in sending a letter to their Senate colleagues that highlights numerous concerns with the Gang of Eight's immigration reform bill. In the letter, they noted the numerous opportunities the Senate Judiciary Committee had to improve the bill during the markup process, yet the committee failed to enact any of them. They also criticized the backroom deal that was struck by the Gang of Eight and Democrats on the Judiciary Committee prior to the markup, which prevented any meaningful improvements to the bill.

The Senators pointed to several areas of concern in the current bill that must be addressed on the Senate floor in order to pass effective legislation, including:

Provides immediate legalization without securing the border
Rewards criminal aliens, absconders, and deportees and undermines law enforcement
Contains extremely dangerous national security loopholes
Facilitates fraud in our immigration system
Creates no real penalties for illegal immigrants and rewards them with entitlements
Delays for years the implementation of E-Verify
Does not fix our legal immigration system
Advanced through a process predicated on a deal struck before markup
Rewards those who have broken our laws by offering a special path to citizenship

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ ALL OF THIS IMPORTANT LETTER.!! Copy of full letter HERE.
It does a good job of explaining the current bill and its flaws.

[MeMelYup]

How many times since 1952 has the U.S. gov't awarded amnesty to Mexican national, thereby awarding them U.S. Citizenship?
http://www.endillegalimmigration.com/Hi ... ion_in_US/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;