Sunday, November 28, 2010

Letters to Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM, re: DREAM act

THE FOLLOWING IS UDALL'S LETTER DEFENDING THE DREAM ACT.

November 23, 2010
Dear Mr. Rodgers,
Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 729, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act of 2009. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

Currently, there are thousands of children of undocumented immigrants who seek higher education or wish to join the military after graduating from a U.S. high school.

This year, there will be about 65,000 high school graduates, who, despite their academic accomplishments and strong motivation to succeed, will have to seek alternate routes to achieving success in America. Many believe that providing additional training to these kids will help our overall economy, the individual seeking to improve his or her life, and improve military recruitment and retention.

S. 729 would amend current law to allow children of parents who entered the country illegally to qualify for higher education benefits based on state residence. Additionally, S. 729 would allow certain undocumented immigrants the opportunity to serve in the U.S. Military legally, which could dramatically increase the pool of highly qualified recruits for the U.S. Armed Forces.

Only individuals who entered the United States before their sixteenth birthday, are currently under the age of thirty-five, and have been present in the United States for at least five years immediately preceding enactment of the bill would be eligible for these benefits. In addition, these individuals must also be of "good moral character," and must have earned a high school or equivalent diploma, or been accepted to an institution of higher education. After completing all of these requirements, those who remain in good legal and moral standing after finishing two years of higher education or military service, will earn the chance to obtain legal status as U.S. citizens.

Senator Richard Durbin (IL) introduced the DREAM Act on March 26, 2009. After introduction, the bill was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

As you may be aware, Senator Harry Reid (NV) planned to offer the DREAM Act as an amendment to S. 3454, the fiscal year 2011 (FY11) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). However, on September 21, 2010, despite strong support from the Armed Forces and many civic and religious groups, Senate Republicans unified in their opposition, and S.3454 failed by a vote of 56-43 to gain the 60 votes necessary to allow the Senate to debate the measure. I voted to proceed to the measure because the NDAA provides the necessary and critical funding for equipment and resources for our service members currently in harm's way. Giving our men and women in uniform, the resources that they need to continue their important work is a priority of mine, and I am disappointed that this funding is being tied up by partisan politics.

Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind should this or related legislation come before the Senate for consideration.

4 comments:

  1. AND HERE IS MY FIRST RESPONSE TO THE SENATOR'S LETTER:

    Thank for your note of 23 November. Please forward to the senator my present comments. There is so much horror in the Senator’s letter that I will offer my response in installments. This is part 1.

    Sir,

    The first thing I’d like to comment on in your letter is the phrase, “undocumented immigrants,” used twice. The phrase is fundamentally dishonest because these people are, with very few exceptions, NOT immigrants. They are transients who have come into this country to loot its wealth and generosity. It also reeks of conciliatory cowardice. These people are illegal aliens – trespassers, in fact. (In the 3rd paragraph, you came dangerously near telling the truth when you used the phrase, “…entered the country illegally…”) Until our government has the guts and integrity to enforce the laws that We, the People sent you up there to enforce, this situation can never be resolved short of craven collapse before the sheer mass of numbers.

    Second, you referred to about 65,000 kids who would have to seek “…alternate routes to achieving success in America.” Alternate to what, Senator? To obeying the law? To earning their own way, like the rest of us White scum? To paying the outrageous, usurious tuitions – like my own kids – like the kids of millions of other American Citizens? You are prepared to have the IRS come stick a gun in my ribs, take money that would have paid for my own kid’s education, and give it to the kids of a bunch of trespassers? Why? Because they are more likely to vote for you than I am?

    Third, you claimed that taxing the rest of us to provide free education to these kids would somehow help the economy. So you are going to take billions out of the economy, (ie, the pockets of citizens) pay most of it to government employees, give a little of it to these poor, downtrodden innocents, and make it back on their taxes? Are you figuring on putting them through MIT, or Harvard? Because that’s the only way they are ever going to make enough to be able to spend enough to repair the damage done to our economy by the cost of their education! The only possible justice in this scheme is that when they become rich enough to impact the economy, they will become the great Satans that the Democrats want to destroy. This, Sir, is one of the most dishonest, disingenuous, contemptible perversions I have heard in this long season of such things.

    Fourth, you claimed that allowing these illegal alien, criminal trespassers the opportunity to serve in the military would, “…dramatically increase the pool of highly qualified recruits for the U.S. Armed Forces.” I don’t know how you figure that a significant number of these people, who have so far shown nothing but a lust for unearned wealth and the easy way to affluence and power, will be volunteering for military service. I also fail to see how the inclusion of said looters into the ranks will have a positive effect on our military. I’d also like to hear you explain why these people would be superior to our own people. And if I were a cynic, I might accuse you of trying to create a class of subcitizen warriors, loyal only to the government.

    More to come.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is part 2 of my response to the Senator’s letter in defense of the DREAM act.

    Sir,

    The 4th paragraph of your letter lists requirements to be met before criminal trespassers can have access to my money. They must have been in the US before their 16th birthday, be less than 35 years of age, be high school graduates, be of good moral character, and must complete 2 years of college or military service.

    Oh, my. Where to start? How do you propose to make sure anyone meets these qualifications? The US government can’t figure out who is even a legal citizen! How in Heaven’s name do you propose to determine who meets these qualifications? How many trillions of dollars and centuries of court appeals do you propose to squander on this? We aren’t talking about a hundred people, Senator. There are at least 25 million of them, and I bet you a dollar – which won’t be worth squat soon! – that the majority of them will claim eligibility to this program. And I love that bit about “good moral character!” Who, in our government, is going to decide that? All of those imminently qualified politicians in the Congress? Even my considerable knack for vituperative and sarcasm fails me.

    Are you insane?

    You referred to how Senator Reid attached DREAM to a defense appropriation bill in an effort to blackmail Republicans into passing the whole, fetid mess. I am, indeed, aware of this episode, and my contempt for Reid and for this tactic cannot be expressed in words. Republicans and Democrats have both used this tactic, and it is despicable. It is tantamount to telling a man he can go free if he sells his wife into a government-run whorehouse. You also blame Republicans for blocking the bill, but they didn’t have a majority. You could have jammed it down our throats and they couldn’t have stopped you. Blaming them, alone, is the pit of partisan, manipulative, propagandistic politics.

    This claim: “…despite strong support from the Armed Forces and many civic and religious groups…” is true only if you speak solely of criminal trespass advocates, communists, Al Queda, and others of that ilk. Otherwise, it is a flat, damned lie.

    Then you close that paragraph with a sanctimonious, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing appeal to emotion about your concern for, “…our service members currently in harm's way.” What a crock! If you gave a rat’s hind end for our troops, you would have done everything in your power to keep the DREAM act – which was and is wildly unpopular – from being attached to the appropriation bill. “Partisan politics,” indeed! When people go along with your extortion, they are praised as cooperative, but when they stand up to you, they are partisan. We are invited to sell our souls to the Devil or to the Democrats. A tough choice, indeed. Can I have some time to consider the options?

    The fact that many Republicans have committed this same political sodomy does not excuse it, nor render you and your colleagues blameless.

    Next: To prove that I’m willing to do more than complain, I will share some ideas for resolution.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is part 2 of my response to the Senator’s letter in defense of the DREAM act.

    Sir,

    I have taken you sternly to task for your absurd and, frankly, lame-brained defense of the utterly indefensible DREAM act. I will now offer some suggestions on what to do instead.

    First – we must close the border! Nothing else will work until we secure the border! No questions can be answered, no problems solved, no issues even defined until we secure the border with Mexico. Yes, there are illegal crossings of the Canadian border, and illegal incursions along our seaboards, but they are miniscule compared to the tidal wave coming across from Mexico. Giving the Border Patrol a few more drones isn’t going to do it. We must physically close that border. The fence would be a good start, and don’t give me that crap about how it’s too hard or too expensive. This country can do anything!

    In addition to the fence, we must put military force on the border, and they are going to have to kill a few people. Here’s a wager, Sir: Right on the border, put up signs about every 30 feet that say, “You are now entering the United States. You are breaking the laws of that country. If you do not go back, you will be arrested and imprisoned without trial. If you resist, you will be shot.”

    About 100 feet north of that row of signs, put up a chain link fence with barbed wire on top, about 8 feet high. Put another fence about 20 feet to the north side of the first one. Adorn both fences with signs. About a quarter-mile north of the second fence, put a row of rifle pits, and in them, riflemen with orders to halt all who pass and kill all who resist. Bury the resisters where they fall, and put the survivors in concentration camps – without TV or lawyers! When the camps get full, march all those people at gunpoint back to the south side of the southern-most fence and let them go. I guarantee you the camps will never get full because within about 48 hours of the first shots, our criminal trespass problem will go away.

    If you don’t have the troops to man the rifle pits, ask the governors of the border states to call up the state militias. That will give you millions of motivated, highly trained troops. The liberals will howl about drunken rednecks out to kill ‘em a few Mexicans, but the facts indicate otherwise. The Minutemen have received the praise of every professional organization with whom they’ve come in contact, and they fit PRECISELY the definition of militia.

    There should be no restrictions on people going south, back into Mexico. If the Mexican government doesn’t like it, tough. They’ve turned their own country into an aboveground sewer. We are not obligated to let them do the same thing to ours.

    ONLY after the border is closed can we begin an intelligent discussion of what to do with criminal trespassers in this country. I would personally favor a fairly liberal naturalization process, but it would exclude ABSOLUTELY anyone convicted of ANY felony. And it would absolutely NOT create a new, expanded, culturally delimited welfare class. I would not, under any circumstances, approve any portion of that despicable DREAM act!

    Next, about those anchor babies…

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is part 3 of my response to the Senator’s defense of the DREAM act.

    Sir,

    Those who have supported the DREAM act and other anti-American measures have used a time-honored tradition called “waving the bloody shirt.” This tradition supposedly had its roots in an incident where someone incited a revolution by waving a blood-soaked shirt that had supposedly been worn by a martyr.

    The bloody shirt of the immigration issue is the children, with the phrase, “…the children…” generally uttered with a catch in the throat and tremble of the lips. Anyone who opposes you from that point forward is against “the children,” and is a really bad person. The media play this angle to perfection. Millions of children have been orphaned, enslaved, and even murdered in the name of measures that were justified “…for the children [gasp]!”

    Today, the most hotly debated group of children is anchor babies. Here’s an analogy. Suppose a man and woman had a baby, and they committed a serious crime – let’s say armed robbery. They were caught red-handed and no defense was offered, and they were convicted. Would they be excused from prison because they had a baby? Not likely! The baby would be put in a foster home, or flat out put up for adoption, and the parents might never see the child again. This makes sense to me.

    However, in the case of criminal trespassers, the entire legal edifice is turned on its head to keep the criminal parents of innocent children from being inconvenienced. In order to prevent stress on these criminals, we have virtually destroyed our security and the integrity of our national identity.

    We must amend the Constitution on this point. A child born on our soil may be a US citizen, but his parents will not be. If they wish to stay in the US, they may pursue legal channels. If it takes years, they have two choices: go back home and take their child with them until they can immigrate as a family, or they can put the child up for adoption and go home with out him. Just like that couple who committed robbery, this couple should not get a walk because they have a baby. Giving up a child is one of the things they should have thought about before becoming criminals.

    One last comment, this about something on your website. You talk about, “…the interests of families who have put down roots in our country.” Senator, THOSE AREN’T LEGAL ROOTS! If someone stole a car and kept it for a long time, would you consider it theirs? If that guy had kept Elizabeth Smart for a long time – and maybe had an anchor baby with her – would you consider those legal roots?

    ReplyDelete