tex Posted January 29, 2004 Share Posted January 29, 2004 By Jimmy Moore Talon News January 27, 2004 MESA, AZ (Talon News) -- In direct response to President George W. Bush's recent call for a temporary worker program for illegal aliens in the United States, the Arizona Republican Party overwhelmingly supported a resolution that would protect Arizona taxpayers from the financial impact this would place on them. During the Arizona Republican Party convention on Saturday, delegates voted 317-109 for the Protect Arizona Now (PAN) petition, which was drafted to help protect taxpayers against the consequences of granting amnesty to illegal aliens including overcrowded hospitals, increased crime rates, rise in prison populations and escalating health care costs, among other things. The petition itself states that it wants to prevent "abuse or fraud" by illegal aliens of the government services paid for by Arizona taxpayers. Supporters of the PAN petition are hoping to get the initiative on the November ballot. If the measure is voted into law by Arizonians, then it would require proof of citizenship to be shown prior to receiving government support and benefits. However, despite the immense support for the PAN petition by most Arizona Republicans, it is not favored by either state or national GOP leaders. Regardless, state Rep. Randy Graf, a PAN supporter, said voting for this measure equates to upholding the rule of law by ensuring the rights of all Arizona taxpayers and voters. "This initiative protects the sacred right of voting in this state," Graf stated. "This has nothing to do with any federal law or guest worker program. It is simply about protecting citizens." However, state Sen. Carolyn Allen expressed her concern that supporting PAN would ultimately be detrimental to the Bush campaign. "We want to re-elect George Bush and Dick Cheney in this state," Allen explained. "If this passes, we will suffer." Allen added that the Bush administration is not happy with this proposal. "The White House is very concerned about this initiative," she said. "This is not going to help our president in this state." State House candidate J.T. Ready said concerned Republicans should realize that PAN is a common sense approach to dealing with the problem of illegal aliens. "Why shouldn't we pass this?" inquired Ready. "After all, Blockbuster Video requires two forms of ID to rent a video." Ready is extremely concerned that Bush appears to be circumventing the law with his proposal to allow for a temporary worker program for illegal aliens. "I support the president, but the question is if he supports the U.S. Constitution," Ready expressed. Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) told the GOP activists in remarks made early in the convention that his meetings with Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft helped educate him on the proposed national Temporary Worker Program. "My suggestion is as Republicans, we take a breath, gather the facts and not criticize the president other than in our opinions," Kyl instructed. Kyl admitted that while "virtually all Americans oppose amnesty," Bush's proposal would actually help minimize the continued influx of illegal aliens by holding employers more accountable for who they hire. "We try hard on the border to keep illegal immigrants out," Kyl stated. "We could do a better job, but we are winking at those hiring illegals. There is a disrespect for the rule of law. It's not good for everybody or the taxpayers who end up subsidizing lower wages." Arizona Republican Party Chairman Bob Fannin even expressed his concern that the rift between conservatives and GOP leadership over illegal immigration should not be divisive and encouraged the state executive committeemen to support Bush's plan. Yet Fannin's call for unity was met with criticism and disgust by the committeemen. They believe Fannin should be addressing their sincere concerns with the Temporary Worker Program with the Bush administration directly. GOPUSA Arizona Editor Dennis Durband warned national GOP leaders to listen to the concerns of the base or else risk losing them as voters in November. "The lesson to the story is that the Republican Party needs to take in opinions and information from below and give rank and file Republicans legitimate consideration -- as opposed to dictating unpopular policy on an unwilling constituency," Durband wrote. He continued, "The White House had better start listening to the people and re-thinking its position, because a lot of Republicans are saying Bush will not get their vote as things currently stand. The White House can choose this day whom it will serve. If the White House gets behind PAN, Arizona is in the bag for the president's re-election chances. It's that simple." http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/january/0127_arizona_illegal_aliens.shtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted January 29, 2004 Share Posted January 29, 2004 Someone must be doing something right Rohrabacher Receives Death Threat Over Immigrant Bill NewsMax.com Wires Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2004 HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. - The offices of Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher received dozens of threatening telephone calls Tuesday, including one death threat, after he authored a bill that would limit health care services for illegal aliens. Information on the threats was turned over to police. "It will be forwarded to out detectives," said police Lt. Tom Donnelly. The bill, introduced last week, would require hospitals to report a patient's immigration status before they could be reimbursed for treatment. Patients found to be in the United States illegally could be deported. Threatening calls began after the bill was discussed on a New York radio station Tuesday. The office received so many calls they stopped answering the phone, said Rohrabacher's assistant, Kathleen Hollingsworth. Staffers then listened to voice mails left at the office, one of which said, "I'm coming to kill you," she said. "This is not just somebody I've angered and who's expressing some hostility. These are gruesome threats that I will be attacked and killed," Rohrabacher said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cskin Posted January 29, 2004 Share Posted January 29, 2004 The bill, introduced last week, would require hospitals to report a patient's immigration status before they could be reimbursed for treatment. Patients found to be in the United States illegally could be deported. This is a good start. Of course, hospitals might not be so eager to treat "illegal" aliens if they know they may not get paid for their services by the federal govt. On a side note, somewhere I read that police officers aren't required to notify the INS when they take an apparent "Illegal" into custody for a felony. Is this true in most states? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted January 29, 2004 Share Posted January 29, 2004 Bush has screwed up large here COMING TO AMERICA Illegals rise 15% since Bush plan Border Patrol seeing increase in attempts at busiest crossing -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: January 29, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Confirming the worst fears of those who oppose President Bush's plans to change immigration laws, U.S. Border Patrol officials report a 15 percent increase in the use of fraudulent documents at the world's busiest land border crossing. Immigration-reform groups point to the finding at the San Ysidro border crossing with alarm – suggesting that putting what some see as an amnesty program on the table represents an invitation for more illegal immigration. The alarming increase in illegal migration prompted this editorial reaction from the San Diego Union-Tribune: "It has been nearly three weeks since President Bush proposed 'temporary' legal status for millions of illegal immigrants residing in the United States. Already, San Diego is starting to see the unintended consequences at the San Ysidro port of entry." More than half of those caught using phony documents say the president's offer of de facto amnesty motivated them to attempt to sneak into the United States, the report added. "This surge in unlawful attempts to cross the southern border is precisely what U.S. border enforcement officers and immigration policy experts predicted," said the paper's editorial. "By proposing to forgive millions of illegal aliens their trespasses against this country, President Bush has encouraged even more illegal aliens to join those already here." Meanwhile, an immigration reform group said Bush would save the American taxpayers a lot of money if he shut off the magnet that draws millions of illegal aliens across our border – simply by enforcing laws that prohibit companies from hiring illegals. "The illegal immigrant population would simply disappear," said Jim Studenraus, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "Overnight, Americans would start being attracted into those businesses. Now, would some employers have to offer maybe 50 cents or a dollar more an hour, maybe provide medical benefits? Yes." Staudenraus says in the long run it would be cheaper for American taxpayers if they did not have to pay for social services at schools and prisons filled with illegal aliens. The Union-Tribune said the White House is not learning the lessons of 1986, "when Congress granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. The amnesty did absolutely nothing to discourage future illegal immigration. In fact, the number of illegal immigrants has increased exponentially since then." A recent New York Times poll indicates that two-thirds of Americans oppose a temporary worker program for illegals. While Bush has claimed his program is not an amnesty, it "expects temporary workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired." Immigration-reform groups say that is an unrealistic expectation and the program is a de facto amnesty proposal. "There has never been a temporary worker program in the United States, Europe or anywhere else under which all of the workers returned to their native countries," said the Union-Tribune editorial. "Indeed, many illegals who have crossed this nation's borders didn't do so to spend a mere matter of years in the United States before returning home. They planned to be here permanently." FAIR, meanwhile, contends Bush's plan would threaten homeland security, grant amnesty for lawbreakers, establish a back-door immigration program and threaten the jobs and wages of American workers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex Posted January 30, 2004 Author Share Posted January 30, 2004 What President Bush failed to realize is if a country needing cheap labor hires another country's least-qualified workers, it will get poorly educated and unsophisticated people ill-equipped to learn the language and assimilate which means the rest of us will have to help support them with our tax dollars. Middle Class taxpayers are already straining under a confiscatory tax burden and are now being asked to do even more. We are in essence subsidizing big business by supporting these workers with our tax dollars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyDave Posted January 30, 2004 Share Posted January 30, 2004 Congress won't pass the bill into law and dubba ya pulling a clinton will look like he is reaching out to them but is blocked. I hate the bill and I hear it now politically incorrect to call illegal aliens illegal aliens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted January 30, 2004 Share Posted January 30, 2004 This past week has not been positive for the White House. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted January 30, 2004 Share Posted January 30, 2004 And they want to make it easier to cross the border? A question about Hizballah and Mexico Terence Jeffrey (archive) January 28, 2004 | Print | Send Politicians serious about preventing another Sept. 11 should listen to the leader of Hizballah, and then read an indictment unsealed this month in Detroit. "Let the entire world hear me," said Sheik Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27, 2002. "Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute." There's good reason to take this sheik seriously. In 1983, his Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group attacked the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. According to the opinion of U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in the case of Peterson v. the Islamic Republic of Iran, Nasrallah attended the meeting in Baalbek, Lebanon, where the 1983 attack was planned. Until Sept. 11, it remained the deadliest terrorist strike ever against the United States. The sheik's Sept. 27, 2002, rally in Beirut celebrated the Palestinian intifadah. It was broadcast live on Lebanese TV and monitored by the BBC. "Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September," Nasrallah said that day, "Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America!" Six months later, according to the BBC, Nasrallah warned Americans that if the U.S. invaded Iraq, "The region's people will receive you with rifles, blood, arms, martyrdom and martyrdom operations." Now, turn to May 3, 2003. That's when FBI agents searched the Dearborn, Mich., residence of Mahmoud Kourani, a 32-year-old illegal alien from Lebanon. In a statement submitted last week in federal court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell revealed words the FBI found on audiotapes there: "You alone are the sun of my lands, Nasrallah! Nasrallah!/. . . your voice is nothing less than my jihad." "We offer to you Hizballah, a pledge of loyalty," said a tape. ". . . Rise for Jihad! . . . I offer you, Hizballah, my blood in my hand." Kourani pleaded guilty to harboring an illegal alien. A judge sentenced him to six months. On Jan. 15, a second indictment was unsealed, charging Kourani with conspiracy to provide material support to Hizballah. "Kourani was a member, fighter, recruiter and fundraiser for Hizballah," said the indictment. "Operating at first from Lebanon and later in the United States, Kourani was a dedicated member of Hizballah who received specialized training in radical Shiite fundamentalism, weaponry, spy craft, and counterintelligence in Lebanon and Iran." "Kourani," Chadwell added in his statement, "is charged with conspiring with individuals at the highest levels of the terrorist organization, including one of his brothers who is the Hizballah chief of military security for southern Lebanon." Kourani got to America, the prosecutors allege, with the help of a Mexican official. "On approximately Feb. 4, 2001, Kourani surreptitiously entered the United States by sneaking across the U.S./Mexico border in the trunk of a car," wrote Chadwell. "He reached Mexico by paying $3,000 used to bribe an official in the Mexican Consulate in Beirut, Lebanon, to give him a Mexican visa." Do prosecutors believe that official was Imelda Ortiz Abdala, the one-time Mexican consul in Beirut who was arrested by Mexico in November, according to the Associated Press, "on charges of helping a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United States from Mexico"? "They are not sure if that is the person that received the money," said Sandy Palazzolo, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Jeffrey G. Collins of Detroit. "They have information that she worked there during this time frame, but they don't know if that is in fact the person that he did bribe." In a sentencing memorandum in Kourani's alien-harboring case, Chadwell told the court Kourani's "offense of conviction was part of a continuing scheme to bring illegal aliens to the United States from Lebanon through Mexico." Kourani has pleaded not guilty to providing material support to Hizballah. I asked his attorney, Nabih Ayad, about the claim in the indictment that Kourani was a member, fighter, recruiter and fundraiser for Hizballah. "He denies all that," said Ayad. Kourani also contests the government's assertion that he bought a Mexican visa for $3,000 in Beirut. "My client told me specifically," said Ayad, "that he got it legitimately through the Mexican consulate." Why did Kourani come to America? "I think why millions of Americans, the immigrants, come to the United States," said Ayad. "Basically, to make some money. . . . According to his statements to the FBI agents, he was here to make some money to go back with $10,000 for his wife and children." Whatever the eventual outcome in this case, simple prudence demands that a question be asked of our political leaders: If they don't secure our borders against illegal immigration, how can they secure our country against Hizballah? And Hizballah, as Sheik Nasrallah says, seeks "Death to America!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 Unidentified Military Unit Caught Crossing US Border By Chris Simcox Tombstone Tumbleweed 1-30-4 Well before dawn broke on a chilly Saturday morning volunteers of Civil Homeland Defense were in position atop ridges along the San Pedro River scouting for groups of people entering the country illegally. Through binoculars this reporter spotted two military type vehicles parked at an abandoned ranch just across the "Line", the U.S. - Mexico border. With me that morning was an independent photo journalist from Texas; we'll call him Mike. Also along with our patrol was an independent video journalist, Caesar from Texas. The two had been with us on many patrols and have documented hours of our operations and numerous encounters with illegal invaders. That morning they finally had the opportunity to see what we had told them about, they got their "money shot", what they had been waiting for: drug dealers, illegals and a run-in with the legendary rogue para-military groups that "patrol" the Mexican side of the border. I asked the two if they wanted to move in closer; they were of course eager to get as close as possible. I'm sure they were not exactly prepared for what happened next. We loaded into my truck and drove to within a couple hundred yards of the line; I parked the truck behind some trees and thick brush wanting to move in as quietly as possible. I took the two journalists through the brush, parallel to the border fence and came up through a wash in a low area that was hidden by a dirt berm. We kneeled behind the berm and peered over the top for a perfect view of the ranch. We were as close as we could get - right on the fence. Just as I peered over the top of the berm, I heard rustling in the wash to my right. Suddenly three armed men appeared from the brush. They moved quickly to the fence. One slung his rifle over his shoulder and leaned over to put a leg through the fence. We were no more than 25 feet away. As the young man leaned over he turned his head and looked right along the fence and right into my eyes. It was one of those moments - the pregnant pause - all three seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them. With haste the three men moved away from the fence and back into the thicket of mesquite and tall grass, shouting to others as they noisily retreated back towards the ranch. My attention was then drawn to an area only a few feet away directly in front of me. It was apparent there was another squad of three men; they also immediately retreated back up the hill. Six men emerged from the back sight line of the thicket and all ran the 300 yards back to the vehicles. We could see the men run to what was apparently the leader of the squad where they conversed for a few seconds. A moment later 10 of the men jumped into one of the troop transport vehicles and drove down the hill in our direction. They stopped directly in front of us on the dirt road that parallels the border fence on the Mexican side. Four men with rifles, M-16's and FAL's, jumped from the truck and approached us on the fence. The cameras were rolling - on both sides. As the men approached, one of them was taking photographs of us. The leader approached, I said, "Hola, como estas; buenos dias." He asked immediately if we were immigration. I told him no. He then told us in Spanish it was prohibited for us to film them. We told him we were media and we had the right to film. He became a bit agitated at that point and asked for more specifics about who we were and why we were here. I asked him the same question. He told us they were out here protecting the border - just doing their job. We asked if they were military, they did not respond. The leader seemed perplexed about who we were and again asked what business we had in the area. We again replied we were journalists covering the illegal immigration story. The leader again said we should not be in this area. None of the uniforms the men were wearing had patches, names or insignias of any kind that would identify them as official Federales or Mexican military personnel. Two of the men standing next to the leader kept their weapons in the ready position; the other had his rifle slung over his shoulder. The leader again firmly asked us to stop filming. Caesar and I continued to film with video cameras; Mike obeyed and lowered his 35 millimeter with zoom lens. The leader told us we were "annoying and bothering his group." He said we should leave the area. We did not reply. He said "Gracias," and told us to have a good day and returned to the vehicle and drove back up the hill to the ranch. Moments later a pickup truck with the back cargo area covered came down the road from Naco towards the ranch on the Mexico side. The vehicle first slowed when the driver spotted us, then sped away towards the ranch. As the driver passed the soldiers he waved and continued past the ranch and drove behind it. Both troop vehicles immediately loaded up and followed the truck on the road behind the ranch and out of view of our cameras. The leader told us they were patrolling the border, yet just a few buildings away about half-a-dozen plain clothed civilians were milling around a small adobe house tucked in the middle of the multi-building compound. The house has been in use for years as the drop off, staging area for groups of people who enter the United States illegally using the San Pedro River Valley as their guide north. Starting three hours after the face- to- face encounter with the armed squad of men, CHD volunteers assisted Border Patrol with locating a group of nine illegal entrants a half mile north of the Mexican ranch. Two hours later another group of 10 illegals was rounded up by Border Patrol after being tracked by CHD volunteers. As of noon on Wednesday over 500 people have been documented coming through the same area. Most used the ranch as their staging point. The men dressed in olive drab uniforms are still there too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex Posted January 31, 2004 Author Share Posted January 31, 2004 The southern flank is looking kinda weak at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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