See other Immigration Articles
Title: Will the GOP Betray America on Their Promises to Crack Down on ILLEGAL Immigration?
Source:
Orlando Sentinel
URL Source: http://oneoldvet.com/?p=25483
Published: Jan 22, 2011
Author: Mike Thomas
Post Date: 2011-01-22 09:14:09 by HAPPY2BME-4UM
Keywords: None
Views: 116
Comments: 10
There’s no way Florida will crack down on illegal workers There will be no Arizona-style immigration law in Florida. There will be no crackdown on illegal workers. Gov. Rick Scott will be leading no bus caravans back to Mexico. If this is the issue that fired you up and drove you to the polls, then it served its purpose. It rallied the conservative base. It played a key role in Scott’s race against Bill McCollum in the Republican primary. But now the campaigns are over, and reality has set in. Too much of Florida’s economy relies on illegal workers. So they aren’t going anywhere except back to the hotel rooms, the construction sites, the restaurant kitchens and the vegetable fields. If it’s any consolation for him, McCollum was right when he said: “We don’t need that law in Florida. That’s not what’s going to happen here.” Truth can be bad politics. And please do not rant against the liberals on this one. Businesses don’t want a crackdown. The cops don’t want a crackdown. Republican strategists don’t want a crackdown. Hispanic members of Congress and the Legislature don’t want a crackdown. Jeb Bush, who co-chaired the Hispanic Leadership Network conference last week, is very vocal about not wanting a crackdown. Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos has talked tough. But he picked Anitere Flores to oversee hearings on an immigration bill. She was a strong supporter of the Dream Act, a congressional bill that would have given permanent status to young illegal residents who went to college or served in the military. She uses the term “unauthorized immigration.” None of the witnesses called before her committee has supported an Arizona bill. Two words: stacked deck. Even the Republican who introduced the Arizona bill in the state Senate, Mike Bennett of Bradenton, says he “might not even vote for it myself.” At best we will see some loophole-laden, face-saving measures for public consumption. One example is Gov. Scott’s order that state agencies use the federal government’s E-Verify system to check the legal status of new hires. It’s not like Mexican biologists are sneaking across the border to work for the Department of Environmental Protection. Scott has backed off a proposal to require private employers to use E-Verify. The reason is simple: It would hit the tourism, construction and service industries very hard. And it would shut down agriculture. Any farm that enforced E-Verify would see its labor force dry up and its crops rot in the field. And that would send a lot of legal workers to the unemployment line. That would hardly get Scott off to a stellar start on his promise to create 700,000 jobs. The business round tables that preside over Florida’s economy don’t mind if Republicans demagogue on illegal immigrants to get elected. If that’s what it takes to beat Democrats, then so be it. But once they are in office, and it’s time to govern, business is business. And a crackdown would be bad for business. As a businessman, Scott understands that. Eventually, House Speaker Dean Cannon will have to explain all this to the man he picked as his judiciary chairman: Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart. Snyder is gung-ho for an Arizona law. He wrote a version of it last year. White Republicans far and wide gave him a big high-five. Hispanic Republicans scratched their heads over what looked to be a carve-out exemption for Canadians and Europeans. Snyder says he will get his bill through the House, but I tend to think he hasn’t cleared that with Cannon, who has never put this issue on his list of priorities. A former cop, Snyder says cops can check on the legal status of people without profiling. But if the vast majority of illegal immigrants are Hispanic, then Hispanics obviously are going to fall under more suspicion when stopped by police. This is why the Florida Police Chiefs Association wants nothing to do with this bill. Invariably, some South Florida high-school principal who was working in his yard will be carted off to jail for the crime of having an accent and not having a wallet, while in possession of dirty fingernails. As Republicans begin taking all this in, increasingly their conclusion is: No, we can’t.
Will the GOP Betray America on Their Promises to Crack Down on ILLEGAL Immigration?
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 10.
#10. To: HAPPY2BME-4UM (#0)
Businesses don’t want a crackdown. The cops don’t want a crackdown. Republican strategists don’t want a crackdown. Hispanic members of Congress and the Legislature don’t want a crackdown. Will the GOP betray America?? Will Lucy pull the football away from Charlie Brown yet again??
There are no replies to Comment # 10. End Trace Mode for Comment # 10.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestWill the GOP Betray America on Their Promises to Crack Down on ILLEGAL Immigration?
Replies to Comment # 10.