ICE Union Says Amnesty Deal Ignores Cartels, Border Security

ICE Union Says Amnesty Deal Ignores Cartels, Border Security

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement union president Chris Crane told reporters on Wednesday that the Mexican drug cartels’ influence inside the United States has been ‘almost completely absent’ from the immigration reform debate but needs more attention,” Breitbart News reported.

“‘I mean, if these folks coming over here taking work, we know that the drug cartels’ troops and the soldiers are all within the interior of the United States as are many other criminal elements and criminal individuals,’ Crane said on a conference call with media. ‘There are people coming here for this to be a land of opportunity and there are people coming here because this is a target of opportunity. We believe there is a very disproportionate number of criminals coming into the United States.'”

Peter Hitchens: Mea Culpa for Supporting Mass Immigration to Britain

“When I was a Revolutionary Marxist, we were all in favour of as much immigration as possible. It wasn’t because we liked immigrants, but because we didn’t like Britain. We saw immigrants – from anywhere – as allies against the staid, settled, conservative society that our country still was at the end of the Sixties,” says Peter Hitchens at his blog.

“I now believe that the unreasoning hatred comes almost entirely from the liberal Left. Of course, there are still people who harbour stupid racial prejudices. But most of those concerned about immigration are completely innocent of such feelings. The screaming, spitting intolerance comes from a pampered elite who are ashamed of their own country, despise patriotism in others and feel none themselves.”

Amnesty Would Mean Trillions in Potential Costs

“Senators in the [Gang of 8] have suggested that cost will not be an issue because amnestied illegal immigrants will not be eligible for certain public aid and welfare programs during a temporary period of probationary legal status (although even this is in growing doubt given the outcome of the relevant vote during the recent consideration of the Senate budget). But, crucially, once this status ends and they become eligible for green cards, those who illegally immigrated will have access to a wide array of public assistance programs,” notes the Senate Republican Budget Committee Office.

“To be effective, any immigration reform must therefore ensure that a reliable public charge standard is being applied for all immigrants, legal and illegal, and that any incentive to immigrate illegally in order to receive public benefits is removed. This is a fundamental protection for taxpayers and a core legal and economic principle of immigration common to virtually all nations.”

Business Lobby Balking at Immigration Deal

“A deal between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and labor groups on visas for low-skilled workers was supposed to clear a path for an immigration reform package in the Senate. Instead, some business groups are grumbling about the deal and they’re gearing up for a lobbying battle on Capitol Hill — where powerful interests helped doom immigration reform over the same issue before,” Politico reports. “On Wednesday, the construction industry was the first to go public, saying they are ‘deeply concerned’ about the temporary worker program and that the cap on construction visas is ‘simply unrealistic and destined to fail.'”