Great Comments; you've said what I believe better than I could have; Thanks!

First of all the vast majority of America is anti-illegal. No matter how much you or other people try to deny it is still a fact. Second of all Bush is refusing to compromise with American People. Every American knows Bush is Pondering to his Corporate Contributors who want cheap labor. Plus how is America to compromise with a senate that has lost its mind. Social Security for Illegal Aliens???? Bottom line is America wants Harsh punishment toward Companies that hire illegals and we want all rights stripped away from Illegals. There is an alternative besides Deportation and it is not amnesty. We can make it so hard for Illegals they go home on thier own. Bush has showed his hand and America knows he is a fruad. If he is so worried about America's security he wouldnt b e trying to sell our borders to terrorists nations and he would close our borders for good.

"I don't know how or why immigration became the one issue that has got conservatives angry enough at the Republican Party to make them pledge to stay home in November. Perhaps it's just the straw that broke the camel's back."

here is an article addressing this point:

Bush's Base Betrayal

By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
(excerpt)

"Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.

In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.

We're still waiting.

Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows."
. . .

here is the link to the whole article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901770_pf.html

Although I'm a lifelong Republican, I'm not beholden to this party. There is no question that my party is now bought and paid for by "corporate america". The immigration bill proposed by Bush is one of many, mnay examples of this. I consider it as "unpatriotic" as any political move I have ever seen. To simply "sell out" the AMerican worker to simply supply business with cheap labor is disgusting. It makes me wonder what our men and women in Iraq are fighting for. A murderous dictator is only bad when his country dosen't have Aemrican corporate interests. AKA- CHINA. I seriously beleive that the damage that Bush, through this immigration proposal, has doen to America is far worse then any of the social damage of even Bill Clinton.

The GOP's real problem is that what they traditionally held up to be core values - small government, state's rights and fiscal restraint - are now, in retrospect, seen to have been mere tactics to fight the Democrats in power at the time. In other words, they didn't like what the federal government was doing, so the conservatives wanted to move power to the states, shrink the federal government and take all of their funding away.

Of course, now that the GOP has has the House, Senate and Whitehouse, not to mention an advantage on the Supreme Court, they can't seem to have a big enough or spendy enough federal government. And for of all those social issues that they wanted to be decided by the states - now suddenly they want everything to be decided at a national level - federal programs for education like No Child Left Behind, constitutional ammendments, pork programs and on and on.

The GOP either sold out its core values or never really had them to begin with.

The mistake that many pollsters are making is that GOP voters will stay home in November to punish Bush for selling out on immigration. Based on that the MSM the dems and the moonbats who frequent this site are predicting retaking the House in November. Let's analyze that.

The House Republicans have stood AGAINST the Senate and AGAINST the President by supporting control of our borders. So while the GOP base is angry...its angry with the President and with the Senate, particularly with McCain and Lindsey Graham. I can't understand how the defeatocrats are missing this. The support of the base will be there in numbers for the House candidates. So don't count your chickens moonbats.

On the otherhand...McCain is dead meat as a presidential candidate. The only way I would consider voting for him if he were running against either Shrillary or Algore. A moderate (is there such an animal) democreat would stand a good chance of beating McCain if he were strong on defense, fiscal restraint, and tough on immigration and border security. (of course if her were...he'd be running as a Republican).

"... but I'll accept the fact that this problem is not going to be solved overnight..."

The fact that you're accepting here is the usual political approach: Oh, complicated problem, we'll have to study it.
The actual FACT is that the problem can be solved virtually overnight if we would start arresting employers for illegally employing illegal aliens, and if we would start placing all captured illegal aliens in Sheriff Arpio's Arizona tent jail. The good sheriff states that he has room for as many as the government wants to send him. We could put the arrested employers in there as well.

Fact of the matter is that illegals will continue coming so long as

A) There continues to exist a huge "magnet" that attracts them here.

B) There continues to exist the practice of allowing big business to drive down the prevailing wages in Mexico and other central american countries.

The "magnet" is the practice of companies and big business hiring these illegals because they will work for much less than normal americans. This causes the companies profits to soar.

Most of america is against allowing illegals in, however at the same time, they think nothing of getting their car washed by an illegal at the wash, because it costs less than the one up the street that hires americans. They think nothing of buying cheap clothing and goods at walmart, that are created by illegals or are imported from countries that can make it for a fraction f the cost do to incredibly low wages. They think nothing of buying cheap produce, the majority of which are picked by illegals.

You can't have it both ways, you either crack down on companies and business that are hiring these workers, who will eventually stop coming because no one will hire them, and get used to somewhat higher prices on some things due to americans taking the places of illegals for normal prevailing wages.

Or get used to this because it will continue no matter what laws you pass, no matter how high a fences you build.

Successful change has to begin in america. Thats the only way it will work.

Build the wall.

Yep, build the wall, 30 feet high, solid concrete at a cost of just $500 000 a mile, thats just a measly $2 Trillion to cover the Mexico border, then another $3 Trillion to cover the Northern border, then another $10 Trillion to cover the east and west borders to prevent the ships full of immigrants coming in.

awesome plan, awesome. Then raise your income taxes to 50% to pay for it.

America can pay for the wall with the money we save on the heathcare and education costs of future illegal aliens.

whom the wall would prevent from illegally entering America.

"awesome plan, awesome. Then raise your income taxes to 50% to pay for it."

SHOW ME THE MONEY axis. Name your sources!

That would be called a sarcastic comment. That was the estimated cost of the "wall idea". $500 000 a mile. Thats comes to $2 trillion to cover the whole border assuming that there are no cost overages, which there are ALWAYS.

PLUNK. Now you have a $10 Trillion national debt. Someone has to pay for it. Who?

America had a $5.25 Trillion debt when Clinton left. Its now 8.3 Trillion. Add 2 trillion for the wall and another 2 trillion for the 2 years bush has left and so the day he leaves, you have a $12-13 Trillion debt. Is it going to pay for itself? At that level, it would cost about $38 billion per second in interest alone. How long do you think you can spend, spend, spend, borrow, borrow, borrow before you are bankrupt? When the money runs out, you go into a depression and government and spending collapses.
how long do you think foreign nations will continue to lend money to the US once it becomes clear it will take 50-100 years to pay it back?

Think about it. You make 30 000 a year and you get a $5 million loan then can't make the payments. What happens?

This is why Republicans make crappy governance. They just assume its an endless piggy bank and are happy to spend till its all gone knowing someone else will fix the problem. Regan, Bush sr., huge spenind, huge debts. This president is breaking all records and still has another 2 years to empty out and bankrupt the country.

At the moment, the debt is so high, it is depreciating your greenback to 30 year lows against other world currencies. The Canadian buck, 90 cents on your dollar. if was 60-70 cents 4 years ago. A few more years it could be at par.

Warning signs going off all over the place.

Freedom 1 Posted:

"America can pay for the wall with the money we save on the heathcare and education costs of future illegal aliens."

-- Really? Total healthcare for all americans spending is in the tens of billions. Take out 10% to account for the illegals.

$2 Trillion is 2000 Billion dollars.

I guess you went to a different math class than I did, because theres just a wee bit of difference between 10's of billions and 2000 billion.

"America can pay for the wall with the money we save on the heathcare and education costs of future illegal aliens."

That above comment was in part sarcastic. But if you want to address it seriously, the healthcare AND education costs for 11-20 million illegal aliens year after year after year after year after year after year after decade after decade after decade...well you get the picture, add up big time and would go a long way towards the funding of the US/Mexico wall. Stop the financial bleeding. Build the wall, now.

Yes freedom1, you are right.

It will only take about 200 years for your model to pay for the wall. So by 2206, it will have paid for itself in savings! Too bad you, your grandkids, your great grandkids and your great, great grandkids will all be dead and buried before that happens.

Those dumb illegals will never think of tunnelling under or going over like they do now over fenced sections of the border.

How much ya wanna bet that no immigration legislation will be passed? You actually think the House is going to capitulate to the Senate? Bush lost big time on the illegal issue. He gave amnesty aka guest worker aka path to citizenship. Bush should have had the balls to stand up before America and say "this is America where legal immigration is welcome, but illegals will be deported, detained, jailed, etc." Instead, we are looking at another 60 million illegals in the next 20 years. A do nothing Congress, a do nothing President. The American people deserve much better. I voted for Bush twice, I just wish he would have lived up to my expectations. When my father came here legally he gladly learned English. He never sent his money back to his native country. He became an American citizen. Secure the borders and our ports, insure our safety, get rid of the illegals, and put another 100k troops into Iraq and get on with completing the mission. Sheesh, ya don't have to be a politician to realize what is facing this country.

Nothing will happen, this is a smokescreen to keep your eyes from Iraq and to try to boost the poll numbers. A month after the midterms, this will be a dead issue

Mark, you have to be doing something right, to get the attention of the loony lefties in such numbers. Some Great Leader must have called them out to take you, and us, on. Did you notice the cliched comment from a so-called "lifelong Republican" who then went on to trash the party, and Bush? Like we haven't seen that before!!

OK, you guys---you have convinced me. You win. I give up. Thanks to your constant trashing of our President, I have decided not to vote for him again.

So...who ya got? Al "Rouge is my Friend" Gore? The one who WANTS $5.00 a gallon gasoline so we will stop using internal combustion engines? It's true, he does have strong ties with China and Russia, via the campaign contributions back in the 90's---maybe you think he will be a great dipolomat. But remember, with Al and Tipper in the White House, you'll have to go back on all your drug-use attacks. Which is OK, because even you had to cringe at claiming the the Prez is/was, a doper, and outrage at same, while you stay high as much as you can.

You hate Lieberman---he's not liberal enough for you, and besides, he's Jewish. Got to worry about that Israeli impact on our foreign policy, you know. After all, it is the Left whining about being in Iraq to support Israel.

Kerry? I think even you lefties are tired of his elitism, his ponderous pontificating, and his total irrationality regarding changing his position from one day to the next. But I hear he was in Viet Nam--maybe that will sway you. He was for it before he was agin it, so you would have all the bases covered.

No, you got nothing. Even the most ardent lefty has to cringe at the idea of hearing Hillary's fingernails-on-a-blackboard singsong for even four years, though you would have the prospect of more skirt-chasing in the White House to salivate over. Remember how you LOVED the vicarious thrill of having the Clinton hillbilly soap opera plaiyng out in the White House, with diddling in the Oval Office and lamps flying in the private quarters? It's been so DULL since then, with normal, decent, people there.

But you do have moveon coming up with a novel idea---let's be FOR something, for a change. Anything. Any ideas? Anyone? Is this mic on? How about being for being nice, having world peace, and no more suffering anywhere? Yeah, that's the ticket......

But the thread is about immigration, and you got nothing to offer there, either. Just more venom, more bile, more snottiness and snideness and total lack of content. And it is the Left who created the false dilemma of only two choices----masss deportation or mass amnesty including citizenship. While the grown-ups are trying to work out real solutions to real problems, you all are just having a real giggle, trying to take over a conservative blog with your inane childish ranting.