-By Warner Todd Huston
USA Today recently put a negative spin on Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s position about the so-called “Gang of Eight’s” immigration reform bill, characterizing her point as a mere attempt to “kill the immigration overhaul,” yet her points were more nuanced than that.
The paper claims that Bachmann “contends immigrants who came to the United States illegally shouldn’t be rewarded with legal status” and went on to note that she opposes any of the current ideas being floated for immigration reform.
But Bachmann has not said that she doesn’t ever want to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S., but that she simply wants to secure the border before any further discussion on what to do with those immigrants is had.
In a statement issued from her office on June 27, for instance, Bachmann noted that border security was talked about all the way back in 1986 but was never completed. “The Senate’s legislation for what it really is–amnesty now, border security never,” she said.
“The Senate’s amnesty legislation is symbolic of what’s wrong with Washington: A thousand-plus page bill, special backroom deals to buy votes and empty promises that won’t be fulfilled. It’s Obamacare all over again. Protecting America first must be our top priority, yet the Senate’s fake border security bill only ensures that we’ll throw billions of dollars at the border without any proof it will ever be secured. Have we learned nothing from 1986?” she wrote at the end of July.
Further, Bachmann has pointed out that too often these laws are made of empty promises and points to the Reagan era amnesty bill as a perfect example. On the floor of the House on July 9, Bachmann made this clear.
“What I fear is that if we combine [border security and amnesty] in so-called ‘comprehensive reform’ is we’re going to see selective enforcement and you’re going to pick and choose. We saw the President of the United States this week, twice, say that he is not going to enforce certain parts of Obamacare. Hey, fine with me. Don’t enforce any of it, but do it through the rule of law.”
Bachmann and several other conservative House members have called for a special meeting of House Republicans to thoroughly debate the ideas surrounding immigration reform before any bills are presented.
Bachmann also pointed out that the amnesty plans coming from the other side of the aisle is mostly a political move.
“Legalization equals amnesty, which equals citizenship. And that is the must-have. That’s the goal of the administration is legalization because they want tens of millions of voters to pay for, to vote for their agenda. That’s really what this is about. Everyone knows it. And it’s not about border security,” she said.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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