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Conservatives oppose amnesty

October 5, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward

Last month, MyHeritage.org polled thousands of conservatives on one of today’s most important issues: illegal immigration.

The results are clear: conservatives oppose illegal immigration and any program that would reward lawbreakers. They also support fundamental changes to American policy to encourage skilled workers to immigrate and discourage employers from hiring illegal aliens.

A sampling of responses:

  • 96 percent oppose amnesty and 99 percent oppose a path to citizenship that is easier for illegal immigrants.
  • 88 percent support tougher employer sanctions.
  • 71 percent support building a fence along the Mexican border.
  • 63 percent support the creation of a guest worker program as part of a complete overhaul of the immigration program.

700 miles of border fence

Yesterday, President Bush signed into law a homeland security bill that will pay for roughly 700 miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border and other security measures.

At the signing ceremony in Arizona, the president explained what the bill provides:

The bill I sign today includes nearly $1.2 billion in additional funding for strengthening the border, for new infrastructure and technology that will help us do our job. It provides funding for more border fencing, vehicle barriers, and lighting, for cutting-edge technology, including ground base radar, infrared cameras, and advance sensors that will help prevent illegal crossings along our southern border. That’s what the people of this country want. They want to know that we’re modernizing the border so we can better secure the border.

This is a good start, but much more needs to be done if we’re to have real border security and an immigration policy that works. These are the principles that should guide Congress and the administration as we build on this first step:

  • There should be no amnesty for illegal immigrants—in any form. Reforms should uphold the rule of law and not encourage future illegal immigration
  • A new enforcement regime must include stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws both on the border and internally. The government should especially target employers who hire illegal workers.
  • Any temporary worker program must be truly temporary—workers should return home and their children should not automatically become American citizens. Tested on a small scale before implementation, it should help the economy and be market-based, not government-run.
  • Immigration reform must include a renewed emphasis on assimilating new legal immigrants into American culture and society in a self-confident program that reasserts core American values.
  • We must secure the cooperation of countries like Mexico to help stem the tide of illegal aliens. If they improve their economies, the incentives for illegal immigration will decline.

What do you think? Will the new fence secure the border or are more reforms necessary? Take the MyHeritage.org poll!

Sticking to principles and protecting America

“When Congress passed the law that will govern how terrorist suspects can be tried in military tribunals,” Heritage national security expert James Carafano writes, “it acted just like the Founding Fathers would have wished. It stuck fast to principles, the bedrock of values and beliefs that this nation stands for — and it compromised on particulars.”

Congress had to consider three principles when crafting the legislation, which allows the military to try captured terrorists without publicly revealing national security secrets. “Any suitable legislation would have to 1) respect the rule of law, 2) guarantee the basic human rights to the defendants and 3) respect the legitimate national security interests of the United States. By any fair measure of the legislation, Congress did all three.”

Keeping gas prices low

You’ve almost certainly noticed the recent decline in gas prices. These declines have occurred around the nation as supply fears ease. At the gas station around the corner from Heritage’s headquarters, for example, prices have dropped about a dollar in the past few weeks. This is certainly good news.

Heritage’s Ben Lieberman writes that now is good time for Congress to finally open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. “The underlying problems that created $3 gas can and probably will return unless we do something about it. Specifically, the tightness of world supplies and ongoing political instability among many oil-exporting nations underscores the need for America to make fuller use of the oil it has here at home.”

How spending reformers won

Yesterday, The Heritage Foundation hosted a panel that included several of the bloggers and newspaper reporters who were instrumental in educating Congress on the importance of earmark reform and transparency.

Tim Chapman, director of Heritage’s Center for Media and Public Policy, explained how an alliance of blogs from across the political spectrum acted together to back the transparency reforms proposed by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL). “The Blogosphere in the past has had a lot of victories and a lot of high-profile confrontations, but they’ve never enacted law. And they’ve never coalesced around an issue like this, with leftie bloggers and rightie bloggers.”

In other news

  • A federal appeals court decided Wednesday that the National Security Agency can continue its Terrorist Surveillance Program that monitors the communications of overseas terrorism suspects. After the American Civil Liberties Union sued to halt the TSP, a judge deemed the initiative unconstitutional in a decision that even liberal activists distanced themselves from. Yesterday’s decision allows the program to continue until the appeals court rules on the case.
  • Though you wouldn’t know it from reading the newspapers, the economy isn’t doing all that badly. Unemployment remains low, major retailers say sales are up as gasoline prices plummet, and the stock market hit record highs this week. There is some concern at the White House, though, that liberals will not act to extend the low tax rates on work and investment that have kept the economy going.
  • Venezuela’s demagogic leader Hugo Chavez likes to think of himself as a champion of the poor. But The New York Post’s Douglas Montero points out that Venezuela’s people are increasingly miserable under Chavez’s socialist policies.
  • Initial reports indicate that the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement will not cost as much as predicted—though its long-run costs are still predicted to reach into the trillions of dollars. “This is good news,” Heritage’s Bob Moffit told UPI. As The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday, the news shows that “private competition works,” even in cumbersome entitlement programs.

Coming up at Heritage

To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.