There has been nothing from Congress close to a comprehensive bill dealing with Immigration but it does appear the public is leaning heavily in one direction.
Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits details the latest poll from USA Today:

While Congress and the White House remain divided over what to do with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the USA, a new poll shows the American public appears to have reached a consensus on the question.

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last weekend found that 78% of respondents feel people now in the country illegally should be given a chance at citizenship.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is drafting legislation to grant illegal immigrants an opportunity to stay in the USA, said: “As with so many issues, the American people are ahead of Washington on immigration reform. They know that only a plan that offers a path to earned citizenship will fix our broken system.”

Disagreements about the fate of the nation’s illegal residents were a major factor in the deadlock that kept Congress from enacting an immigration bill last year, despite the support of key Democratic and Republican leaders, as well as President Bush. The president and members of his Cabinet, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, have said it would be prohibitively expensive to deport all the nation’s illegal residents.

But many conservatives strongly oppose to putting illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. “You’d be rewarding them for breaking our laws,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif.

Perhaps we could all agree it is time for Congress and the White House to come to consensus on this issue. Not a quick fix, but enforceable law.

Complete USA Today story here.

What is it going to take for us to get meaningful immigration reform that keeps millions of illegal aliens from entering our country?

To me, that’s the biggest question of all. We need to keep them from entering the country first and foremost to stem the tide.

After that we need to start rounding up as many illegals as we can find and deport them to their country of origin. We need to enforce existing immigration laws that forbid employers from hiring illegal aliens. We need to stop figuring out ways to give these people drivers’ licenses. We need to stop providing free social services to them, and they should never collect one cent of Social Security benefits earned while they were here illegally.

Full disclosure: My niece’s father is Mexican and I don’t know if he’s legal or illegal, but my sister is an American and raised their daughter herself.

If a child is born to illegals in this country that child is an American according to the law. He should remain an American but the parents should be given the choice of returning to their home country alone and our country provides foster care for the child, or they can take the child with them and the child can come back here to live when he or she is 18 years old.

That would be ideal to me, but I’m not the president and I’m not Congress and they are the ones who have to wrestle with this problem, all the while calculating how many votes they can get if they can get the right to vote for these illegals.

Yesterday President Bush was in Arizona, checking out an area he checked last June and telling us of his latest plan to help resolve this problem that has been in the making longer than the years he and Clinton were both in office, but somehow it fell on his shoulders as though it were something caused by him.

“Securing the border is a critical part of a strategy for comprehensive immigration reform. It is an important part of a reform that is necessary so that the Border Patrol agents down here can do their job more effectively,” the president said.

Despite frosty relations with the Democrat-controlled Congress, Mr. Bush urged lawmakers to move forward with his five-point plan, the centerpiece of which is a guest-worker program that would give the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States legal status and a path to citizenship.

“Congress is going take up the legislation on immigration. It is a matter of national interest, and it’s a matter of deep conviction for me. I’ve been working to bring Republicans and Democrats together to resolve outstanding issues so that Congress can pass a comprehensive bill and I can sign it into law this year,” he said to applause.

After running into fierce opposition from his own party — which failed to pass the legislation when it controlled both chambers of Congress — the White House has overhauled its immigration reform plan. A draft sent out to advocacy groups and top Republican lawmakers calls for work visas to be granted to illegals but would require hefty fines and that they leave the U.S. briefly. They could then apply for three-year work visas, dubbed “Z” visas, which would be renewable indefinitely but cost $3,500 each time, and would eventually be able to apply for citizenship.

The revealed plan prompted thousands of demonstrators to take to the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday in protest.

The president’s trip yesterday was targeted at members of his own party, who have opposed his guest-worker program. He was joined by Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, whose support is key to any deal in Congress.

See full story.

The Democrats who run Congress now believe they were put in with a mandate to stop the war in Iraq and that probably was the number one priority of most of their voters.

What they, and a lot of people, fail to recognize is many conservative Republicans stayed away from the polls in droves last November over the illegal immigration issue.

We had at least one blog have a complete melt-down and fire all the bloggers because they didn’t toe the line of the owner, who never blogs except about illegal immigration and only because he’s a legal immigrant.

So these people who stay away from the polls really showed them, didn’t they? They’re the same ones doing the loudest howling about what’s going on in the congress they helped elect by their own inaction and temper tantrums. They wanted all or nothing, just as Arafat wanted all or nothing. They turned down a good percentage of what they wanted because they couldn’t get it all just as Arafat turned down 90% of what he demanded because he couldn’t get 100%.

I’m not now and never have been a single issue voter. I look at the platforms and the stands taken by the candidates for any office and go for the one I think best serves the interests of what concerns me the most, and right now homeland security is the most important issue to me, and that includes immigration reform. That does not mean, though, that I will stay away if a candidate disagrees with me on that issue but generally agrees with me on everything else.

I repeat: This was not caused by President Bush and yet he has been the one unfairly charged with the whole mess. He’s not the one who passes legislation, people. He just signs it into law or he vetoes it. It’s been that way for over 200 years now, so it should come as no surprise to anyone how our system works.

I may sound harsh in my ideal circumstances scenario, and it’s probably unrealistic to think it could all be done, but a journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.

I’m ready to back the president on his current immigration stand.

Now it’s time for Congress to quit playing the gotcha game and start passing some meaningful legislation.

Also blogging on this: Captains Quarters

While going to several appointments yesterday I was able to listen to the car radio, which is tuned to a talk station.

The big hot-button issue of the day was a Hispanic advocacy group asking the North Carolina state legislature to approve drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants. They are also lobbying to get a better wage for the illegal immigrants.

Excuse me, but aren’t they illegal immigrants, which means they shouldn’t be here anyway?

How brazen are these people going to get demanding “rights” while they are here illegally and by definition are criminals?

Actually, when I was taking driver’s education when I was a teen I remember the class being told driving is not a right—it is a privilege.

Go ahead and demand their pay be $10 more an hour than an American or legal alien gets for the same job and maybe it will cause a mass exodus back to across our southern border.

BTW, I live in South Carolina but am close to the North Carolina border so I get to hear the North Carolina news.

This is just mind-boggling to me.

According to this Fox News report in Texas illegal immigrants get at least six arrests before being prosecuted.

This is an agreement the US Attorneys in TX have made. The reason is lack of manpower and if the illegals insisted on going before an immigration court it would grind the process to a halt.

Guidelines issued by U.S. attorneys in Texas showed that most illegal immigrants crossing into the state had to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities would prosecute them, according to an internal Justice Department memo.

The disclosure provides a rare view of how federal authorities attempt to curb illegal immigration. The memo was released this week in response to a congressional investigation of the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys.

The Border Patrol makes more than 1 million arrests a year on the U.S.-Mexico border. T.J. Bonner, head of a union representing Border Patrol agents, said it’s unrealistic to prosecute all violators.

“Let’s be honest, there isn’t enough jail space to incarcerate everyone who crosses that border,” said Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. “If everyone demanded hearing in front of an immigration judge, it would bring our system to a grinding halt in a matter of days.”

It is unclear when the memo was written, but the Justice Department reviewed the guidelines sometime after a February 2005 performance review of Carol Lam, the top federal prosecutor in San Diego from 2002 until she was fired last month. Some Republican lawmakers had complained that Lam failed to aggressively prosecute immigration violations.

I wonder if that means she didn’t prosecute enough Border Agents and prosecuted illegals instead.

OK, they get six strikes, but one US Attorney, Johnny Sutton, gives the US Border Patrol agents and police officers being run down by vehicle by the illegal immigrants one strike and then asks for the highest possible jail sentence they can get in the same jails where some they have arrested now reside.

Maybe the US Attorneys should provide the illegals with a big patch to wear on their next “visit” to the United States stating, “I have 5 more strikes, don’t shoot at me” and on down the line.

Maybe then Johnny Sutton will finally leave the law enforcement agents alone when they apprehend illegals who are smuggling drugs or more illegals.

While I’m at it, I wonder what kind of jury pool he has in his jurisdiction that always convicts the good guy while believing the illegal?

As Yul Brenner as the King in the King and I said, “Tis a puzzlement.”

for the MP3 or go here for the transcript.

We are all very well aware of the fact that we have an illegal-immigration problem in this country. As usual, we avoided the problem for as long as we could and when we couldn’t avoid it any longer we were told that, indeed, somewhere between 12 and 20 million people had somehow come into this country unnoticed.
It’s like we went overnight from “no problem” to a problem so big that it now defies a good solution. It’s become one of those “there are no good choices only less bad choices” that Americans are becoming all too familiar with.

We know that the overwhelming majority of illegals come across the Mexican border. Fortunately, we’ve got someone who is all too willing to tell us what we should do about it — the president of Mexico Philipe Calderon. President Calderon doesn’t think much of our border policies. He criticizes our efforts to secure the border with things such as border fencing. He says that bottle necks at U.S. checkpoints hurt Mexican commerce and force his citizens to migrate illegally in order to make a living (and of course send money back to Mexico). He apparently thinks we should do nothing except make American citizens out of his constituents. Calderon also accused U.S. officials of failing to do enough to stop the flow of drugs in to the United States. Mexican politicians gave President Bush an earful of all of this during his recent trip to Mexico.

I think its time for a little plain talk to the leaders of Mexico.

Hat Tip: Oak Leaf.