The House Appropriations Committee approved a stimulus bill on Thursday with two key amendments. Rep. Ken Calvert successfully added an amendment that would extend E-Verify for four years. Rep. Jack Kingston successfully added another amendment that would require any contractors awarded work through stimulus money verify the employment eligibility of their workers through E-Verify.
H.R. 662, Employee Verification Amendment Act of 2009, would reauthorize the E-Verify program for a period of 5 years. The E-Verify program allows businesses to determine the legal status of new hires and prevents illegal aliens from being hired, thus making the program an important tool in the Attrition through Enforcement anti-illegal immigration strategy.
Texas Representative Ted Poe called out the New York Times in a letter to the editor published on Thursday. Last week, the paper published an editorial entitled "A Sense of Who We Are" painting a harsh criticism of the Bush Administration's deportation policies.
Last year, Indiana Senator Mike Delph proposed an immigration bill that failed, but he's proposed a new bill which he says would be the toughest immigration law in the country. Delph filed Senate Bill 580 for the third straight year, which is designed to punish those who harbor, transport or employ illegal aliens in the State of Indiana.
Shirley (my wife) just got a call from her 99-year-old father (every year a Republican) who said Pres. Obama's inaugural speech made him hopeful. As for me, I was relieved that I didn't hear anything that spells trouble for us, and also hopeful because several major principles in his speech are recipes for doing the right thing on immigration -- even if Mr. Obama probably doesn't realize it.
In light of the Rev. Martin Luther King's two-decade civil rights battle celebrated today, your four-year fight for justice for Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean may seem small, but it is in the same vein. Large numbers of the people who begin a battle always fall off after awhile as the outcome becomes uncertain and duration too tiring, but those who never quit trying enjoy the sweetest satisfaction of all when victory finally comes. Thanks to all of you who have been sending faxes and making phone calls the entire four years.
During his final full day in office, President Bush commuted the sentences of former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. The two former agents had been sentenced after their involvement in the shooting a now-convicted Mexican drug smuggler back in 2005.
2010: Sponsored S.J.RES. 6, introduced by Sen. David Vitter (R-La)
Even if you think Border Agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos were guilty of over-zealously pursuing a convicted drug smuggler/illegal alien and shooting at him just before he crossed back into Mexico, there is no justification for them spending another month in prison (after two years already). Especially not when the man who prosecuted them says their sentences were too harsh. And especially not when you look at the other people Pres. Bush has pardoned and the terrorists that the new Attorney General backed for pardons under Pres. Clinton.
