Our victory was short-lived. They’re going to push the amnesty bill again, and this time they’ll vote for it. The keys? A scheme to spend a paltry $4.4 billion on border security — borrowed from the Treasury department, for some……

3. MYTH: Z visa applicants (current undocumented) do not have to pay fines.
* FACT: Z visa applicants will have to pay a $1,000 fine for heads of households and an additional $500 fine for each dependent (spouses and children). There will also be a processing fee of up to $1,500 and a $500 state impact assistance fee. The $1,000 is not the cost of the visa, but rather a fine for having broken the law. The processing fee will take care of the costs of the visa. The fines and fees are not the only hurdle – applicants must be employed, pass background checks, pay processing fees, and agree to meet accelerated English and civics requirements to get their Z visas.
* FACT: A Z visa holder wishing to remain in the country under their Z visa indefinitely would still have to renew their visa every four years. Renewing the Z visa means more processing fees (again, up to $1,500 each time). The financial liability for Z visa holders starts to add up very quickly if holders choose to remain in this status instead of pursuing Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status.

Now, show of hands – who believes that money is really going to get collected? ::looking around:: Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

This is a bad B movie.

Question:

Do the Z visas that everyone is entitled to under this plan require paying $5k up front? Or is that payment contemplated somewhere down the line on the path to citizenship? I’m unclear on this detail.

Dudley Smith on June 13, 2007 at 10:25 AM

If I remember correctly, it was a $1000 application fee up front, then the remaining $4000 would be paid somewhere further down the line.

As an aside, am I not doing the math correctly, or is Graham’s $4.4B for enforcement only a tiny fraction of the assumed windfall to government coffers to be collected from these fines?

(Most irritating/insulting) Canards/Straw men:
- Round-up and deport 12 million. Shut it O’Reilly!
- Sensors/Technology. (I know for a fact that they work! But…) BS! Useless w/out authorization to arrest, detain and/or deport; enforce.
- Funding. $15B emergency or $4.4B recuperative? BS! What happened to the $Bs previously designated…no doubt eaten by ‘ear marks.’ And since when did this administration or any current lib ever give a sh*t about spending/the deficit?
- Comparing a southern (+800 mi.!) wall to cold war Berlin. BS! Anyone (including me) can leave this country…anytime…unlike the former USSR/Eastern Block. Immigrants/Guests to the USA need start by knocking on the front door. First and foremost, like most advanced countries, we need to consider what an applicant for citizenship can do for us. For needed applicants we should accelerate the naturalization process. Increase the numbers per annum allowed. Do it legally. Do it in broad daylight. As is, our “legal” immigration system can and does work. I know. My wife is a naturalized American citizen.
- Status; i.e., Carte blanche citizenship status. Currently, it seems, illegal aliens cannot (officially) break an American law. How can they when they don’t (officially) exist to begin with? Paris Hilton pulls a 45-day sentence for what? Three traffic infractions? The Fort Dix six accumulated how many? 75? How many days in jail? Zero (until now)? Continue ad nauseam.

Anyone have a kid in need of an entry-level job? Anyone of any age struggling to find part-time work–you know, the kind of work that American’s supposedly won’t do (manual/menial labor, construction, food service, warehousing, harvesting, landscaping, cab driving, etc.)? Good luck finding a job (in ((too)) many areas of the USA). Yet business owners and managers are (obviously) more than content with suppressed wages, benefits (none) and worker’s rights; i.e., status quo.

Being perpetually lumped together by this congress (and MSM) with the +one-third of America’s documented/undocumented electorate, which has not progressed intellectually beyond ‘fire bad’, has given me disillusionment beyond anything Cindy Sheehan can be feeling. Where’s American (congressional) honor? What is the meaning of integrity? Am I hopelessly naive? I’ve lost trust. I’ve lost faith.

I didn’t serve (voluntarily/with other-than-military career options throughout) 25 years in military uniform for this.

Only the reality that conservative blogs (thank you Michelle Malkin!), conservative talk radio and (a too often half-stepping) Fox news managed to jar enough senators to the realization that they cannot take a significant, intelligent and conscious, percentage of the electorate for granted, at risk of their own jobs, incomes, futures and egocentric power allows me any optimism at all.

Do the Z visas that everyone is entitled to under this plan require paying $5k up front? Or is that payment contemplated somewhere down the line on the path to citizenship? I’m unclear on this detail.

Just exactly why is it that amnesty is so important and enforcement is not?

Even as the American public is forcing movement on this issue we’re still being hornswagled and back stabbed.

Ike didn’t need a dance and a kiss goodnight to get this job done, he put together a plan and followed through, using enough manpower and local law enforcement they went home if aliens know we’re serious they will now too, there’s not one thing in this world that says we have to keep anybody who has no right to be here.

It’s years too late for bribes and promises, only action will do and a President that performs his job duties minus the manipulations.

Exactly WTF is wrong with so many of our politicians?
Buzzy on June 13, 2007 at 7:58 AM

Why, it’s almost as if they’re playing a different game entirely, isn’t it?

Graham hopes to provide $4.4 billion the day the bill is signed, through an estimate in fees and fines in the current immigration bill, to be used to beef up all the border security measures in the bill,

Great…we can have a real border, but it will only be funded if we submit to amnesty.

No deal.

Scorched_Earth on June 12, 2007 at 11:26 PM

Incredible! Wednesday afternoon I sent both of my Senators from OK almost the same message. A phased approach is what is needed. I even suggested that businesses could be punished in the same fashion that drug traffickers are dealt with, confiscate their property! Make the penalty for using illegal workers hurt and business will stop using them. But the most important thing is to stop the flow across the border. Go after the reason for coming here, illegal jobs, then go after the ones that haven’t gone home.

Well written Scorched_Earth, much more wordy than my letter, but well said. I wouldn’t be opposed to streamlining the mess that immigrants must go through to get in our country legally, after all, it is the greatest one of all.

Bush and these idiots have had 6 years with Repubs controlling both houses for most of the time and they have done NOTHING (for those of you south of the Rio Grande that would be NADA). Now they aren’t getting what they want so their solution is MONEY?

Didn’t we already have MONEY authorized for the wall???

Go away !!!

DoctorDentons on June 13, 2007 at 7:10 AM

And this is the fallout from the dance they are doing.
People are now taking it out on the Hispanics who want to come to the U.S. for a better life. Nothing wrong with that, most of us have relatives that had the same dream. Most of us just want it to be legal and reasonable. We need to fix the system where entitlement does not drive the law. Once the borders are secure with a strong policy, the immigrants, who legally enter, will respect and honor our system. Just like the Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles, Armenians, etc.

Let’s not be hating people who want to come here and become Americans, it is the system and the leaders who have created the system that is broken.

“I will pay you Tuesday for a hamburger taco today”

They don’t get it, everyone (75%) is getting ticked off because of the arrogance of these leaders.

We will continue to say it: Secure the borders first, then we can talk about the other issues.

Just keep’n it simple.

How can we complained?

Fox News and AP finds Sen. Graham to be a principled author of the amendment.

The implication is that opponents are unethical.

(This is a feeble joke about FOX News’ Trish Turner and our friends at The Associated Press who do not know the difference between the homonyms principle and principal.

They are individuals who rely too much on the spellchecker because they were asleep in junior high school English class.)

This doesn’t even pass the sniff test and demonstrates that Graham is playing smoke and mirrors games right out of the box.

Try buying a new car out of your “future earnings” and then convincing yourself that your spending has not really increased and your debt has not gone up. Hey, while you’re at it, but me one too, since it is apparently free money. At least the way Graham is presenting it.

Why not be honest with the American people Mr. Graham. Have you forgotten how?

What part of NO AMNESTY do these lying a$$holes *NOT UNDERSTAND?

georgej on June 13, 2007 at 2:17 AM

Well, there is no word in Spanish: Amnesty.

You need to say No Amnistía. Then they might understand.