Tom Tancredo Stands Tall
Posted by Raven on December 27th, 2005
For months now I have been in awe of this man who dares to speak the truth, who takes a stand on issues that others seems to find repulsive and negative. Tom Tancredo isn’t afraid of the status quo and he doesn’t allow his “party” to bully him. I respect this. The fact is he speaks for a lot of us when it comes to illegal immigration. His fellow Republicans have tried to ignore him and take away his importance, but his voice is being heard by more and more people.
DENVER, Dec. 21 - For nearly a decade, Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, has been dismissed by his critics as little more than an angry man with a microphone, a lonely figure who rails against immigration and battles his own president and party.
So radical were his proposals - calling for a fence along the United States border with Canada, for instance - and so fierce were his attacks on fellow Republicans who did not share his views that many of his colleagues tried to avoid him. Mr. Tancredo said Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser, had told him not “to darken the doorstep of the White House.”
But last week, the man denounced by critics on the left and on the right suddenly emerged as an influential lawmaker. Pressured by conservative constituents angered by the continuing flow of illegal immigrants into the United States, Republicans rallied around Mr. Tancredo to defy the president and produce the toughest immigration legislation in more than a decade.
Mr. Tancredo and his allies fought successfully to strip the measure of any language offering support for Mr. Bush’s plan to provide temporary legal status for illegal immigrants working in the United States. And he helped win support for provisions that once seemed unthinkable to many lawmakers, like the construction of five fences across 698 miles of the United States border with Mexico.
Tancredo has stood the test of time. And effort. And it is paying off. These Republicans who have drawn battle with him are looking out for the interest of cheap labor, over national security. It is a BIG issue with me and many others, and the party better start paying attention to MY voice.
Mr. Tancredo did not get everything he wanted. He still wants a moratorium on legal immigration, soldiers on the border, a longer fence (and one along the border with Canada) as well as a law that would deny citizenship to children born to parents who are not citizens or permanent residents. And many Republicans and Democrats say it seems unlikely that the border security bill passed by the House last week will become law in its current form, if it ever becomes law at all.
But as a jubilant Mr. Tancredo returned to his office here this week, there was little doubt that he had become a symbol of the ascendancy of deeply conservative thinkers in the bitter Republican debate over immigration policy. The lonely firebrand had become the man of the moment, and he could not help but marvel at the wonder of it all.
“I would have said to you a month ago or so, ‘Yeah, it’s definitely the case that I am a pariah,’ ” Mr. Tancredo, 60, said. “And a lot of people don’t want to get near me for fear of being tainted or something.”
“But it has changed, and I have had the greatest feeling of respectability lately,” he said, laughing. “I joke with people all the time now. I say, ‘I’ve got to find a new issue because I’m way too mainstream.’
“I’m, like, respectable and respected. I mean, it leaves me speechless.”
The bill will be ripped apart and chewed up and spit out in a form we don’t recognize. If we allow it to happen. Those who share the concerns about this need to speak up, call their elected officials and talk about this. Hell, talk is cheap.
I threatened my vote when I “talked” with my reps…they vote this bill down, they lose my support. Plain and simple.
It leaves his critics outraged.
Advocates for immigrants sent press releases after the House passed the border security bill, accusing the Republican Party of threatening vulnerable immigrant communities by catering to the extreme right. Business leaders, who had pushed their traditional allies in the Republican Party to support Mr. Bush’s guest worker plan, fumed.
Republicans, like Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona, who lost the battle to include at least a mention of the guest worker plan in the bill, shook their heads in frustration. Asked whether Mr. Tancredo and his allies had more success in the negotiations over border security than did supporters of Mr. Bush’s plan, Mr. Flake responded, “You bet.”
But Mr. Flake said he believed that many Republicans voted for the bill because they believed it would never become law. Mr. Bush had said that immigration legislation should include his guest worker proposal, which would allow those currently in the United States illegally to work here legally for a few years before being required to return home and, if they chose, apply for re-entry. And the Senate is expected to take up such a measure next year.
With midterm elections looming, Mr. Flake said, many Republicans simply wanted to address voter concerns about securing the border.
“We weren’t so much making law as making a statement here,” Mr. Flake said. Mr. Tancredo’s allies countered that his support from fellow Republicans was more than a matter of political expediency; they said it signaled a shift in the immigration debate.
Using such a serious issue as illegal immigration to pacify voters is just wrong. To vote for something without really expecting it to become law is just lazy. And to be more concerned with the labor aspects of this bill- the guest worker program language-for business that is too cheap to pay Americans a halfway decent wage…is cowardly.
“Tom was like an Old Testament prophet crying out in the wilderness, and finally people are starting to listen,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigrant Studies, an advocacy group that wants strict limits on immigration.
Mr. Tancredo laughs at the furor. He is genial and ruddy faced, a grandson of Italian immigrants who loves hunting and keeps Oliver L. North’s “Mission Compromised” on his bookshelf. And as he settled in a chair this week to ponder his career, his hands sliced and diced the air. (”It’s the Italian in me,” Mr. Tancredo said, describing his gestures. He says he sees no contradiction in his strong views and his own immigrant ancestry.)
After he was first elected to Congress, in 1998, Mr. Tancredo tried to draw attention to his stance on immigration by giving late-night speeches on a House floor almost entirely devoid of spectators but broadcast by C-Span. He created an immigration caucus, got 16 Republicans to join and became its leader.
Stop it with his ancestors…they came to America the right way…they wanted to become citizens and they worked hard to become so…unlike the parasites we see today, who come here just to reap the rewards of work and then go home- to Mexico. The blood suckers who will bleed to death our healthcare systems and other resources…who have babies just so they can come to this country…
Today, Mr. Tancredo has a caucus with about 90 members and a reputation as a go-it-alone politician willing to sacrifice almost anyone - including his colleagues - to his passion for enforcing and tightening the nation’s immigration laws.
In 2002, he read a front-page article in The Denver Post about parents who were struggling to send their son to college. They were ineligible for financial aid because they were illegal immigrants. Outraged that the family felt comfortable enough to appear in plain view, Mr. Tancredo called the immigration authorities and asked to have them deported.
I would have done the same damn thing. The gall of these illegals, who think they are entitled to aid and welfare and other programs that we, the legal citizens, pay for. Fuck them. Kick them out.
The border security measure would make it a federal crime to live in the United States illegally, which would turn millions of immigrants into felons, ineligible to win any legal status. The bill would make it a crime for employees of social service agencies and church groups to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants.
The legislation would also require the mandatory detention of some immigrants, would withhold some federal aid from cities that provide immigrants with services without checking their legal status and would decrease the number of legal immigrants admitted annually by eliminating a program that provides 50,000 green cards each year.
“This is a gesture to the xenophobic wing of the party, and that is alarming,” said Cecilia Muñoz, a vice president at the National Council of La Raza. “It threatens extraordinary harm to people.”
Mr. Tancredo fears that moderate Republicans, allied with the White House, business leaders and immigration advocates, may derail his efforts by sinking the bill. And so he is considering taking extraordinary measures, including running for president in 2008.
If he runs he gets my vote. I will support him and volunteer on any campaigns in my area. I have written to my reps, as well as called them, to voice my support for this bill (and my threat of my vote going to someone else….LOL)
These so called “moderate” Republicans better be listening to those who put them where they are…it is the voters who gave them their jobs, not the immigration advocates and business leaders. I stand with Tom Tancredo. Does anyone else??
December 27th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
:idea:
Here is a place to examine what others are saying about illegal immigration: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/closebordersgroup/.
The only draw back is it is yahoo group open only to members, however it is huge and if you promise to be a good boy and stick to the issue of Illigal Immigration you will get in.
Illegal Immigration is an issue that will have to be dealt sooner than later. Mostly because it is more than a few Mexicans looking to find a better living and ship some dough back to Mexico. The problem now is terrorism and how that may affect the lives of citizens in America.
December 27th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
Tancredo has been sounding the alarm for years, and has been derided for expressing his concerns. Well, he was right, wasn’t he?
The problem is that we’ve been infiltrated by hordes of illegals and, as you pointed out, the taxpayer shoulders the burden.
December 28th, 2005 at 4:54 am
Tancredo will get the maximum allowable donation from me, and yes, Raven, those Republicans who have, of late, been suffering from spinal melt syndrome had better get themselves a miracle cure or they may find themselves having to rehang their shingles and go back into private practice after the next election.
December 28th, 2005 at 5:30 am
Tom Tancredo Stands Tall
My friend Raven, at And Rightly So, posts excellently on Tom Tancredo, one of the few members of Congress today who has shown the courage to stand up to the PC forces that protect illegal immigrants and promote ignorance of…
December 28th, 2005 at 11:20 am
I am under the impression as a Houston resident that many of the illegals here aren’t able to vote and many in the Hispanic community don’t vote at all. When these folks do vote it’s typically as a Democrat. I’m really wondering why our politicians pander to this group! I’m really glad to see one of our own getting the spine and moving us forward.
December 28th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
rehang their shingles
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
December 28th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
LOL!
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
December 29th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
It doubtful that the Minutemen and other low-tooth-per-capita watchdogs would put up a fight if a legion of near-sighted Icelandic female basketball players decided to seek asylum in the U.S.
Seriously -which of your ancestors came over on the Mayflower?
December 29th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
My ancestors came over on the Mayflower Mr MyPetGloat and if there had been an immigration department then, I know they would have done it legally. We dont care about the legal ones we are talking about those doing it illegal. When crooks do something illegal they usually go to jail but not these too lazy to learn english.
December 30th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
Pappy - As opposed to those too lazy to learn proper sentence structure?
December 30th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
So these illegals come in, millions of them, and hospital emergency rooms get packed with undocumented patients, dispense meds and give treatment for free while lawful, paying or insured citizens wait in line, and the hospitals lose money and perhaps eventually have to close their emergency rooms — unless, of course, we take the liberal route — use our tax dollars to subsidize treatment of people whom the law says shouldn’t even be in this country.
I love the way the left completely ignores the term illegal, which is what these people are when they sneak across the border, pure and simple, when it suits their agendas, yet has no problem accusing Bush of breaking the law when he uses confirmed legal Presidential wartime authority to defend Americans against terrorists.
Sheesh!
This is why, despite your Utopian pipe dreams, you won’t be seeing another Democrat in the White House anytime soon.
December 30th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
Yeah it would just be terrible if anyone who walked into an emergency room got treated. God save the private healthcare system.
Why without that, America would be just like Canada or Sweden or one of the other countries that are truly more free than America.
December 30th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Well, what are you waiting for, Timmah?
That gives you two options that are so much better than this oppressive, God worshipping, capitalist republic hell.
On the one hand, you could hold season tickets for Maple Leaf home games, on the other, you could be curled up in front of a roaring fire with Agnetha and Freida.
What’ll it be, “take off to the great white north”, or a one way ticket on SAS?
December 30th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
Is Timmah the grammer king or queen. A one tooth redneck has more brains them him or her or is it it does.
December 31st, 2005 at 3:22 am
Awesome.
Do you have downs syndrome or is this some sort of hilarious act?
January 3rd, 2006 at 4:23 pm
So these illegals come in, millions of them, and hospital emergency rooms get packed with undocumented patients, dispense meds and give treatment for free while lawful, paying or insured citizens wait in line, and the hospitals lose money and perhaps eventually have to close their emergency rooms
Any statistics (a variety of reputable sources would be nice) or proof outside of anecdotal evidence you and your compatriots may or may not have to back that whopper of a statement up, if you please?
Hypothetically, if such a thing were to happen on more than isolated occations, I would be rather upset- however, since I have yet to see any evidence that such accusations (which have, as you are no doubt aware, been floating around in the great toilet that is the internet for some time now) have any merit whatsoever.
Like the so-called “welfare queen”, this phenomemnon is likely to merely be either an isolated occurrence blown to epidemic proportions by sheer listeners to the original story, a total fabrication or (most likely) an isolated occurance revised and expanded to serve as a talking point for those in favor of severe action against illegal immigrants.
January 4th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Guinessguy - Good luck trying to get these guys to back up their statements, they just tend to move on to the next subject when you reveal their ignorance.
January 4th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Oh, I know- still, it needed to be said, if only to shut ‘em up.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
dont fuck whit me! Viva mexico, Cabrones!