Sensenbrenner: no amnesty; perhaps U.S. Chamber of Commerce should register as foreign agent

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the House point man on immigration, yesterday said that a guest-worker program like the one proposed by President Bush is amnesty and that he cannot accept it in a final immigration bill...

"It seems to me that if you give these people the temporary cards, and the president talked a little bit about that yesterday out in Kansas, whether they are three-year cards or six-year cards or any other term, how do you get them to go back home when they expire?" he said.

He also said when Congress and the White House agreed in December 2004 to increase the U.S. Border Patrol by 2,000 agents a year, then two months later the president only funded 210 positions, it "was embarrassing both to the administration and those of us who fought for increased assets for border protection in the intelligence bill and then were let down."

...He also said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce "should be ashamed of themselves" for sponsoring meetings with Luis Ernesto Derbez, Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs, in Chicago in December, after which the minister criticized the House bill.

"What they are doing is saying that it's OK to use fake Social Security numbers. I don't think that anybody who is in business ought to be condoning the use of false documentation," Mr. Sensenbrenner said. "If they continue promoting speeches by Mexican government officials then maybe they ought to register as an agent of a foreign government under the law."

Immigration · Thu, 01/26/2006 - 06:56 · · Importance: 1