Video: Kirsten Gillibrand caves in to illegal immigration lobby, supports amnesty

The saga of New York's new senator Kirsten Gillibrand continues. As shown on the video (from ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=93243; transcript of her remarks below), she's now fully capitulated to the demands of illegal immigration supporters and says she supports comprehensive immigration reform.

No matter what she wants to call it, "reform" will be seen as an amnesty by millions of people around the world. They'll respond by trying to come here illegally. At the same time, that reform will give even more political power inside the U.S. to the far-left, racial power groups, corrupt business groups, the Mexican government, and other similar groups. They'll use that increased power to allow more illegal immigration and to push for future amnesties.

Please go to one of Gillibrand's public appearances and ask her tough questions about this issue designed to reveal the flaws in her policies. Then, upload video of her response to video sharing sites like Youtube. See the question authority page for some sample questions you can ask.



On the full video, she says she opposed the earlier amnesty attempt because she thought it should have attempted to solve the eight year legal immigrant backlog in six months by hiring enough people; see this and this for the tremendous issues involved there.

She also says she opposed it because she thought the guest worker requirements - two years here, one year back home - was a recipe for failure because if they had jobs there they wouldn't bother to come here in the first place. Instead, she wanted a constantly rolling "guest" worker program where the "guests" wouldn't leave: they'd get a five-year visa which was renewable for another five years, after which they could apply for citizenship.

Here are the relevant portions of her remarks on the full video:

"I think we need immigration reform immediately... it's something that I think has to be on the national agenda this year, and I support an earned path to citizenship...and I support policies to put that in place so that we can have comprehensive immigration reform.

Now, when you use a term like amnesty it's a very divisive term. It's one that no one agrees on what the definition is.

So, you know, my understanding of amnesty is that if you are here undocumented/illegal that the next day you're legal. I think there's enormous consensus on that that is not the most effective way, it's not going to be passed in the House or Senate, but actually an earned path to citizenship is much more reflective of the consensus.

It's exactly what our other Senator supports, an earned path to citizenship. It's what Senator Clinton supported, it's what our congressional delegation supports. So I think by having a view that an earned path to citizenship will be much more effective and something that we can actually pass is the right approach.

...What I hope to do is to encourage the Obama administration to put a comprehensive plan on the table in the first year, because I don't think it should be a political issue... I think if it's something that if people come together and have the benefit of all the information I've had there's enormous room for agreement and there's a lot of common ground that can be developed in both the House and the Senate to get this type of legislation passed now."

Obviously, it was a political issue for her: she did something approaching a 180 after intense lobbying from the New York Times, Hispanic leaders, and other supporters of illegal activity.

UPDATE: As if all the above wasn't enough, from this 2/2 report:

[She] told a group of 16 New York City politicians that she will use the group as a sounding board to help form her immigration policy, Assemb. Peter Rivera said [after the 2/1 meeting].

And, according to this, Gillbrand met with Chung Wha Hong of the New York Immigration Coalition on Monday and expressed regret and admitted that some of her votes were wrong and then agreed to the following demands:

A moratorium on government raids until Congress approves comprehensive immigration reform.

Clearing the backlog of entry applications that have forced immigrant families to wait years to be reunited with relatives, and ultimately reducing the application processing time to six months.

Ensuring the temporary worker program includes a path to citizenship.

Tue, 02/03/2009 - 15:39 · · Importance: 14