Tomorrow [on June 12], President Bush meets with Senate Republicans on the Hill to try to convince them to compromise on illegal immigration. And I hope the president is successful.
There are two extreme views on immigration that have to be knocked out of the box before any fair legislation can be passed. The first one, the first extreme position is personal: Some Americans object to mainstreaming illegal immigrants because they don't like Hispanics.
Now those people rarely voice that bias, but it's out there.
The second extreme position comes from Senators Edward Kennedy and Harry Reid, two powerful Democrats. Kennedy wants to let some illegal aliens who have committed crimes while in the USA stay under the new immigration plan.That is truly insane. Any illegal alien with a criminal conviction, out of here.
Senator Reid is the guy who wants a massive influx of foreign nationals. Somehow, he believes that if you cross the border illegally, that makes you an American.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR REID: And this week, we're going to complete that legislation. And we'll hopefully bring the final passage a comprehensive bill that will strengthen our border security and bring 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows and help our economy move strongly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Undocumented Americans? Hard to believe a thinker like Harry Reid could be the Senate Majority leader.
So in order to get a fair immigration law passed, extremists will have to be called out. And that's what I'm doing. Now last Friday, "Talking Points" put forth the no-spin immigration plan. It is posted on billoreilly.com if you missed it. It is one page long, not 800 pages like the Senate chaos.
I truly believe most Americans want the following:
- A secure border and illegal alien registration, so the Feds know who's here and what they're doing,
- A tamper-proof ID for those aliens
- And punishment for business people who continue to hire them after new rules are established.
And after that, I believe most Americans would accept the case by case evaluation of those here illegally. Some would be allowed to stay. Others would have to go. Depending on what benefits everyone in the country, not special interests.
So let's stop the nonsense. Isolate the extremists and marginalize them and pass a strong immigration bill that protects Americans, helps the economy, and is humane. It can be done.
And that's "The Memo."
Most Ridiculous Item
The magazine Adweek commissioned a poll and asked Americans who's a better source for news: ABC News or Bill O'Reilly? Uh-oh.
But the poll, amazingly, went our way: 36 percent said O'Reilly; 26 percent said ABC News; and the rest hung up the phone.
By the way, 23 percent of Democrats said I was a better news source than ABC. Very interesting.
Now, we don't know why they picked ABC News. But if they had picked NBC, we believe we would have won even bigger, which might be ridiculous.
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