Congress can block use of fees for immigration overhaul

The Congressional Research Service claims Congress can in fact block off funding to counter-act Obama's plan to allow some people classed as "illegal" to stay in the U.S. and avoid deportation.

The plan apparently could affect as many as 5 million people.

Congress could "defund" by adding specific language to a spending bill targeting the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency.

Perhaps Obama and Democrat strategists knew this ahead of time and will use the whole issue as a political tool if and when a Republican Congress takes such action.

The article mentions an "Executive Order", but fails to cite any actual Executive Order.

Congress can block President Barack Obama from using federal immigration fees to issue permits for millions of undocumented immigrants to stay and work in the United States, according to a congressional research memo released on Wednesday.

The memo from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service to Republican Senator Jeff Sessions could provide a boost to him and other conservatives who are pushing for a December budget confrontation with Obama to try to stop his executive order overhauling the U.S. immigration system.

Congress can block use of fees for immigration overhaul

** "Honk" if you want Congress to stop Obama's Executive action **

HonkHonk!!!

Allowing millions more to get SS and Medicare benefits is just going to lower the standard of care and jack up the cost for the rest. We, as a country, can no longer afford to give illegals a free ride.

My wife took the time to come here legally, and anyone who doesn't, the exit is that way.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

I am seeing this sentiment a lot lately to be honest and I can't say that I blame them for feeling that way. Sometimes it seems that those who try to do things the right way are punished for it (not just in this instance either). A lot of folks worked damned had to get here and become a citizen legally. They are even (more often than not) more appreciative of their citizenship than those of us who were born here. To have others just handed a free ticket probably is like a slap in the face to them.

Kudos to your wife for doing it the right way OR. She should be proud of herself regardless of what happens with this deal.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Thanks! She waited years and worked hard to get an education so she could come here.

They can pass anything they want. But Obama will still veto it.

originally posted by: DAVID64
HonkHonk!!!

Allowing millions more to get SS and Medicare benefits is just going to lower the standard of care and jack up the cost for the rest. We, as a country, can no longer afford to give illegals a free ride.

And how would you suggest we deal with it? The easy to get ones cost $12,500 each to deport, and as more are deported costs will rise. That's a minimum of $146 billion to deport them, and in reality probably closer to about $300 billion. Then we have to set up a fence so that they don't come back over, the current plan calls for $3.9 million per mile and there's 700 miles so that's another 3 billion, throw in the typical over budget spending and it will be $5 billion. Now we're at $305. The manpower needs another $34 billion over a decade so now we're at 340 billion. That's a pretty substantial chunk of change, roughly $3400 from each taxpayer. Are you going to accept the tax increase to do that?

How do you plan to debate the issue in Congress when many localities WANT the illegals because they're cheap tax free labor? Are you ok with forcing the feds into local governance issues? That will create a large slippery slope.

There will be a massive price to pay if we simply deport them.

a reply to: muse7

Then he vetoes the spending bill which defunds it.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: muse7

Then he vetoes the spending bill which defunds it.

That's right

a reply to: DAVID64

Welcome to the same argument, which is never mentioned by the government, but which we all think and object to in the UK where our health, housing and education services are all being swamped, so say nothing of the benefits that are actually sent abroad, whilst we all face severe cuts for the services - again we worked hard to have installed.

You can't have people simply crash your country and then manage to get themselves all the benefit generations of people have worked for so hard. In the UK we are inundated with foreigners and the country feels as though its on the tipping point now.

We are now finding that some of them are here who pose a direct threat to us and our way of life hence the murder on the streets of Lee Rigsby and no end of plots have been foiled to stop beheadings taking place - we even have copy cat beheadings which was something alien to most people here.

Immigration is a good thing in controlled numbers, not enmasse with huge numbers of illegals who we know nothing about as well as criminals creeping in.

Political suicide. Funny how GOP claim to like small government but you all want big government to control the Mexican workers? Hypocritical. Lie's to yourselves.

a reply to: Xeven

There is a lot of hypocrisy, but that's not one of them. What does controlling illegal alien workers have to do with American citizens? Nothing?

a reply to: Aazadan

Ok, here's my solution: First, we stop wasting money on them. Stop all the free hospital treatment, free medicines, free this, free that. Think that's heartless? Tough. I've run out of sympathy for people who break the law to come here and them expect us to take care of them, instead of sending them right back to where they came from. The ones who want to leech from a system they had no part in building. It will also send a message to anyone thinking of coming here. No free ride. We Can Not Afford It.
" This doesn't take into account the billions being absorbed by in-patient care delivered by hospitals."
Shall we had another 4.3, just to account for that?
There's the wall taken care of, with a bit left over to buy the construction workers a beer after it's done.

As far as the rest, we spend billions to keep them here, why not spend it to solve the problem? All we do, by giving them special programs, is encourage more to come, which will wind up costing us more. Mexico will throw you in jail for illegally crossing their border, but expects us to take care of their people who cross ours. Compassion and sympathy are all well and good, but not when it's costing us what we've worked all our lives for. If government can come up with billions to ship to other countries, they can damn well come up with enough to save our own.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the current cost of treating uninsured immigrants who entered this country illegally at all levels of government to be $4.3 billion a year, primarily at emergency rooms and free clinics. This doesn't take into account the billions being absorbed by in-patient care delivered by hospitals.

edit on 28-11-2014 by DAVID64 because: (no reason given)

a reply to: DAVID64

Why should the local governments that are employing most of the illegals such as the farming communities care? It's in their interest to not arrest and deport illegals because they greatly benefit the locals. The only way to get rid of them is for the feds to move in, which is a bit inconsistent with most peoples opinions here about a large federal government, they're simply using cheap labor the same way our corporations send jobs to China for cheap labor... capitalism in action.

As far as cutting off services goes, we could do that but it's not going to save us any money. Just like giving some services to the poor, giving them to the illegals (who are also qualifying because they're poor) functions as a way to reduce crime, and it's very cost effective. In just food stamps for example the general estimate is that every $1 in food stamp spending reduces the damage cost by crime by $2. So saving a billion there is actually going to cost us 2 billion and reduce everyones quality of life while we're at it.

a reply to: DAVID64

As far as the rest, we spend billions to keep them here, why not spend it to solve the problem? All we do, by giving them special programs, is encourage more to come, which will wind up costing us more.

Exactly! It costs us billions in healthcare and schooling alone. They can be deported. It is time we think of our citizens, our veterans, our elderly and children and everyone in between and all the people who are coming here with great respect for our laws and language the proper way. No more slaps in the face and placing illegals above all others. With every amnesty millions more illegals came over and over again. We were promised a secure border and it never happened.

a reply to: Aazadan

As far as cutting off services goes, we could do that but it's not going to save us any money. Just like giving some services to the poor, giving them to the illegals (who are also qualifying because they're poor) functions as a way to reduce crime, and it's very cost effective.

There are plenty of poor people who never resorted to crime. It is an individual thing and how that person reacts to situations. You certainly never mentioned the crimes of illegals and the thousands of citizens who have lost their lives because of them. I know a man who lost his only son because of an illegal, a son who he would still be seeing and sharing his life with if that illegal were never here.

a reply to: Aazadan

Why should the local governments that are employing most of the illegals such as the farming communities care?

You can show credible statistics and sources for this right?

I thought the "Guest Worker" programs handled most of the farm work.

Unless you are referring to fake i.d.?

a reply to: DAVID64

We, as a country, can no longer afford to give illegals a free ride.

America, as a country, can no longer afford to give its own citizens a "free ride"

The amount illegal immigrants claim pales in comparison to the amount of American citizens receiving hand outs. But dont worry though mate, our government here in the UK blames immigration for the excess of financialization and corruption by the political elite too.

Our banks stole hundreds of billions of pounds out of our economy, but I reckon that coloured fellow I saw at the bus talking in a funny language begging for food is the real culprit in all this.

originally posted by: Night Star
There are plenty of poor people who never resorted to crime. It is an individual thing and how that person reacts to situations. You certainly never mentioned the crimes of illegals and the thousands of citizens who have lost their lives because of them. I know a man who lost his only son because of an illegal, a son who he would still be seeing and sharing his life with if that illegal were never here.

Many don't. People don't function in absolutes (unless they're talking politics for some reason), but when a person has very little they become exponentially more likely to commit a crime. You could sum it up by looking at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The further down the hierarchy you go the greater extremes people will goto in order to meet those needs. I've been homeless and starving before so I understand it very well. Hunger can motivate people to commit crimes that they wouldn't otherwise commit, the same can be said of sleeping outside when it's below freezing.

To flip your story around, had that illegal not been a second class resident, and had some sort of upward mobility in life he wouldn't have committed a crime in the first place. Would that man have been willing to pay an additional $10 in taxes per year to reduce the chance of that outcome by 90%? I'm sure that he would certainly think so as would many others.

We need to secure the border to stop the flow of new illegals coming in, but we also have a responsibility to society to handle the ones that are already here.

originally posted by: xuenchen
You can show credible statistics and sources for this right?

I thought the "Guest Worker" programs handled most of the farm work.

Unless you are referring to fake i.d.?

I'm sure I could try and look up statistics but by they're nature they're going to be untrustworthy because statistics only work when using known quantities, illegals are an unknown quantity we don't know how widespread the problem is, we can only make estimates. At the same time though we do know that there's a lot of illegals being employed in in construction jobs, landscaping, farming, and so on. Those fields in many areas of the country have way more illegals working in them than legals.

I would assume lots of fake id's are being used, for tax purposes as well as giving the appearance of putting in a good faith effort to comply with the law the employers need to look like they think they're hiring legal workers. That would lead towards them hiring obviously illegal immigrants as long as they can produce a document that looks real.

a reply to: Aazadan

The only way to get rid of them is for the feds to move in, which is a bit inconsistent with most peoples opinions here about a large federal government,

No, we expect them to do their jobs. We don't need a bunch of new laws, when they fail to enforce what's already on the books.