1993. Sen.
Harry Reid (D-NV) stood before the Senate in September to bolster his
Immigration Stabilization Act just seven months after two CIA agents were
killed at Langley headquarters by Pakistani illegal aliens and six months after
the first World Trade Center bombing perpetrated by a group of Islamic
terrorists that included illegals. Reid was on a mission to put an end to the
immigration problem that was plaguing the United States. Some may say, after
hearing his words, that he sounded exactly like Donald Trump does today.
It has been
Trump’s strong stance on fixing a completely shattered immigration system that
has garnered him the most criticism. Illegal aliens pour into this country
every day, mostly from Mexico, and with that bring financial burdens to
American cities, not to mention crime and other maladies. The United States
can’t support such a system for much longer.
At one time,
Harry Reid believed that, too. As he spoke from the Senate floor 23 years ago,
Reid made his case before President Bill Clinton to end the “insane” birthright
citizenship, clamp down on asylum seekers, like those who bombed the WTC, and
finally, the deportation of criminal aliens.
Below are
several quotes from this speech and press releases related to the bill. His
words are virtually indistinguishable from Donald Trump's:
“Our federal
wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps,
medical care and other benefits often without paying any taxes. Safeguards like
welfare and free medical care are in place to boost Americans in need of
short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and
scam artists from around the world.”
“We admit the
equivalent of a major city without any assessment of whether these newcomers
are likely to be contributing members of our society. Only a tiny fraction of
those admitted each year enter because they have skills and abilities that will
benefit our country. The rest come merely because they happen to be relatives
of other recent immigrants. The result of this so-called policy is that there
is now a backlog of almost 3 1/2 million people--the population of a city the
size of Los Angeles--who have a claim to immigrate to the United States for no
other reason than they are somebody's relative. Is this really a way to run
immigration policy?”
“The illegal
alien population is growing by more than a quarter of a million people a year,
we think, with the best statistics we have. Yet we are doing almost nothing to
encourage these people to go home or even to deter them from coming here in the
first place. In many parts of the country we actually make it easy to be an
illegal alien.”
“If making it
easy to be an illegal alien is not enough, how about offering a reward for
being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again.
If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give
birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee full
access to all public and social services this society provides. And that is a
lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at
taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal
alien mothers?”
“I wish the
statements I have been making were some kind of a nightmare or dream, an
aberration. But they are true. But they do not stop. Not only do we admit more
than these 100,000 people each year without knowing who they are or why they
came, we actually give them all the documents they need to simply disappear
into our society.”
“It is fair to
say that this country does not have a policy but, rather, an inchoate and often
incomprehensible hodgepodge of statutes, regulations and procedures. In other
words, what we have is a mess that is only likely to get worse unless we
demonstrate some courage legislatively.”
“The most
important question we need to ask is whether our children and grandchildren
will be better off as a result of this staggering increase in population. Will
our children and grandchildren enjoy the same quality of life as we have had?
Will they have the same opportunities, the same freedom of movement and
mobility? Can the melting pot absorb and absorb and assimilate and assimilate
people arriving at this rate? Or will we become increasingly isolated and
alienated from one another?”
If this were
turned into a game of “Who said it: Donald Trump or Harry Reid?” most would
choose Trump every time.
And what’s
worse, in 1993, the number of illegal aliens Reid was complaining about were a
fraction of the illegal alien population today. But when Trump warns of the
dangers of illegal immigration, the Democrats of today punch back that our
country was founded as a nation of immigrants. Reid had an answer for that back
then, too:
“Proponents of
the status quo argue that any attempt to reform our Nation's immigration
policies is an affront to our immigration tradition. It is an argument I hear
over and over each time we attempt to have meaningful debate about U.S.
immigration policy.
“From 1820
until 1965, a period encompassing most of the history of this Nation, the
United States admitted an average of 300,000 immigrants a year… we are now
resettling between 1.2 million and 1.5 million newcomers every year--about the
size of the State of Nevada, every year. There is nothing traditional or
rational, for that matter, about attempting to absorb the population of Nevada
every year, year in and year out.”
Reid’s words
were correct for that time and still stand true today. That’s not something
you’ll read very often on TruthRevolt, but Reid was right on this one!
So, what’s
changed?
The only conclusion is that the Democrats saw how many new voters were
coming into the country who could be spellbound by all of this free stuff and
keep them in office forever.
And what a great tradeoff it is: millions of
Democratic voters in exchange for rape, murder, drunk driving accidents, and a
heavy financial burden on the rest of us legal citizens.
Once upon a
time, common sense reigned supreme, even in our political system. Sure, politicians would argue over subsidies
and entitlements and other fiscal issues. But before our body politic was
hijacked by a cartel of special interests who worship the pagan gods of
political correctness and selfish parochial desires, both progressives and
conservatives had a sense of justice and fairness as it relates to illegal
immigration.
On January 25,
1993, two CIA agents were shot and killed outside of the Langley headquarters
by a Pakistani illegal alien. A month later, a group of Islamic terrorists,
that included several illegal aliens, executed the first bombing attack on the
World Trade Center. Even though these
events were not prototypical of the predominant illegal immigration problems we
experienced from the southern border, none other than Harry Reid wasted no time
in demanding comprehensive enforcement against all illegal immigration.
Reid
introduced a bill on Aug. 4, 1993, the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993
(S.1351), which would have ended birthright citizenship (an idea he called
“insane”), clamped down on asylum seekers (very pertinent to World Trade Center
bombing), expanded deportation of criminal aliens, increased penalties on
re-entries and visa fraud, and excluded all legal immigrants from admission who
“cannot demonstrably support themselves without public or private assistance.”
In a press
release unveiling the bill, Reid noted the following:
"Our
borders have overflowed with illegal immigrants placing tremendous burdens on
our criminal justice system, schools and social programs. The Immigration and
Naturalization Service needs the ability to step up enforcement. "Our
federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare,
food stamps, medical care and other benefits often without paying any taxes.
"Safeguards like welfare and free medical care are in place to boost
Americans in need of short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to
entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world.”
He added this
Trumpesque line:
"Even
worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here
illegally."
Remember, this
is at a time when the illegal alien population was just 3-4 million, and the
fiscal and criminal cost incurred by this country was a fraction of what it is
today.
On September
20, Reid delivered a riveting speech on the Senate floor covering every talking
point Jeff Sessions, Steve King, and Donald Trump have ever mentioned – and
then some. [Congressional Record, page
s11999] His speech was prophetic and
ahead of its time, warning of the ill effects of both illegal immigration and
unbridled legal immigration on our criminal justice system, education,
hospitals, welfare, and culture. Reid
cited an observation from Bob Dole that “wherever he travels around the
country, he is confronted with concern about the direction of the policy of
immigration as it relates to the United States.” And Reid added, “these are not racist people
who are raising this issue.”
Fast-forward
22 years later, and the cost and danger to our society from illegal immigration
are incalculable – far beyond Reid’s worst nightmares in 1993.
Later in the
year, Reid added an amendment to the 1993-94 crime bill, co-sponsored by such
liberal luminaries as Sens. Bob Graham (D-FL) and Alan Simpson, (R-WY), that
closed all sorts of loopholes dealing with criminal aliens and mandated more
cooperation between local and federal law enforcement.
Fast-forward
22 years later, and the cost and danger to our society from illegal immigration
are incalculable – far beyond Reid’s worst nightmares in 1993. We have
experienced an endless slew of murders, rapes, and drunk driving incidents from
an infinite flow of illegal immigrants, culminating with the two murders over
the weekend. These murders are the
direct result of not only the political disregard for immigration enforcement,
but the official and relentless dismantling of interior enforcement and
cooperation between state and local law enforcement.
Instead of
Democrats and Republicans coming together to immediately address this national
emergency, not a single GOP leader will fight against sanctuary cities and
Obama’s abolishing of Secure Communities and the 287g program. In fact, John Boehner spent Independence Day
overseas promoting more amnesty and the very policies that have encouraged this
calamity in the first place. Harry Reid
himself was forced to have an ideological sex change operation because of the
special interests that have taken over his party.
modern-day
Republicans cannot even hold the ground held by the Democrat leader on
immigration just one generation ago.
Stand back and
behold just how corrosive and destructive the cult of political correctness and
special interests politics can be to the very existence of a nation and its
sovereignty. It would probably take a
PHD in math to calculate the cost of illegal immigration to this nation – both
tangibly and intangibly – since Reid sounded a frenetic alarm 22 years
ago. Yet, modern-day Republicans cannot
even hold the ground held by the Democrat leader on immigration just one
generation ago.
Instead of
wetting their pants over Donald Trump, the short-sighted and capricious
political class would be wise to study Harry Reid’s speech from 1993.
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