October 31, 2007
McCain Would Now Oppose 'Dream Act'
John McCain, one of the main authors of sweeping legislation to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws that failed in Congress this summer, now says he would oppose a key portion of that bill that would affect college students.
The Republican senator from Arizona has previously supported that provision, which advocates refer to as the ‘Dream Act.’ It would set out a path to legal residency for some illegal immigrants who have been enrolled for at least two years in college or the military and make them eligible for certain federal aid.
But now Mr. McCain is backing away from the measure, according to The Washington Times. His role in crafting the broad immigration bill has alienated him from some of the conservative voters he is trying to woo as he seeks the Republican nomination for president.
In an article today, the Times reported that Mr. McCain said he would have voted against the ‘Dream Act’ on the Senate floor last week if he had stayed in Washington for the vote.
Advocates of the measure, S 2205, had sought to get enough votes to move the legislation toward a final up-or-down vote in the Senate. They needed 60 votes to do so but fell eight shy.
In explaining Mr. McCain’s change of heart, the newspaper quoted an unnamed “operative” for the senator’s presidential campaign.
“The senator has said 1,000 times since immigration reform failed this summer that he got the message,” that person was quoted as saying. “The American people want the border secured first.”
Sara Hebel | Posted on Wednesday October 31, 2007 | PermalinkComments
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Good! Now let’s get the border secured mach snell.
— S. Britchky Oct 31, 02:11 PM #
Absolutely! We need big, solid fences all the way across the southern and northern borders. It’s only a few thousand miles in each case. It’ll be no problem at all to build them, maintain them, repair them forever and staff them with thousands of new Border Patrol agents. A project like that will also give us something to do with all our pesky excess tax revenues.
— Al Oct 31, 03:23 PM #
Al,
Don’t worry about the cost of building thousands of miles of fences. We can hire illegal immigrants to keep the costs down.
— Bill Oct 31, 04:26 PM #
Illegal aliens don’t do the work Americans won’t do; they do the work there aren’t enough Americans TO do. America has nearly total employment. If we were to deport, prevent, or delay the constant flow of labor from south of the border, our booming economy would come to a standstill and then retract precipitously. It’s as simple as arithmetic. So, once you get used to that idea, it isn’t very hard to realize it makes sense to legalize them, give them residency rights, collect taxes from them, and, yes, extend some educational benefits, especially for those that serve in our military.
— marci Oct 31, 06:33 PM #
Isn’t it mach schnell?
— bob Oct 31, 07:02 PM #
I think it’s macht schnell.
— Roger Meyer Nov 1, 11:25 AM #