Holding the hard line on immigration

Let you think that Fat Jim has moved even slightly on his hard-line anti-immigrant stance, check the Oconomowoc Focus story this week about his talk to local Kiwanians. Some highlights:

"They (illegal immigrants) distort the economy, they take away jobs from the communities, and many times they are paid cash," he said, meaning that often they do not pay taxes for the society they live in...

and

... the Senate's version of the bill ... allows current illegal immigrants, who have lived in the U.S. for five years, to gain U.S. citizenship by paying fines and back taxes for only three of the previous five years.

Sensenbrenner said that is basically giving criminals amnesty.

"By giving illegal immigrants amnesty, not only do you get U.S. citizenship for breaking the law, but you get a lot of money taken away from others."

If U.S. citizens were to only pay limited back taxes, they would be considered lawbreakers and prosecuted, he said.

"Amnesty will never be accepted by the American public," he stated.

Meanwhile, Latino evangelicals are about to abandon the GOP over the issue, The Christian Post reports:

[Rev. Samuel] Rodriguez [president of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference]. and others like him, are now questioning whether they can label the GOP party as the “party of Jeff Sessions, Tom Tancredo and James Sensenbrenner” who were strong opponents of the immigration bill, or the party of George W. Bush and John McCain who are both strongly in favor of the bill.