Frist and Tancredo Toss a Wrench Into Specter's Effort to Surrender to Illegal Immigration

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, (R-PA). and his committee are struggling to agree on an effort to wave the white flag on illegal immigration. Fortunately a week long break came up so they could punt their surrender until they returned. Just when it looked like they were out of range of any responsible action, along comes Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Colorado's Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Frist said his bill would include several measures already hammered out in negotiations under way in the Senate Judiciary Committee, including an increase in the number of border guards, more fencing along the Mexican border and faster deportation of illegal immigrants. But it would not create the temporary worker program that President Bush has urged to legalize the status of the 11 million illegal immigrants thought to be in this country.

Sen. Specter was miffed at Sen. Frist putting a two week time limit on the committee to produce a bill or he would introduce one of his own directly on the floor bypassing the committee.

"It would be chaos on the floor to have this bill debated without the committee acting first," Specter said yesterday afternoon, only to grudgingly accept Frist's move in the evening.

It takes a long time to craft a surrender bill that will fool the public into believing it will solve the problem so Specter is quite irritated at his fellow Republican. Then from the house as if to rub salt in the wound Rep. Tom Tancredo has the temerity to announce that the House will not accept a surrender provision.

Colorado's Rep. Tom Tancredo and 70 other U.S. representatives sent a letter today to a Senate committee, warning that legislation it's considering allowing illegal immigrants to work legally in the country will hit a roadblock if it comes back to the House.

"We are concerned that some of these proposals are fundamentally incompatible with the desire of the American public for real immigration reform and their clear opposition to reform proposals that amount to little more than thinly disguised attempts to provide amnesty," the House members said in the letter.

Definitely a bad day for the squishy Republicans