Nantucket raids net 18 immigrants

[off piste]

This is outrageous!!! These poor, hard-working people where just trying to excape hideous conditions in their own countries. Furthermore, they were simply committing the crimes that Americans were too lazy or unwilling to do themselves!

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070621/NEWS/706210338

Nantucket raids net 18 immigrants
By Patrick Cassidy
STAFF WRITER
June 21, 2007 6:00 AM

NANTUCKET — In response to a request from local police, federal immigration agents conducted a series of early morning raids yesterday searching for illegal immigrants on a list of about 26 "hard targets," most of whom had committed crimes on the island, the Nantucket police said.

"This was not a roundup of people here illegally," Police Chief William Pittman said.

Of the 18 people arrested, 16 had criminal histories and six had been ordered removed from the country by an immigration judge, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Two others were picked up because they were in the country illegally.

The raids occurred in several neighborhoods across the island, and the detainees were taken to Woods Hole on a Coast Guard cutter after being processed at the Nantucket police station.

From Woods Hole, the detainees will be moved to state and county detention centers before removal from the country or an appearance before an immigration judge in Boston, ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier said.

In the group were 15 men and three women from seven different countries, Grenier said. Because the detainees were arrested on administrative charges, their names will not be released, she said.

One of the women was released on personal recognizance because she is a mother, Grenier said.

"This is not New Bedford," said Nantucket police Detective Lt. Jerry Adams, referring to a March work site raid in that city that netted more than 350 illegal immigrants, many of whom left children behind when they were deported.

Nantucket police contacted ICE officials several months ago after a series of violent incidents involving immigrants, Adams said.

"We were looking for tools to deal with the criminal element in the community that has been victimizing all of us," Pittman said. "This is much the same as if we were doing a sweep on a bunch of drug warrants."

Pittman cited an incident in which police were driven from a home during an arrest attempt of an illegal immigrant and a serious motor vehicle accident where three pedestrians were run over at The Muse on Surfside Road as prompting local police to reach out to federal authorities.

Nantucket selectmen scheduled a hearing last night to discuss other complaints about the nightclub, Pittman said.

Some of those picked up in yesterday's raids were convicted or in the midst of court proceedings for drug offenses, assault and battery, and larceny, local and federal officials said.

"This is part of our mission: to prioritize and focus on criminal aliens and investigations," said Bruce Foucart, ICE special agent in charge for New England.

Police and federal agents knocked on the doors of several homes on Essex Road, according to residents.

Maria de Fatima Gomes, 28, who came to the United States from Brazil four years ago and cleans homes for a living, was one of four people picked up by federal agents at 49B Essex Road, said her brother, Jose Gomes. The three men arrested with her were painters and also from Brazil, a neighbor said.

Essex Road is home to a diverse community, and residents include immigrants from Bulgaria, Jamaica and Brazil, said the neighbor, whose family hails from the Dominican Republic. Although the neighbor said he was here legally, he declined to be identified.

Jose Gomes, 37, is in the United States illegally but was not arrested despite being questioned by immigration agents, he said. Yesterday afternoon, he collected his sister's valuables and made plans to sell her pickup truck.

At 15 Essex Road, agents entered shortly after 5 a.m. and before anyone opened the door for them, according to Yeseni Ayala, 26, a nurse assistant who lives at the home.

Ayala and her husband are from Puerto Rico, making them U.S. citizens by birth and everyone else in the home is in the country legally, she said.

"Even though we're Puerto Rican, they put us all in the same column," Ayala said.

Ayala said four or five Nantucket police officers and an equal number of immigration agents came into her home telling her that the door had been open a crack.

"It's surreal," she said. "I never expected to go through that."

No doors were kicked down and agents only entered homes when they were let in, according to ICE officials and Nantucket police. Foucart said he would look into Ayala's allegations.

For those on the list who were not picked up, Pittman suggested they should be worried.

"They should keep looking over their shoulder," he said.

ICE agents left the island yesterday, Foucart said.

Patrick Cassidy can be reached at pcassidy@capecodonline.com (//pcassidy@capecodonline.com/).

Detainee countries of origin

* Lithiuania

o Jamaica
o Brazil
o Cuba
o El Salvador
o Ireland
o England

[Mr_Cheeze]

Now, you see, if only those poor folks were given amnesty. Then they could face the judge, get off light, and continue with their careers as honest petty criminals.

I mean, what else is there to do on Nantucket?

[noreaster]

Why would anyone be against rounding up criminals, who live here legally or illegally? Send 'em home!

[geezer]

DO NOT SEND THEM HOME------------- SEND THEM HALF-WAY HOME!!!!!!!! That way they will not return like cockroaches!!!!!

[Slider]

Immigrants generally, and illegals most likely, too, commit less crime per capita than US citizens. All your ranting and other crap is at least partly racism, but it could simply be fear of anything different, not based on race. Rather than trust your gut, where all kinds of smelly things emanate, why not look at the research.

Slider

If there's a link between urban crime and immigration, sociologists say, it's probably not what you think

By Drake Bennett | January 1, 2006

AMONG OTHER THINGS, 2005 was the year that the Boston Miracle seemed to become a distant memory. The storied drop in the city's murder rate in the 1990s had drawn scholars, politicians, and police chiefs from around the country to observe and learn from Boston's crime-fighting prowess. But the murder rate has been climbing since it bottomed out in 1999, and this year it jumped to a 10-year high. Coming at a time when murder rates continued to fall in other big cities like Chicago and New York, the upsurge has sent local politicians scrambling for solutions, and examining what it was that worked so well last time.

To be sure, people have been dissecting and disputing the causes of the dramatic nationwide '90s decline in crime since it first showed up as a trend. Some credit innovative policing policies or tougher sentencing, others point to improving economic conditions or an aging population, still others the end of the crack epidemic.

The fact that the 1990s also saw one of the greatest influxes of immigrants in the country's history isn't often mentioned in these discussions. Crime, it has long been assumed, is one of the inevitable costs of immigration. As George W. Grayson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, wrote in the Washington Post opinion pages this summer, ''the evidence is overwhelming that an influx of poor immigrants-whether Italians, Irish, or Poles in the 19th and early 20th centuries or Hispanics in the late 20th and early 21st centuries-does bring crime, unruly drinking, public urination, unemployment, overcrowded dwellings, and property damage."

It may be surprising, then, to find agreement among several leading criminologists that immigration does not cause crime-and may even reduce it. None of them would argue that immigration is the most important factor everywhere, especially since the recent rise in Boston's murder rate comes as its foreign-born population continues to grow. But the increased flow of immigrants to major American cities nationwide, argues Robert J. Sampson, a Harvard sociologist and lead author of a major recent study on the topic, ''has been one of the more plausible explanations that we've seen for the decrease in the violence rate."

. . .

Skepticism about a link between increased crime and immigration isn't entirely new. Working in the 1920s and '30s, at the end of the country's last great wave of immigration, criminology pioneers Edwin Sutherland and Thorsten Sellin found that immigrants had lower crime rates than both native-born Americans and second-generation immigrants. It was American culture, Sutherland and Sellin concluded, that caused crime, and the less exposure to it one had the less likely one was to be a criminal.

Published earlier this year, the study led by Harvard's Sampson echoed these earlier surveys. Sampson and his colleagues followed a diverse group of nearly 3,000 Chicago youths from 1995 to 2002, and found that immigrant kids were less likely than peers of similar socioeconomic backgrounds to participate in everything from gang fights to arson to purse snatchings. Not only that, but even nonimmigrant kids who happened to live in immigrant neighborhoods were less likely than otherwise to be involved in violence.

Part of the explanation for this, Sampson says, is that immigrant families, while often poor, are more likely than other poor families to have stable, two-parent households, one factor widely understood to decrease the odds of violent activity.

But that didn't explain everything. In Sampson's study, simply being a first-generation immigrant, no matter what one's parents' marital status or one's education level, made one less likely to end up committing a violent crime. And while the immigrants in Sampson's sample were predominantly Latino, the trend also held for the African and Caribbean immigrants he followed.

Sampson and others can only hypothesize as to why. ''New immigrants," suggests John Hagan, a sociologist at Northwestern University, ''tend to be a self-selected group who are highly ambitious, energetic, innovative." Immigrants, it's been repeatedly found, are significantly more likely than their nonimmigrant neighbors to have jobs. Hagan suggests that they're also less likely to be interested in something as possibly ruinous as crime.

Ramiro Martinez, a sociologist at Florida International University, has come to similar conclusions by studying homicide rates among Latino and immigrant communities in Miami, El Paso, San Antonio, San Diego, Chicago, and other cities. In each, he has found immigrants heavily underrepresented-especially considering their socioeconomic status-among convicted murderers. Andrew Karmen of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice has found analogous results for New York state.

In fact, Martinez points out, some of America's best-known border towns have the country's lowest murder rates. ''San Diego, for example-a place that captures the public imagination with all this concern about losing the borders to Mexico-has one of the lowest homicide rates for any major American urban area in the United States." El Paso, another city seen as bearing the brunt of the swelling ranks of illegal immigrants, regularly ranks among the country's safest cities.

. . .

There are limits to the data in these studies. For one thing, they focus on violent crime rather than property crime, which is more prevalent. And little work has been done on immigration's effect on nonurban crime-perhaps understandably, since big cities both absorb most of the country's immigrants and experience most of its crime.

No studies, furthermore, have been able to determine whether illegal immigrants-who tend to loom particularly large in public fears-are as crime-averse as legal immigrants. On this front, though, criminologists have at least been able to make informed guesses. Sampson, for example, points out that 75 percent of the immigrants in his study listed themselves as noncitizens. While many of those may have been in the process of applying for citizenship, a good number, he suspects, were simply illegal. And Martinez claims that he's seen very few illegal immigrants in the prison populations, homicide reports, and detectives' assessments he's studied. ''They're laying low," he says, and committing a crime would only get them noticed.

Some, however, take issue with these findings-and not just anti-immigration activists. Wesley Skogan, a Northwestern University political scientist, has done detailed surveys of crime and quality of life throughout Chicago. Even when he controlled for poverty, he found an increase in the concentration of Spanish-speaking immigrants in a neighborhood increased ''crime, social disorder problems, and physical decay."

In part, Skogan argues, this is because Chicago's immigrants are largely young and male, and young males are invariably the most crime-prone segment of any population. In addition, he says, immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, drive up crime by serving as easy targets for what Skogan calls ''specialty gangs" who target illegals because ''they can't report crimes, and they're walking around with a lot of cash-they're called 'walking ATM machines."'

Skogan also points out that immigrant experiences vary widely, especially in the second and third generation. While Chicago's immigration is largely Mexican, ''if you're talking about New York, for example, it's a more complicated mix of people coming in."

Sampson readily admits that the immigrant effect weakens with each successive generation. Like Edwin Sutherland and Thorsten Sellin, Sampson finds that the children of immigrants are more crime-prone than their parents, the third generation more crime-prone still. Why that is, he admits, is ''really the $64,000 question, that's really at the forefront of the research."

What it suggests, though, is that the causes of crime lie less with immigrants than with the country that they, like generations of new arrivals before them, are busily assimilating themselves into.

[kernel crash]

I think that's a poor example to support your argument. Nobodys saying that legal Irish, Italians, Greek etc., are contributing to a major crime wave. Instead look at the border communities and look closely at their crime statistics. As far as Nantucket remember...

"Of the 18 people arrested, 16 had criminal histories and six had been ordered removed from the country by an immigration judge, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Two others were picked up because they were in the country illegally."

[Slider]

They were targeting criminals who happened to be illegals. And that represents what statistical trend, nationwide?

Slider

[Mr_Cheeze]

This article has one GIANT flaw that renders it useless. They make absolutely no distinction between illegal and legal immigrants. Any conclusion made, therefore, are moot

And besides, has that research been peer reviewed? Hmm? Oh wait, Harvard and Florida International University. Think they have any stake in trying to debunk "myths" connecting crime and immigration? How much of both school's student enrollment do you think is comprised of foreigners and/or immigrants?

The Northwestern University researcher points to data that doesn't exactly back up your sentiment, either. But again, there is no separation of legal residence status within the data.

[Slappy]

Immigrants generally, and illegals most likely, too, commit less crime per capita than US citizens.

Ummmm...the crime rate for illegals, by definition, is 100%. Dunno how we citizens can beat that. Maybe if we criminalized being a US citizen? Or maybe just a white male US citizen. That should get a lot of libereral support.

[Slider]

A kind of Original Sin, but with a Federal charge that starts at birth. Isn't that what Bush has done in abandoning habeas corpus? Seems like he's way ahead of you.

Slider

[Slappy]

Looks like Lincoln, Grant, and Slick Willy beat me and old George to it by a good bit.

:)

[kernel crash]

"In the population study of a sample of 55,322 illegal aliens, researchers found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Most of the arrests occurred after 1990.

About 45 percent of all offenses were drug or immigration offenses. About 15 percent were property-related offenses such as burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and property damage. About 12 percent were for violent offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, and sex-related crimes. The balance was for such offenses as traffic violations, including driving under the influence; fraud — including forgery and counterfeiting; weapons violations; and obstruction of justice.

Eighty percent of all arrests occurred in three states — California, Texas, and Arizona. Specifically, about 58 percent of all arrests occurred in California, 14 percent in Texas, and 8 percent in Arizona.

Sources: Government Accounting Office, US Department of Justice, National Security Institute"

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kouri/060622

[Slider]

This was a study of incarcerated illegals. It says nothing about the per capita rate of crime, which is lower than that of the US population generally.

Slider

[Slappy]

I still don't get it - if you are by your very presence in the country breaking the law, how does that not count as a crime? What's your definition then?

Also, love to see the numbers on those crime rates - got links?

[Slider]

You mistake me for someone who cares about how they got into the country. Let's talk residents, not legal/illegal, since that's what we'd have if we made sensible laws about immigration.

There are lots of references in the story I posted. Track 'em down, like I do for virtually every other thing posted here.

An easy one to confirm: Among large urban areas in the US, San Diego is among the lowest in homicide rate. Pretty telling.

Slider

[Slappy]

You mistake me for someone who cares about how they got into the country. Let's talk residents, not legal/illegal, since that's what we'd have if we made sensible laws about immigration.


Those parameters suck. Just cuz you personally don't care, we should all pretend we're in some alter libro-world where only the crimes Slider cares about count?
Uh...okay...and aren't you the one that demands substantiation on regular basis? Let's see yours then.

I did find this in your post tho:
"No studies, furthermore, have been able to determine whether illegal immigrants-who tend to loom particularly large in public fears-are as crime-averse as legal immigrants".

Hmm...guess that would explain the lack of facts.

[S2RT]

Because California has, what? (hint: more big cities) kinda closes the loop on that long winded diatribe a few posts back.....

[S2RT]

You mistake me for someone who cares about how they got into the country......
Slider

Wow- selective ignorance attemping to make an intelligent argument.

[Slider]

I guess that your two posts mean something, not sure what, though. More big cities lowers the murder rate somehow? Not caring how they got into the country equals ignorance?

As for legal vs illegal rate of crime, the problem is that the two haven't been studied separately. If you guys are assuming that illegals are any different than legals, you'd have to explain why.

Slider

[Mr_Cheeze]

If someone has to explain to you the difference, then what we have here is selective ignorance indeed. But since you want to act ignorant, I'll indulge you with an easy explanation:

Legal immigrants are, by and large, less desperate. Less desperation means less of a penchant for committing crime. This is the reason why the article you cited makes no differentiation between the two groups. Having made pains to do so would have completely imploded the argument they were trying to make. Completely. It's not as if there are statistics somewhere out there showing the crime rate of illegal vs. legal aliens. Why didn't they use them? Answer me that. It would have strengthened the argument by a longshot if they had shown no difference in crime rates between the two groups.

[Slappy]

If you guys are assuming that illegals are any different than legals, you'd have to explain why.

Slider

By the same token, here are a few statements YOU need to explain:

"Immigrants generally, and illegals most likely, too, commit less crime per capita than US citizens."

"...the per capita rate of crime, which is lower than that of the US population generally."

Oh, and many if not most of us legal immigrants think you need to quit leveraging our accomplishments to support illegals. Kick them out and let them do things the right way, like we did. Thanks.

[Mr_Cheeze]

But then you would be kicking out lots of Democrat constituants.

[gixxerw]

I work with a few Legal immigrants and it took them on average 10 years to get all the paper work done. They hate illegals even more then most of us because they give them a bad name.
They are all committing crimes just by being here that is the word "ILLEGAL" right?

[Slappy]

Not in Slider-world I guess. Still waiting for him to define what constitutes a crime 'out there'....

:rolleyes:

I work with and know scores of people who immigrated legally and dozens more that have been working their way thru the system for years now. Letting in the fencejumpers scot-free is a kick in the nuts to those trying to play by the book. Build the fence and ship 'em back. Or let some silly out-of-touch liberals personally sponsor them somehow.

[Slappy]

Hey - three guesses who posted this?

(Hint - if anyone else posted it, he'd be calling them out as 'racist'.)

"Even when he controlled for poverty, he found an increase in the concentration of Spanish-speaking immigrants in a neighborhood increased ''crime, social disorder problems, and physical decay."

[Slappy]

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/ci_6240930

:har:

Good riddance.

[off piste]

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/ci_6240930

:har:

Good riddance.


http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/party/party-smiley-020.gifhttp://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/party/party-smiley-027.gif http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/party/party-smiley-048.gif

[BG]

"Even when he controlled for poverty, he found an increase in the concentration of Spanish-speaking immigrants in a neighborhood increased ''crime, social disorder problems, and physical decay."

WOW...physical decay, damn i've GOT that....must be Spanish speaking immigrants in MY neighborhood. Guess i'll have to double up on the supplements.

BG

[S2RT]

Would that be total physical decay, or could we be talkin finrot or some other localized deterioration?

[Mr_Cheeze]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062800960.html



http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/party/party-smiley-020.gifhttp://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/party/party-smiley-027.gif http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/party/party-smiley-048.gif


Maybe Slider and President Bush can console each other.

[off piste]

And don't forget Chappaquiddick Boy -- this was his and President Bush's baby.

http://www.thoseshirts.com/images/square-large-vodka.jpg

[off piste]

Funny thing -- someone on another forum posted this link to this story on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/28/immigration.congress/index.html

Originally, it contained these two lines:

President Bush's immigration bill essentially died Thursday in the Senate, when members voted against advancing the controversial legislation.

and

Bush had lobbied heavily for support for the compromise legislation, which was also crafted by Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.

A few minutes later, I was going to use that second quote in a response here, only to find it had been edited out and the first still remained. Good to see CNN is as unbiased as Slider and Traibait (where's he been? Must be Gitmo) keep telling us.

[off piste]

Original Version:

enate immigration bill suffers crushing defeat
POSTED: 11:56 a.m. EDT, June 28, 2007
Story Highlights• NEW: Three Democratic freshmen who won close races in '06 voted "no"
• Vote was 46 to 53, 14 shy of 60 votes needed to end debate
• Senate essentially kills bill until after 2008 elections
• Bill was centerpiece of Bush's 2nd term; aimed at legalizing 12 million

Adjust font size:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's immigration bill suffered a crushing defeat Thursday in the Senate, when members voted against advancing the controversial legislation.

The tally was 46 to 53, 14 votes shy of the 60 needed to end debate.

The bill would have provided a path to citizenship for some of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and toughens border security.

Supporters and opponents of the controversial legislation said that it probably won't be resurrected until after the 2008 elections.

The controversial bill won support and derision from both sides of the political aisle. Those voting in favor included 12 Republicans. Sixteen Democrats voted against it and 18 senators switched their votes from an earlier vote on the bill on Tuesday.

Those who voted "no" included three Democratic freshman -- Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb -- who won close races last year against conservative Republicans.

Bush had lobbied heavily for support for the compromise legislation, which was also crafted by Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Senators were voting against cutting off debate and referring the bill for a final vote.

On Wednesday, supporters beat back a number of potentially fatal amendments.

Proponents won a major victory with defeat of an amendment removing the bill's most controversial feature -- a path to legalization and eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country, which critics charge amounts to amnesty. (Watch challenges rise and fall )

"I think most people will recognize that citizenship is the most precious gift America can provide," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, the sponsor of the amendment. "There are many of us who believe it should not serve as a reward to those who broke the law."

Senators voted 56-41 to table his amendment, effectively killing it. However, in a sharp illustration of the political heartburn the "amnesty" debate is causing Republicans, Bond's proposal was supported by 33 of the Senate's 49 GOP members, along with eight Democrats.

Also defeated Wednesday was an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, that would have required adult illegal immigrants to return to their home country within two years in order to apply for a new type of visa that will allow them to stay in the United States indefinitely.

Hutchison said the change would "send the major message ... that you cannot come to our country and stay illegally and eventually get regularized without ever having to apply -- according to the law -- from your home country."

But opponents of the amendment said the so-called "touchback" requirement would render the program largely useless.

"What immigrant is going to show up and register for a program if he has to take his chances on leaving the country and coming back in before he gets some kind of immigration status?" said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. "What immigrant is going to report to deport?"

In the end, the Hutchison amendment was tabled on a 53-45 vote.

Senators also turned back two Democratic amendments, from Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, that would have made it easier for immigrants to bring family members from their home countries to the United States.

Liberal critics of the immigration bill have complained about a new points-based system that would sharply reduce the role family ties now play in decisions about who can come into the country.

By a 79-18 vote, senators shot down an amendment by Webb that would have limited the legalization process to illegal immigrants who have been in the country at least four years, rather than covering all of them in the country at the end of 2006.

Wednesday's wrangling on the Senate floor was conducted under seldom-used rules designed to keep opponents of the immigration reform bill from using the legislative process to block it.

All of the changes were being handled as one overall amendment, with separate votes on each proposal, allowing leaders to keep critics of the bill from offering their own amendments from the floor.

Republican opponents have strongly objected to the procedure, even though it was agreed to by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

"[We're] frustrated about our ability to exercise our rights as duly elected officials," said Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana.

CNN Correspondents Dana Bash and Andrea Koppel contributed to this report.



Latest version.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/...ess/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/28/immigration.congress/index.html)

Senate immigration bill suffers crushing defeat
POSTED: 1:02 p.m. EDT, June 28, 2007
Story Highlights• NEW: Bush says "Congress must prove ... it can come together on hard issues"
• Three Democratic freshmen who won close races in '06 voted "no"
• Vote was 46 to 53, 14 shy of 60 votes needed to end debate
• Bill was centerpiece of Bush's 2nd term; aimed at legalizing 12 million

Adjust font size:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's immigration bill essentially died Thursday in the Senate, when members voted against advancing the controversial legislation.

The tally was 46 to 53, 14 votes shy of the 60 needed to end debate.

The president, who visited the Capitol this month to push hard for the legislation, delivered a brief statement shortly after the vote saying he was "sorry" Congress could not reach agreement, calling its "failure to act" a "disappointment."

"Congress really needs to prove to the American people that it can come together on hard issues," Bush said.

The bill would have provided a path to citizenship for some of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and toughens border security. (Watch senators' passionate arguments for and against the bill before the vote )

Explaining his reasons for voting against the bill, GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions, a leading critic of the measure, said "it would not work."

"Our analysis was that it would result in 8.7 million more people in the next 20 years here illegally," he said.

Supporters and opponents of the controversial legislation said that it probably won't be resurrected until after the 2008 elections.

Another Republican opponent of the bill, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, said the vote sent a crystal clear message "that the American people want us to start with enforcement, both at the border and at the workplace, and don't want promises. They want action, they want results, they want proof, because they've heard all the promises before."

Sessions said there would be "no permanent hard feelings over this among the people who wanted to pass a bill they thought would help America."

Backers of the bill, Sessions said, were simply "trying to work a compromise to pass something" and called on members "next time" to pass legislation that "will work."

The controversial bill won support and derision from both sides of the political aisle. Those voting in favor included 12 Republicans. Sixteen Democrats voted against it and 18 senators switched their votes from an earlier vote to advance the bill on Tuesday.

Those who voted "no" on Thursday included three Democratic freshman -- Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb -- who won close races last year against conservative Republicans.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid said the defeat is "not a time for pointing fingers. It's not a time for casting blame. It's a time for recognition that immigration is a problem that needs to be fixed."

On Wednesday, supporters beat back a number of potentially fatal amendments.

Proponents won a major victory with defeat of an amendment removing the bill's most controversial feature -- a path to legalization and eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country, which critics charge amounts to amnesty. (Watch challenges rise and fall )

Senators voted 56-41 to table his amendment, effectively killing it. However, in a sharp illustration of the political heartburn the "amnesty" debate is causing Republicans, Bond's proposal was supported by 33 of the Senate's 49 GOP members, along with eight Democrats.

Also defeated Wednesday was an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, that would have required adult illegal immigrants to return to their home country within two years in order to apply for a new type of visa that will allow them to stay in the United States indefinitely.

But opponents of the amendment said the so-called "touchback" requirement would render the program largely useless.

In the end, the Hutchison amendment was tabled on a 53-45 vote.

Senators also turned back two Democratic amendments, from Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, that would have made it easier for immigrants to bring family members from their home countries to the United States.

Liberal critics of the immigration bill have complained about a new points-based system that would sharply reduce the role family ties now play in decisions about who can come into the country.

By a 79-18 vote, senators shot down an amendment by Webb that would have limited the legalization process to illegal immigrants who have been in the country at least four years, rather than covering all of them in the country at the end of 2006.

[kernel crash]

Finally they got something RIGHT in Washington. Maybe there is hope for the Republic after all. Damn I'm feeling good today. Look for a full court press to reign in conservative talk radio as the Dems lick their wounds. But if they want a fight, looks like we can give it right back to them.

[Slappy]

Ahhhhhh.....


(that's a sigh of relief)


:D

[Rich6896]

This was a study of incarcerated illegals. It says nothing about the per capita rate of crime, which is lower than that of the US population generally.

Slider

2004 numbers:
Roughly 17 percent of the prison population at the federal level are illegal aliens. That's a huge number since illegal aliens only account for about 3 percent of the total population