Democrats are still trying to get maximum effect of out the so-called House effort to felonize illegal aliens, even after the Democrats rejected an amendment to only charge illegals with an misdemeanor for illegally entering the U.S.
According to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, giving illegal immigrants even a misdemeanor is a civil rights violation that rivals herding people into incarceration camps.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert issued a joint statement April 12, that explained it was the Democrats who killed an amendment (roll call vote here) to downgrade making illegal immigrants felons and instead charging them with a misdemeanor.
I had the chance to ask Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee what happened in that vote and she explained to me that in order to even give illegal immigrants misdemeanors, "you have to corral them into the Japanese camps of the 1940’s."
Here's the full exchange below (the comparison to Japanese camps is underlined):
From what I understand is that Mr. Sensenbrenner offered an amendment at some point in time that would have pared down the felony aspect of it [border bill] to a misdemeanor and that didn’t pass. Can you tell me what happened with that vote?
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE: I absolutely can. You mean in committee?
Yes.
JACKSON LEE: Frankly, the vote went that way, as far as Democrats are concerned, I think Congressmen Lee said, we have a divide here between Republicans and Democrats on this issue and we are asking for a reasonable, rational approach. We think criminalizing lack of status is both frivolous and of course, has no basis in substance. The reason is, as I think my colleague Mr. Owens said, there is a lot of confusion of Americans. There is a question of those individuals of those coming across the border even as we speak and they are coming across illegally. There is also the question of individuals who have been in this country for years. Children who are in this country, obviously if they are born in this country they are citizens, but say they came over at two years old. They’re not. They are undocumented, they’re in our high schools, and they may be working at Burger King. They could be in our front lines in Iraq, they obviously have some documentation, but the question is that would make them a criminal whether it is a felon or a misdemeanor. And we are opposed to the policy of making people out of status, if you will, criminals. Particularly with no notice. That means the twelve million would be made criminals and so they have no notice of that. We need to fix our immigration system. None of us are running from border security. I just came back from Laredo, walked along the border, watched the activities at night, and stood along side the border security agents. I am not a wimp on border security. It is clear that we are a nation of immigrants, we are nation that was built on slave labor. I think it’s important when we discuss this issue that no group in America should feel left out. Whether it is the African American population, whether it is the impoverished population, whether it’s the rural population, whether its people that believe they have conservative, fiscal views, it shouldn’t be left out of that debate. We are doing that and that’s why the White House needs to take the bully pulpit and I think the President explained that it is absolutely frivolous to think that you are going to criminalize status. Why? Because that means that you will make local law enforcement the United States military. They’ll have to raid houses and corral people similar to the tragedy of the Japanese incarceration. That’s what it would be. In order to prosecute and ensure that you would have all of these individuals undocumented and there are 12 million of them you have to corral them into the Japanese camps of the 1940’s and we’re still apologizing for that tragic incident.
