I feel that it makes sense to address the most pressing immigration issues first: the 12 million illegal aliens in the country today.  After that figure out how to reform the H-1b, L1, H-2, and similar programs.

Personally, I believe there are too many immigration programs.  That has created many loopholes.  They need, IMHO, a single immigration track designed to create citizens - not serfs.  Abolish all the other programs because it over complicates the system and has created chaos.

As long as corporations are muddling the debate, it will always be about cheap exploitable labor.

Transcript

It is make or break time for the so-called grand bargain on illegal immigration amnesty over the next few hours. Senators are expected to vote on the legislation. Senator Jim Webb offering an amendment to the bill limiting amnesty to illegal aliens and joins us tonight from Capitol Hill.

Senator Webb, good to have you with us.

SEN. JIM WEBB (D), VIRGINIA: How are you?

DOBBS: I'm great.

WEBB: Other than upset.

(LAUGHTER)

DOBBS: I watched you introduce your amendment today. It made perfect orderly, rational sense to me. Any chance it would even get near the light of day in passage?

WEBB: I'm really hoping we will get a vote on it. If you look at all of the votes they have taken, the only vote we have been really been able to get on the Z visa program for these 12 million to 20 million people was a vote either to kill the program outright, or to let it go.

What I'm trying to do is bring reason into the process. I have been saying ever since I decided to run for the Senate last year, we have to gain control of the boarders. We have to get cooperate accountability, which is very much along the lines of what you just ran in your segment there. And I believe we need to minimize these guest worker programs.

And at the same time, I believe, that there are a certain number of people here in this country, who have put down roots because of the lax immigration laws over the past 20 years and deserve a path. But this idea of saying every single person who was here as of the end of last year should be accorded -- you know, this legalization, is not in the concept of American sense of fairness.

DOBBS: You talked about the fairness of this to American workers. The 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens, I couldn't agree with you more. There is a certain percentage, one can take the number four years, five years, as was the definition in last year's grand compromise, comprehensive immigration reform.

I just have a problem, Senator. I don't understand something. Senator Sessions addressed this issue today, the Republican senator from Alabama, saying the country doesn't trust the Senate. It doesn't trust this House and it certainly doesn't trust this president. There have been no public hearings on this bill, which has, according to the Heritage Foundation, a retirement cost for illegal aliens of $2.6 trillion, estimated.

We have not seen a fiscal, economic, societal impact statement of any kind, no public hearings. I just, frankly, don't get it. This is the end and all of the rest of it is political theater.

WEBB: There's a great deal of concern about the way the bill ended up on the floor, because it did not go through the normal committee process, which is one of the reasons we have been trying to amend it, in a way that's much more extensive than other pieces of legislation up here.

I want to reinforce something that you just said, to clarify my own views on this. Senator Dorgan and I both have said many, many times the number one concern that has not been on the floor during these debates is the condition of the American worker.

DOBBS: Right.

WEBB: And it's the number one reason I decided to run for the Senate, these issues of economic fairness, and what happen happened to the wage earners. They need to be a part of formula. We need to look after our workforce. We need to look after the concept of fairness in our laws, and we have to deal with people who are here in a way that I think is fair.

DOBBS: And you have made that clear. As has Senator Sanders, who I gave what I thought was an eloquent speech today on the floor.

WEBB: I was on the floor when he gave it, I thought it was quite a good speech.

DOBBS: It is jarring, I think, to many people to watch this proceed when -- it seems like the most rational and straightforward, commonsensical condition precedent to any attempt to really reform, with honesty, immigration law is to establish border security, to establish internal enforcement as Senator McCaskill said today. There's no doubt what the magnet here is, it's illegal employers.

WEBB: Absolutely.

DOBBS: And there's no capacity written into this legislation or contemplated that would bolster those agencies, CIS, to achieve what you're talking about, a rational, effective, humane immigration reform, and real borders and port security. This looks like a bad joke being played on the American people by both parties.

WEBB: We have to do enforcement at the workplace. There is no question about it. One of our colleagues on the floor today said that you're more likely to be eaten by an alligator than by to be prosecuted for hiring an illegal over the last year or two. That's on this administration because there are laws on the books that has to be done.

And also there's technology available, other than the wall concept we are talking about. For instance, we had a vote last night on technology that is like smart cards and this sort of stuff that were authorized more than 10 years ago that could be used if we want to really get control over the borders. And then we can deal humanely with the rest of this.

DOBBS: We are just about out of time, Senator. Do you think the cloture vote that Senator Reid has made clear he's determined to bring, will indeed pass? Debate be limited, and this legislation be passed?

WEBB: Personally, I believe that as long as this bill gives legalization to everyone who was here, as of the end of last year, it will be in real trouble. I am being criticized in my proposal because they are saying what are doing? You're cutting the baby in half. What are you going to do with the rest of the people who came in the last four years? What about the people who came here after January 1? There going to be here. What about the people who come after next January 1? We have to have a proper dividing line.

And I don't think this, personally, there will be big pressure from corporate America, as you mentioned. And also from the other extreme in the Democratic Party. But I don't see how this bill will pass if it has that in it.

DOBBS: Senator, your amendment I think, if I may say this, and express an opinion here straightforwardly, I think your amendment makes too much sense to receive a warm reception, but I wish you all the best. I think it would be an important -- an important reform of the reformed legislation, if you will.

WEBB: Good to be with you.

DOBBS: Senator Jim Webb. As always, thank you, sir.

The success of the global war on terror is touted by politicians who say that we haven't had a major attack on our soil since 9/11.  Often in the next news cycle, they tell us that we have no way to control our borders, that 900,000 or so illegal aliens are coming in every year, and that the only thing that can be done is legalize them.  The contradiction makes my head explode.  Obviously the only reason there hasn't been a major terrorist attack in this county since 9/11 is because the terrorists have chosen not to do it yet. 

If we can't control our own borders, we have lost our sovereignty to a substantial degree.  If we can't control our borders and enforce our immigration laws in the interior of the country, then the immigration laws are a sham and it doesn't matter what laws are passed by the Congress.

Jim Webb at least is talking about the American worker.  Does the Democratic party as a whole care about the American worker anymore?  For example, I just don't understand why Kennedy is the champion for illegal immigrants.  The American labor movement is being destroyed by the endless waves of illegals, and apparently that is OK with the majority of Democratic Senators.