The debate is building over whether or not the pending national security/intelligence reform bill should address our porous borders. Now some of the families of 9/11 victims have jumped into the fray.
A group of families of September 11 victims yesterday told Congress to scrap the entire intelligence overhaul effort this year and start over next year rather than pass the pending bill, which omits strong immigration security provisions."You allowed the murder of my son. I will not allow you to kill my daughters," said Joan Molinaro, mother of a New York City firefighter who died September 11, as she first held up a picture of her son and then a picture of her two daughters. "No bill should pass the Senate, the House, anywhere, unless it contains immigration reform — you secure our borders, you keep my girls alive."
She and fellow leaders of the 300-member 9/11 Families for a Secure America sought to counter the publicity machine of those who support the bill by running radio commercials praising key House Republicans who blocked the bill from coming up for a vote on Nov. 20. The ads instead blame senators.
As the bill languishes in a conference committee, both sides are ramping up massive public-relations campaigns, with dueling press conferences yesterday and the promise of a busy week of publicity ahead.
Key House Republican negotiators want any final bill to include immigration security measures and protections for the military's ability to gather and use intelligence even under a new director of national intelligence. For now, those lawmakers remain at a stalemate with Senate negotiators, who are refusing to accept the immigration security provisions.
The Families for a Secure America said they think they have been shut out by press reports that blame the House rather than the Senate for blocking the bill and that focus on what they said is a minority of victims' families that support the Senate bill.
They said that's the reason for the new radio ads.
They and House Republicans both point to the September 11 commission's report, which calls for a national standard for verifiable driver's licenses. But Mr. Kean told reporters at a breakfast yesterday morning the commission was calling for standards such as biometrics, not a crackdown on whether licenses were being obtained by illegal immigrants.
"This just wasn't in our recommendations. We can't say it was," Mr. Kean said. "Our problem with it is not whether it's right or wrong, but whether because of that one provision, the bill should be held up for six or seven months."
But members of the Families for a Secure America said Mr. Kean wasn't being honest about what his report said.
"Chairman Kean is wrong when he says none of these provisions would have stopped the 19 hijackers. He should read his own report," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which hit the Pentagon.
Related:
• 9/11 Families for a Secure America
UPDATE: Power Line has additional links and opines: "If Congress starts over next year, it should also take a very hard look at the bureaucratic reshuffling provisions of the current bill."
Michelle Malkin has more and makes an important point: "It is vitally important that this message--pro-enforcement is not anti-immigrant-- get across to Washington in the next week when the debate over the "intel reform" bill reignites."
Posted by Alan at December 1, 2004 06:37 AM