Asa Hutchinson named the new undersecretary of the DHS

Asa Hutchinson named the new undersecretary of the DHS

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FROM: Roy Beck, http://www.NumbersUSA.com
DATE: 7 p.m., Monday, 25nov02
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Asa Hutchinson has been named the new undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in charge of border and transportation security.

Nearly all of the enforcement responsibilities of the old INS will be under Hutchison's care.

While in the U.S. House of Representatives (1997-2001), Hutchison earned an "A" grade on the ABI immigration report card.

He was a federal prosecutor before Congress. Since he left the House (voluntarily), he has been Bush's Drug Czar.

In the House, Hutchinson:

* Voted for using the military on our borders.

* Voted against the Section 245(i) amnesty.

* Played a special role in stopping an amnesty in 2000 when Pres. Clinton was trying to sneak some kind of amnesty into a emergency, end-of-the-year spending bill. NumbersUSA activists flooded congressional offices with phone calls and faxes for a week, trying to persuade Republican House Members to sign a letter prepared by Rep. Tancredo to Speaker Hastert. The letter pledged to vote against any spending bill that included any kind of amnesty in it and was a factor in Hastert's strong resistance to any amnesty that session. Hutchison was one of the 53 signers of that letter.

* In 1998 when Congress doubled H-1B visas (primarily for high-tech workers), Hutchison went against Republican leadership and was one of only 21 Republicans who voted for the Democratic Watt Substitute to require protections for American programmers.

* After the Watt substitute lost, Hutchison was one of only 34 Republicans who voted against the doubling of visas.

[Remember that Asa Hutchison is not Tim Hutchison who lost re-election for Senate from Arkansas earlier this month and who had a poor immigration record. The two are brothers.]

How Asa Hutchinson performs in his new job will depend a lot on what Pres. Bush wants to happen. But we will be in far better shape with a person whose heart appears to be in the same place on immigration as his former NW Arkansas constituents than we have been with James Ziglar who openly espoused amnesty for lawbreakers.

Although we all have a lot of reason to be suspicious of Pres. Bush, we have to give him credit for going with a real law enforcement person with a great immigration-control record.

How does this square with the trial balloons for another attempt at a Mexican amnesty coming from the White House? Hard to say. I was on MSNBC this afternoon on the Bill Press/Pat Buchanan show with a representative from MALDEF. The topic was the supposed new Bush amnesty. But there is real confusion about whether the White House has anything to do with these trial balloons. We can hope not. But if they ARE coming from the White House, thanks to all of you who are firing at them with your persistent faxing.