Senator bases amendment on Internet rumor
The depths of stupidity in the U.S. Congress never cease to astound me: [W]hile the people of Gaza would seem to have enough problems without getting embroiled in a budget fight in Congress, Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, pushed for an amendment barring any money for relocating refugees from ...
The depths of stupidity in the U.S. Congress never cease to astound me:
The depths of stupidity in the U.S. Congress never cease to astound me:
[W]hile the people of Gaza would seem to have enough problems without getting embroiled in a budget fight in Congress, Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, pushed for an amendment barring any money for relocating refugees from Gaza to the United States.
Not that the bill ever designated any money for that purpose. Mr. Kyl just wanted to be extra sure and, in doing so, to force Democrats to take a politically charged vote. The same was true for another amendment Mr. Kyl put forward to prevent any money in the bill for reconstructing Gaza from being diverted instead to Hamas.
Emphasis mine. As a close observer of the budget fight told me Friday, there was never any question that U.S. taxpayers would be funding a scheme to move Gaza refugees to the United States (more here). But reality is one thing, and politics another.
Then there’s the issue raised during the floor debate by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy. What if there are good people who want to come to the United States? From the record:
[T]he Senator from Arizona [Kyl] has offered amendment No. 629, which would prohibit the use of any funds in the omnibus to resettle Palestinians from Gaza into the United States. We are going to vote on that tomorrow.
Frankly, it is unnecessary and for the United States, a nation of immigrants, it goes against everything we stand for.
We don’t resettle anybody from Gaza, nor do we resettle anybody from Gaza who is living in the U.N. refugee camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan. The amendment is a solution looking for a problem. If a Palestinian from Gaza gets to a place like Italy, or somewhere in Europe, the amendment would prevent the State Department from even considering that person for resettlement to the United States. We would have to tell them sorry, you can’t come in, because you are from a place that has terrorists.
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