Clay Baxter, 1st Vice President, District 29, California Department, American Legion, represented the American Legion at the FIRE Coalition “National Security Conference,” October 03, 2008, at American Legion Post 132, Orange, California. Below are excerpts from his speech.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for being here tonight on this very important topic.
I’m representing the American Legion, not just District 29, but the American Legion National. This is the policy statement on illegal immigration, dated June 1st, 2008.
I’m going to go over the highlights of our stand on illegal immigration in the United States.
The American Legion is adamantly opposed to any illegal immigration and any and all forms of amnesty to those in this country illegally.
The American Legion requests an accountability of our elected officials in implementing and enforcing federal and international laws and treaties to eliminate the large number of immigrants from foreign countries that are in the United States illegally.
The American Legion also requests that all candidates for public office express publicly to the American people their positions and solutions to this grave danger to this country’s stability.
The American Legion went on record at its first convention this year in recognizing the threat of illegal immigration to this country’s security and well-being.
We encourage Congress to pass effective immigration laws and call upon all law enforcement agencies to cooperate in enforcing those laws.
Specifically, the American Legion recommends the following actions:
1. Secure the borders and other points of entry into the United States.
2. Eliminate the jobs magnet, and social service benefits.
3. Enforce the existing laws, and pass new laws to reduce the U.S. illegal population. Also, we’re working with state and local governments to discourage illegal alien settlements, and that specifically means “sanctuaries.”
Jumping back to the border issue, we’re already constructing physical barriers, and my travels to Arizona recently showed me 2 o’clock in the morning, you don’t go anywhere through Arizona without being touched by the Immigration Naturalization Service
More importantly, we need to enforce employer sanctions, and I mean with large fees, not just $2500.00 or $500.00, but get it up to $10,000 - $15,000 a person.
Also, making illegal immigrant residents ineligible for Social Security, and other government-sponsored public services, and eliminate the governmental financial aid for all illegal immigrant students.
This is a very important topic right now because of our recession that we’re entering, the financial crisis that our country is going through; all of these relate to jobs. They relate to taxes that we pay to send our students that live here in the United States legally, to college.
As far as the laws, we reject amnesty or legalization programs for any and all illegal aliens. We want to enforce immigration laws and promote cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials with emphasis on interior enforcement.
The American Legion opposes any legislation or executive order that would allow illegal aliens and others who are in this country illegally to receive in-state tuition rates, federal or other government education grants and/or financial assistance to attend college or university in the United States.
The American Legion is adamantly opposed to illegal immigration in any and all forms, and also to amnesty to those who are in our country illegally. We can do this through our representatives.”
I hope that you understand the Legion’s position. We are opposed to illegal immigration in any shape or form. Thank you very much.”
Clay Baxter
1st Vice President
District 29
California Department
American Legion
Jeff Lewis
National Director
FIRE CoalitionJeff@firecoalition.com
