amnesty

amnesty, Fort Dix 6, Political wind

Scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill: Fred Thompson

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Congress is likely to approve the latest comprehensive immigration reform measure before the public even gets a chance to see it. Like all previous amnesty legislation, Congress is putting the cart ahead while the horse remains missing; illegal immigrants will get rewarded for breaking the law before our borders are secured. Former Senator Fred Thompson wrote this yesterday and offered an alternative:

No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it’s not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress’s track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier — at least from the public’s point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business.

We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders — or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty.

Syndicated talk-radio host Mark Levin interviewed Senator Thompson last night. He said we do not have to choose between amnesty and the impossible task of rounding up and deporting 12 million illegal immigrants:

You can have attrition through enforcement. If we enforce the law with regard to employers — we have an eligibility verification system out there that’s voluntary and ought to be mandatory. If we made arrests. If we reduced the inducements, especially [what] some states give, some of which is against federal law and is not being enforced. If we talk a little straighter to Mexico and the fact their national policy is dependent upon the exportation of their own citizens… There’s plenty of things we can do to take care of this problem if we would do it.

You can hear the entire interview here.

amnesty

Illegal immigrants’ amnesty proposal a “Rotten deal”

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Rich Lowry, this morning, at National Review Online:

Enough with the harsh exclusionary measures! Two miles of fencing out of 700 passed by Congress on a border stretching 1,952 miles is a milestone that should mark our departure to the next phase of immigration policy — a sweeping amnesty of illegals and an increase in legal immigration. Thus, another confirmation of the iron rule of the nation’s immigration politics: No matter how discontented the public is with our broken immigration system, the political elite’s answer is always higher levels of immigration.
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The deal also provides for an electronic system to verify the legal status of employees at the workplace. This is important. But as a writer on the PowerLine points out, government is good at handing out benefits like amnesty, but bad at creating and competently running complex systems. Maybe when the FBI finally has up-to-date computers we can believe promises of a new workplace-enforcement system to accompany an amnesty.

And it is an amnesty, no matter what supporters call it. Sen. John McCain, a backer of the deal, unleashed this howler at the GOP presidential debate: “I have never supported amnesty and never would.” But the 12 million illegals here before January would get probationary legal status immediately when the bill passes. Effectively, that’s amnesty. (It’s unclear why illegals arriving here after January would be excluded so coldheartedly. What does McCain want to do, deport them all?)
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All of these provisions would never pass on their own without the cover of enforcement. Which raises the question, Why not just do the enforcement? Backers of amnesty reply that it’s impossible to deport 12 million illegal immigrants. So it is. But that’s not necessary.

Last year, 221,664 illegal immigrants were deported, an increase of roughly 20 percent from the year before. If we determined to keep that pace of increase during the next few years, the number of illegals deciding to come here and deciding to stay would decrease with the realization that the climate of tolerance for illegality had ended. Then, the magnitude of the problem would be more manageable, but that’s not what the bipartisan political elite wants. Instead, it wants its rotten deal.