***Scroll down for updates!***
Attention, pro-enforcement readers. Today you will read and hear that George Bush is considering a “compromise” on amnesty-for-illegal-aliens. He may be willing to relinquish his version of the plan for one put forth by Congressman Mike Pence. But it’s much ado about very little.
I’ve heard all good things about Pence. Last month when I read Pat Buchanan’s criticism of his plan, The stealth amnesty of Rep. Mike Pence, and I was a bit dismayed. With Pence. Then I put it out of my mind. But now it’s time to think about it. The following portion of the plan is why Bush is considering it:
[T]he solution is to setup a system that will encourage illegal aliens to self-deport and come back legally as guest workers. This may sound outside of the box, and it is. It may sound far-fetched and unrealistic, but it isn’t. It is based on sound, proven conservative principles. It places reliance on American enterprise and puts government back into its traditional role of protecting its citizens…Private worker placement agencies that we could call “Ellis Island Centers†will be licensed by the federal government to match willing guest workers with jobs in America that employers cannot fill with American workers. U.S. employers will engage the private agencies and request guest workers. In a matter of days, the private agencies will match guest workers with jobs, perform a health screening, fingerprint them and provide the appropriate information to the FBI and Homeland Security so that a background check can be performed, and provide the guest worker with a visa granted by the State Department. The visa will be issued only outside of the United States.
Emphases added. In other words, he proposes that illegal aliens high-tail it back to Mexico for a week or so, with the assurance that they can return, and register for work permits.
Problem #1: Pence is assuming too much. Such ideas may sound reasonable to a handful of illegal aliens, but I doubt the majority would voluntarily return to Mexico or wherever they came from. Pence fails to consider the culture. Aliens prone to sucking up welfare and burdening the health care system, raping children, driving drunk, and fighting territorial wars will not “self-deport.” Just a hunch.
Problem #2: Good grief! Can you imagine the amount of red tape this would generate? There are law-abiding folks waiting in line (some for years) to get visas and/or to become citizens. The current immigration process is in need of drastic reform. It’s rife with bureaucratic incompetence and scandalously wide-open to national security breaches. I wrote about this in my latest Washington Examiner column. (The editor says it was the fourth most popular article in yesterday’s edition.)
Those two flaws taint the whole thing, and if I had time to keep digging, I’m sure I’d find more. Buchanan’s suggestions for dealing with the flow of illegal aliens are echoed by plenty of pro-enforcement Americans, including me:
The crucial steps are these. Build a fence along the 2,000-mile border to stop the flood. End welfare benefits to illegal aliens, except emergency medical treatment. Vigorously prosecute employers who hire illegals. Cease granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” of illegals who sneak across the border to have them. Take care of mother and child; then put them on a bus back home…Turn off the magnets, and the illegals will not come. Cut off the benefits, and they will not stay. In five years, the crisis will be over.
The fair and legal approach would be to send illegal aliens back to their countries of origin and suggest they get in line for guest worker visas. Divert some of the funds that go to social services to immigration law enforcement — put thousands of agents on the borders (north and south), authorize local jurisdictions to arrest and detain illegal aliens, and slowly but surely deport them. It may take 20 years, but so what?
Bush has decreed “That ain’t gonna work.” To expect my president to consistently execute the law (dream on), something he’s publicly said he will not do, makes me feel like a wide-eyed, naïve, sixth-grader. And that’s a shame.
Update (7/6): Patterico calls out the Los Angeles Times for implying that pro-enforcement Republicans oppose immigration. Not true. They (and I) oppose illegal aliens remaining in the country and being rewarded for their crimes, including Social Security benefits based on fraudulent employment. What border jumpers do is not called “immigration.” It’s called “crime.” I will no longer use the phrase “illegal immigration.” No such thing.
Robert Novak writes about the underreported “terror loophole” in the Senate’s immigration bill:
In a Heritage Foundation paper published one day before the Senate bill passed, Kobach exposed what he called the terrorist loophole. Section 240d would restrict local police from arresting aliens for civil violations, limiting them to apprehension for criminal offenses. That means a sheriff’s officer could not arrest someone whose papers showed he had overstayed his visa. ”Afraid of arresting the wrong type of illegal alien — and getting sued as a result — many police departments will stop helping the federal government altogether,” Kobach wrote.
Kobach and Royce point out that four of the 9-11 terrorists, all of whom had violated immigration laws, were stopped for speeding before the attack. Had police asked the right questions, terrorists could have been arrested under current law — but not under the Senate bill.
This kind of news is very disturbing. I feel as if I’m trapped in a bell jar, banging on the glass trying to warn people about the devastating consequences of a politically correct and lax method of border enforcement, and no one hears me. Is September 11, 2001, becoming a fading memory? It’s the U.S. government’s DUTY to protect American citizens, not option.
