One of the key arguments against the impossibility of having law enforcement "round up" the millions of illegals already in country is that it's unnecessary. If we just crack down on employers, the argument goes, they'll simply go home or assimilate.

And yet we all agree that a strong border must come out of any legislation; it's paramount to the point of almost excluding to all other concerns. Let's say Congress bucks centuries of tradition and we end up with a smart piece of legislation that gets us that border. Doesn't that result in a nagging little detail?

I mean, if the border truly is secure, how are those illegals already here supposed to just filter back “the way they came” once we begin the crackdown on businesses that recruit them? Wasn't the whole point of securing the border to ensure that nobody gets across it improperly?

What about Mexico? Even if the illegals could get through our side of the border, would Mexico let them through theirs? They sure as hell treat their sovereignty much more seriously than we do, and it’s against their economic interests to have an estimated 10% of their population come streaming back empty handed; they’re no good to the economy as far as their government is concerned if they aren’t up north sending money south.

I don’t think these questions derail the argument against enforcing the border, but I haven’t seen them raised anyplace where the idea of strengthening the border prevails. At least, I haven’t seen them.

If Congress does get around to giving us a good deal on the border, this will probably be an important part of the next debate.

I think there is room for improvement as well, but I heard some talk on Fox that conservatives in the House were promising to kill the bill. Let me get this straight, these guys started all this and made the case that our country was DOOMED if we did not fix this right now, today, this minute. The toyed with the idea of making every Mexican roofer, nanny and field hand in America a felon..which in turn helped organize real movement for immigration reform on the left for the first time in years...complete with big marches and everything. These Congressmen say we have to have a fence, just have to or we are ruined and now they are saying...never mind. Our way or the highway. Screw the two thirds of the American people that want this dealt with.

Disgruntled Republicans can threaten to stay home if they want..but the truth is if they kill this bill after all this drama it just might occur to some people that if the American people are going to see a resolution to this and a bill passed they might need to vote for Democrats.

And no, I am not a Democrat.

As for Mexico, if we had an American president he could make them be more willing to take back their people. Bush isn't like that.

"Disgruntled Republicans can threaten to stay home if they want..but the truth is if they kill this bill after all this drama it just might occur to some people that if the American people are going to see a resolution to this and a bill passed they might need to vote for Democrats."

There are two very different bills involved. The House bill tries to restrict the flow (although it's flawed) and the Senate bill will greatly increase the flow.

The resolution is to enforce our laws, not to come up with new laws that won't be enforced.

As for the question about whether it's amnesty or not, perhaps we should conduct a poll of those tens of millions of people in other countries who will see it as an amnesty and will come here in order to take part it in or future final amnesties.

And of course, we'd rather see the "guest workers" be actual immigrants, people whose intent is to live the rest of their lives in the United States and become citizens... rather than a permanent underclass of foreign nationals imported as cheap labor, as Europe is doing.
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The main difference between the US and the EU is that we have JOBS here where as they have massive immigrant enclaves living on welfare.

If we start extending welfare benifits to Illegal Aliens we could end up in the same boat.

But Dafydd has convinced me that part of a piece of pie is better than no pie at all while standing on principle.

BigMedia:

Convince Vincent Fox how? Threaten war? There is a big election in Mexico this summer and right now Fox's party is the middle of the road party with Chavez's friends and allies out front by a slim margin. Maybe the President is trying to look reasonable with Fox so as not to give the socialists anymore propaganda. And besides, what exactly did any other president do about all this?

Dan Kauffman:

But Dafydd has convinced me that part of a piece of pie is better than no pie at all while standing on principle.

Yay!

But actually, it is a principle: the Ronald Reagan principle... if all you can get is half a loaf, you take it -- and immediately begin negotiating for the other half!

(Or the Zorro principle: "why go to a glorious death when you can live and work for freedom?")

The older I get, the longer my frame of reference. Hugh Hewitt suggested today that we sunset the guest-worker program: after five years, it ends unless Congress reauthorizes it. "If we can sunset the Patriot Act," said Hugh, "surely we can sunset the guest-worker program."

Okay; sounds fine to me. If after five years it's working, Congress will vote to continue it; if it turns out to be a bad idea, it's easy enough to just do nothing and let it expire.

There's another bargaining chip for the House Republicans.

Dafydd

BM Blog:

Hm... maybe I should select a different abbreviation....

As for the question about whether it's amnesty or not, perhaps we should conduct a poll of those tens of millions of people in other countries who will see it as an amnesty and will come here in order to take part it in or future final amnesties.

You have a restaurant. Starting at 11:00 am, I plant myself right in front of the door of your restaurant and begin bellowing "free lunch, free lunch -- come on in!" at the top of my lungs.

I'll bet you that quite soon, a swarm of human locusts will descend upon your restaurant, devour everything including the tablecloths, and then act outraged when you demand payment. "It's free!" they'll cry, "it's all free!"

So whose fault is that? Yours for daring to open a restaurant? Or mine for falsely telling everyone it's a free lunch?

And by the way, your scenario assumes that the wall and increased border security will do absolutely nothing to stop the next batch of illegals. If that's true, then why bother spending money on buying a wall in the first place?

And if the wall is effective, then why assume there will be another 10 million illegals?

Please pick a single scenario, BMB; your 'one from column A, two from column B' approach is internally inconsistent.

Dafydd

A round-up of articles pointing out weaknesses of the Senate bill here--
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014188.php
btw, I wonder if someone can enlighten me on a factual point. I've heard reference in many MSM articles to mean-spirited Repubs in the House who wanted to make illegals subject to felony prosecution. In one article (which I can't find) it was stated that the felony part was much more understandable. It said that currrently the penalty for coming into the country illegally was not at all aligned with the penalty for staying here illegally after coming in with permission (for example, overstaying a visa). The article said the House bill brought the penalty for these offenses into alignment. Anyone know if this is true or not?

Dafyyd, I think you missed the point of the Meese teleconference. As I understand it, he was comparing the current bill to the one in 1986. Since they proposed nearly identical measures, why was it okay to call the earlier "amnesty" but not today's bill?

The point is if the Congress can not come up with a compromise there will be no wall, nothing, just one big fat failure.

Hal:

Hal... "the point" is that they are not "nearly identical measures."

I enumerated the specific differences anent what illegal immigrants must do to become legal this time vice 1986. But there are other very significant differences... you know, that whole "fence" thing?

Meese says two things, one of them true:

1. He says that the Simpson-Mazzoli bill amounted to amnesty, which is more or less accurate;
2. Then he says that Hagel-Martinez is, in your words, "nearly identical" to Simpson-Mazzoli... but this is a patent falsehood, and Meese is a smart enough man to know it.

It's not a mistake; it's demagoguery.

I suspect that Meese feels very guilty about Simpson-Mazzoli, and the Reagan administration's acceptance of it; so to expiate his own guilt, he now lashes out at anything that even faintly resembles normalization, no matter how different from what we did twenty years ago.

"It's exactly like prostitution, except no money changes hands!"

Meese is a newly reformed sinner who calls everything from dancing to sipping wine a mortal sin. Not because he thinks it really is, but because he doesn't trust anyone but himself to decide limits -- and because it makes him feel better about his own failures.

Dafydd

Well what exactly do people like Meese want to do with 11 million people? Lock them all up? Tell cops to stop chasing rapists and murderers and concentrate on nannies? For a bunch of people who are constantly complaining about the size and scope and cost of government the hardliners seem to have no problem at all demanding that millions of people be tracked down, proscessed, rounded up and jailed and/or deported. How many people would we have to hire and put into uniform? How many jails and courtrooms and prisons would we have to build?

But they just blow this off as if the rest of us are just making a big deal out of nothing by assuming it might be kind of hard to pull this off.

Meanwhile the forces on the otherside of the issue are inspired to become political in a way they were not before. The pro-immigrant forces, [who think that Bush is picking on them], are planning on registering at least a million new voters. And if the Congress refuses to pass a bill here, these are the people who might be electing the next Congress. What kind of bill do you think they will pass?

Starting at 11:00 am, I plant myself right in front of the door of your restaurant and begin bellowing "free lunch, free lunch -- come on in!" at the top of my lungs.

That's cute, but what actually would happen if we started to enforce our laws is that almost immediately phone calls back home would be made and prospective illegal aliens would learn that the U.S. is cracking down. Many fewer would come, and many here now would go home.

If the Senate bill passes, dozens or hundreds of millions of people around the world will realize that we really don't intend to enforce our immigration laws, and a good portion of them will try to come here.

Well what exactly do people like Meese want to do with 11 million people?

That's the same false choice Bush presented. He forgot to mention that in addition to mass deportations or amnesty, we have a third choice: that I outlined above. Simply start enforcing the laws.

The pro-immigrant forces, [who think that Bush is picking on them], are planning on registering at least a million new voters. And if the Congress refuses to pass a bill here, these are the people who might be electing the next Congress. What kind of bill do you think they will pass?

So, we give millions of "pro-immigrant" people - most of them of the same race - citizenship. Then, since they're "pro-immigrant" and to some extent or other racially-motivated, they'll vote for loose borders. That will encourage even more people of the same race to come here, which will lead to even more "pro-immigrant", racially-motivated voters who will vote for even more people of the same race as they are to come here, which will lead to more voters who will vote for even more people of the same race as they are to come here...

BigMediaBlog:

So, we give millions of "pro-immigrant" people - most of them of the same race - citizenship. Then, since they're "pro-immigrant" and to some extent or other racially-motivated, they'll vote for loose borders. That will encourage even more people of the same race to come here, which will lead to even more "pro-immigrant", racially-motivated voters who will vote for even more people of the same race as they are to come here, which will lead to more voters who will vote for even more people of the same race as they are to come here...

BMB, do you really mean to argue that a person's race determines how he thinks?

Do you mean to argue that there is no assimilation whatsoever; that Americans of Mexican descent still think, act, and believe exactly the same as Mexicans living in Jalapeno or Guadalajara, because they're still the same color?

I hope that's not really what you believe, because that is a far more profoundly un-American idea than believing in earned citizenship. Real Americans believe in human choice, human free will, and that each person controls his own destiny... rather than it being fixed and immutable -- and determined by his skin color.

Dafydd

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)