July 30, 2010

National Reconstitution by Decree

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA, 96%) managed to intercept an internal memo sent in April to the Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Alejandro Mayorkas. The memo details how the USCIS can bypass Congress, bypass the people, and simply implement a limited -- or for that matter, un-limited -- amnesty of illegal aliens... with no increase in border security and no Republican or conservative Democratic input whatsoever:

"We continue to maintain that comprehensive bipartisan legislation, coupled with smart, effective enforcement, is the only solution to our nation's immigration challenges," he said in a statement.

Still, the memo makes clear that even without such a bill, immigration officials have identified a variety of ways to relax U.S. policy to allow more undocumented immigrants who might otherwise face deportation to stay in the country. Among the options outlined is expanding the use of "deferred action" - in which the government can use its discretion to halt a deportation indefinitely, usually for an urgent humanitarian reason.

"While it is theoretically possible to grant deferred action to an unrestricted number of unlawfully present individuals, doing so would likely be controversial [!], not to mention expensive," the memo says. Instead, officials suggest using the option for certain groups, such as tens of thousands of high school graduates who have been brought up in the U.S. and plan to attend college or serve in the armed forces.

Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly tried to push through legislation - known as the "Dream Act" - to cover those students.

This is a field-tested rhetorical tactic: Democrats concoct a cockamamie scheme to circumvent normal procedures, safeguards, checks and balances, and (of course) Republican opposition, in order to implement some item from the liberal wish list; but they assure us, hand on where their heart would be if they had one, that it will only be used in a few rare and uncontroversial cases. Once it's in play, however, the list of the anointed, like Topsy, just grows; as evidence, consider every liberal government program ever enacted, from welfare, to unemployment "insurance," to Medicare, to school lunch programs, to stimulus spending, to government seizure of private businesses, particularly under President Barack H. Obama.

Note also that this would be actual amnesty, not the plea bargain that Republicans offered in 2006; so far as we can tell from news coverage, the recipients of federal forgiveness envisioned by this memo would not have to pay any fine; would not have to pay back taxes, interest, and penalties they dodged; would not even have to return to their countries of origin and get in the back of the line -- all of which were required by the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006.

And don't put much stock in the memo's fret that indefinitely delaying deportation of "an unrestricted number of unlawfully present individuals" would be "controversial;" it won't even be a speedbump on the highway to actual amnesty. The only element it might change will be the timing of the decree; since it's controversial, the USCIS, Mr. Mayorkas, and Obama will simply delay implementation until after November 2nd. Say until Wednesday, November 3rd, at 12:01 am.

"To be clear," Bentley said, the government "will not grant deferred action or humanitarian parole to the nation's entire illegal immigrant population."

Well that's reassuring!

The article runs through a number of technically legal gymnastics by which deportation proceedings against any number of individual illegals, along with a littany of groups of illegals, can be delayed for a period of time, or delayed indefinitely, or just terminated and the subjects handed green cards immediately.

Democrats, liberals, and immigration advocates all see this as immigration "reform":

Some proponents of revamping the immigration system said the document simply points out ways the agency can fix old and outdated practices that separate families and hurt workers and employers.

Writing on the Immigration Policy Center's blog, Director Mary Giovagnoli, a former immigration official, said, "Good for you, USCIS, for trying to do what it can within that broken system."

So activists agree that the system is broken; but what they appear to mean by that is -- that we still have a border. The system will be fixed only when we dissolve our southern and northern borders and declare all of America a "sanctuary State."

And if (Clinton appointed) U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton's preliminary injunction in the Arizona lawsuit were to become permanent law, actually barring state and local police from checking on the immigration status even of those arrested for other crimes, we would be well on our way to becoming a borderless geographic region.

But what's most remarkable (and least surprising) about the memo -- again, assuming the news coverage is more or less accurate about what it says -- is that there is no suggestion that any of these back-alley tactics for allowing illegals to stay would be restricted to immigrants who have a good chance of assimilating, as opposed to those who simply want to be able to go back and forth across the border, or to live in self-created, ethnically pure "bantustans" to avoid being tainted by the gringos.

In other words, the USCIS memo proposes no real reform of the legal immigration system at all, even though it's certainly within their power to pick and choose who receives a whack on the head from the magic legalization wand. The most vital reform is to restrict residency and citizenship to those who truly want to become Americans... not those who just want American jobs but intend to keep their foreign identities.

I say unsurprising because it has become increasingly clear that the only value the Left sees in illegal immigrants is as a pool of fraudulent voters who can be bullied, bribed, or tricked into voting for liberal Democrats. That's why leftists tirelessly champion both illegal-alien amnesty and loose voter-fraud election laws: When implemented, by hook or by crook (usually the latter), the two policies work together, one hand washing the glove, to elect an infinite number of lefties.

Real reform, restricting immigration to people who, though born foreign, are Americans in their hearts is the last thing in the world the Left wants in its mad march to reconstitute the country in their own "progressive" image.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, July 30, 2010, at the time of 2:53 PM

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The following hissed in response by: Baggi

The above hissed in response by: Baggi at July 30, 2010 6:09 PM

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