The STRIVE Act is a 700 page convoluted bill introduced into the House by Congressman Luis Gutierrez and Congressman Jeff Flake supposedly to solve our illegal immigration problems in this country. That's what you get when you try to put a "comprehensive" bill together for a complex issue - 700 pages of crap.
Rather than a bill that says:
Employers will face 25 years in jail for hiring an illegal alien
You end up with stuff like:
if you're an illegal alien and you can either truthfully - or through fraudulent documents - prove that you've been in this country for five years - or three years if you have children - or 2 years if you entered the country illegally on a Tuesday - or one year if you live in Los Angeles south of any skyscrapers and the sun sets before 7PM - then you have to cross the southern border for a "touchback" wherein you score two points after remaining there for half a day - but only on Sundays, all other days you must remain for 15 hours plus pet a goat except on Tuesdays wherein no goat petting is required - you can then pay a little fine and after being screened by a system that can't really prove who you are because you are using fraudulent documents will give you a clean bill of health and an X visa which allows you to follow Charles Manson, but only if you etch it in your forehead at his command - or you will receive a Z visa if you believe that Zorro was a hero
Yes that's the difference between a bill that actually does something and one that will cost $100 billion dollars and allow for so many loopholes and fraud that it is quite possibly the most ridiculous and outright ignorant pieces of legislation ever introduced into Congress.
I'll let James P. Pinkerton at Newsday sum it up better.
Instead of expanded illegal immigration, they're pushing expanded legal immigration, in which terrorists, at least, are screened out. Thus, we have the STRIVE Act, another of those bills seeking to sell itself through a clever acronym: STRIVE stands for "Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy." Sounds pretty good, huh?
Yet, if you were to read through its 700 pages, you'd see that it represents one group's attempt to manipulate the system against another group - and also against the national interest. Do you think the working class in America has it too good? Do you want to make sure that you always have the option of replacing your current workers - the ones who do your meatpacking, or landscaping, or household toiling - with even hungrier workers? And do you not care about crime and social chaos, as long as they happen in someone else's neighborhood? Or perhaps disuniting the whole United States, after you're dead? Then STRIVE is for you.
He goes on to point out that in the pre civil war days greedy employers imported slaves and now they are doing so today in the form of illegal aliens. Are we doomed to repeat history as employers continue to import slave labor? In other words will the split cause a civil war in this country as it is further balkanized?
Only time will tell, but I can assure you that if it is on the horizon the STRIVE Act - and bills like it - will only hasten its coming.
