Senators Kennedy and McCain have introduced a bill they have entitled "2005 Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act". Sounds like it would really tackle immigration reform and secure America right? Wrong. It includes a general amnesty that would legalize over 10 million illegal aliens in this country and spur a massive flood of more to come. It would allow these "legalized" illegal aliens to eventually gain citizenship.
San Diego Union-Tribune
Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate will introduce legislation today that could grant legal status to an estimated 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States.
The bills, which would dwarf previous programs to provide legal status to foreign workers, would give illegal immigrants work permits and the opportunity to apply for permanent residence and eventually citizenship once they pay a fine and fees.
...
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., will introduce the bill in the Senate. In the House, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., will team with Arizona Republicans Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe to introduce the measure.
...
"The bottom line is we're going to have a need for foreign workers in the foreseeable future," Flake said.
He said Congress has not provided federal officials with the tools to enforce the law because it doesn't want to cut off the flow of workers.
"We can make it legal through some mechanism or we can keep it illegal and keep on pretending we are going to enforce it," he said.
So rather than attempting to pass legislation and enforce existing laws, Representative Flake would rather pretend that we've solved the problem by granting a bunch of criminals legality.
After all if you grant them all legality your number of illegal aliens has gone to zero and you've solved the problem right?
"Once a program is in place for employers to get workers, there's no excuse for them not to cooperate," Flake said. "You get a good program and you enforce the heck out of it."
You know what Flake? We already have a bunch of programs in place, but we don't "enforce the heck out of it". If we pass your piece of crap legislation guess what? The heck won't be enforced out of it either. What makes him think we'll magically start enforcing new legislation when we haven't enforced the old?
The bills' advocates hope that the $2,000 fine will soften the angry reaction that has accompanied past amnesties, such as the sweeping 1986 measure that gave legal status to 2.7 million immigrants, most of them Mexican.
...
"An amnesty is an unconditional pardon for a breach of law," Flake said.
So, it won't be an amnesty because we'll be charging them $2000? Because it has a piddly amount of money attached it's now not an amnesty?
Good to see some people are willing to sell our citizenship for so cheap, especially someone who is sworn to uphold our country's laws.
Other Commentary:
The Immigration Blog
California Yankee
Lonewacko
