Alright, let's continue.
If you[ve been "reading my immigration comments for years" you evidently missed the plan I posed:
a. Secure the border
b. Enforce the current laws regarding employment and visas.
c. Include E-verify in the enforcement process...enforce civil and criminal penalties on employers...make illegal presence in the country a felony, rather than a misdemeanor (as it is now).
c. Cut off all government-sponsored welfare to non-citizens.
d. Wait an unspecified period (say, 3-5 years), see what's left. My presumption is that the vast bulk of illegals will have self-deported. Address the small remnant appropriately -- but under no circumstances, nor at any time, would citizenship be conferred to any person who was here illegally.
I have rarely commented on our legal migration policies, other than to note that Teddy Kennedy is the man responsible for the unholy mess they are. Personally, I would favor a moratorium on all legal immigration, pending a full review and accounting for the impacts of our current policies.
Eventually, in my opinion, it would be best to have a strictly limited immigration policy that reflected the best interests of the country. I.e., acceptance of a limited number of healthy, capable immigrants with needed skills. In other words, pretty much the pre-1965 policy.
Did I pass muster?
What annoys you, I suspect, is my support for legal Hispanic immigrants. I have worked with and have many friends in this community. And I know that most of them object to amnesty for illegals.
Nor do I have a particular animus for the bulk of illegal Hispanic immigrants. If I were in their place, I might well do as they did -- seeking to find a better life for my family.
Instead, my animus is reserved for the people who created the immigration mess via their own corruption and/or indolence and now want to take the easy way out...refusing to fix it, because that would be "hard".
That would be Teddy Kennedy, the Democrats and those Republicans who are, as you put it, "soft on immigration" -- as you accused me of being.
Take it or leave it. I'm done with the thread.
We could have saved a lot of ink if you had included your position paper in the first Comment.
I know all the Immigration hawks at Free Republic, and your name was not previously among them.
To me, immigration is an existential issue.
If it continues as it has, American Conservatives will face political extinction after the 2020 Census and Congressional re-apportionment.
Please note that my first Comment addressed only your statement about getting 40% of the Hispanic vote.
When I mentioned Amnesty in that Comment, it was within the context of the 40%, and I never implied, in my first Comment, that you supported Amnesty.
I am not annoyed at Hispanics, or any other ethnic group for that matter.
But I am most certainly annoyed that we import 1 million foreign Socialist voters each year.
My own position on Immigration is entirely economic.
I would allow anyone in who has a one year guaranteed employment contract for a minimum $150,000.
After 3 consecutive years, they get citizenship.
For those who wish to start a business, a minimum $50,000 payment to the US Treasury would be required, each year, up front, until their business alone generates $50,000 minimum in tax revenue for three consecutive years.
Most of those folks would vote Socialist, but their numbers would be just a couple hundred thousand per year, they would be amenable to Conservative persuasion, and the tax revenue they generate would be outstanding.