"Political capital eventually runs out, like your pocketbook. The "No Amnesty" crowd is wasting their political capital to write laws that can't work."
Again. Baloney. The laws *can* work, if they are actually written to work and not writeen by special-interests like immigration lawyers and the cheap-labor-lobby to NOT work (as the senate bill does).
" Whether this is "right" or "just" or "lawful" is irrelevant. Their time and political capital could be put to *much* better use fighting the PC crowd in order to properly assimilate immigrants."
Ironic. You calim the best, workable strategy "wont work", and then turn around and want to pose as an 'alternative' something that is IRRELEVENT to whether or not 500,000 illegals show up here!
Simple question: Do you want illegal immigration to continue or not?
"this current Senate bill is a replica of the failed 1986 bill." "You noticed?"
"We got this "Amnesty" bill by people screaming they wanted a silly fence at the border."
More baloney... The open borders crowd pushed this bill. Your comment is about as silly as blaming fiscal conservatives for pork barrel spending, or blaming pro-lifers for Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
The fact is that a fence is (a) not silly, and (b) not unrealistic, given the fact that the House PASSED A BILL WITH FENCING IN HR4437 AND 83 SENATORS ALSO VOTED FOR MORE BORDER FENCING. So while you talk about 'unrealistic', reality is moving in a direction that proves there is a national consensus to secure the border.
" The real solution is to do the following - 'enforcement first':
* Secure the border first"
"Wonderful. You've cut off one method these people use. How you gonna stop the other half, overstaying visas?"
It's good that you agree that securing the border DOES WIN HALF THE BATTLE.
There are several provisions in the House bill HR4437 that address the visa overstay problem. This includes criminal penalties on illegal presense. Most important is US-VISIT, a program to track who comes and goes into this country.
I'll give a simple example that I know of personally: I know of relatives of in-laws that have invited further relatives over on tourist visa, and let them stay. Illegal. The US-VISIT would alreat this and would also know the sponsors etc.
"How you gonna stop them from flying to Canada and walking across that border? These people *will* get here. If you plug one leak, they'll merely find another."
With defeatism like that I'm shocked we even bother to
fight burglary and arson... Yet we do.
If 500,000 people invade from Canada, we'll address that.
Right now, the illegal immigrants and the drugs and criminal gangs is more a problem on the Mexico border, so focus on that first is the practical thing to do.
"* Set up an employment verification system that works"
Great idea. The problem is you're wasting your time on step number 1, which can't work. Your political capital will run out about the time they compromise on how many miles of fence to build. An employment verification system (which would require *all* of us to get national ID cards) would work all by itself. But the "No Amnesty" people will never get to this step."
COMPLETELY FALSE!!! The HR4437 Bill ALREADY HAS THIS!
They had border security *and* employer verification system
mandated and funded for all employers.
What is your problem with this phoney-baloney about a wall being impossible/wrong or contradictory to other goals? Do both!
As for ID card question, actually what is needed is more
of a database and tracking system.
"* Streamline deportation and immigration law to reduce litigation in deportations"
"What do you accomplish? Make the people sneak across one more time? They're going to get here, one way or another as long as there are jobs. Just like drugs, it's impossible to stop them."
Now I know that you are talking through your hat and are really not informed about things. I am tlaking about the deportation process, the Bureau of Immigration Appeals, and the fact that many deportation orders are over-litigated.
HR4437 fixes some of these problems, while the Senate CIRA BILL MAKES THEM WORSE. Your defeatist comment misses the point entirely in that for the 50% of cases of non-Mexicans, it is *not hard* to deport them permanently. That 50% *cant* sneak back across the border. As for the Mexican illegal immigrants deported... well, see - "Secure the Border".
"* Involve State and local law enforcement in immigration law enforcement"
"They don't want to. In Arizona only Joe Arpiao in Maricopa county is using our new state laws that enable cops to arrest coyotes and those who have paid to be smuggled (co-conspirators)."
Some do and some don't. If I were president I would announce simply: "We are working with these states. We tried working with these other states (name them explicitly) but their leaders have decided to refuse to join us in enforcing the law."
"The rest of the local jurisdictions refuse to enforce the law. What are you going to do now?"
The #1 reason state and local govts dont participate is resources. Nobody pays them to enforce immigration law. They WILL help if they are given the resources to do the job. The CLEAR Act provisions in HR4437 encourage state and local Governments to get involved by providing funding tied to immigration enforcement. It *also* conditions *all* Federal funding for law enforcement on state and local agencies cooperating on immigration law enforcement. This has certainly worked in other areas of law and would work here.
"only AFTER we do the above can we start talking about reforming our legal immigration flows, eg, things like guest worker visa expansion"
"It is impossible to succeed via enforcement only, just as it is impossible to stop drugs by that method. As long as there are jobs, immigrants will take the easiest route to get them."
This proposal is ENFORCEMENT FIRST, not 'enforcement only forwever'. UNTIL WE GET THE ENFORCEMENT SIDE WORKING, IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT WE DO ON THE OTHER SIDE, WE WILL STILL HAVE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. The ugly truth about the Senate bill is that its claims to have enforcement provisions turn out to be false; it builds half the border barriers needed; its employment verification system is built to fail; it actually make deportation harder... the only thing we get out of the Senate bill that is permanent is *60 MILLION NEW IMMIGRANTS IN 20 YEARS*.
That's wrong.
HR4437 has good border security, employment verification, and other good provisions to fix immigration law enforcement. We should pass the HR4437 bill NOW, and deal with the rest of immigration issues in the next Congress.
Thank you for yelling.
Your problem is that you believe that passing a law will actually fix things. It's "illegal" to speed on the highway, but show me someone who claims they never have and I'll show you a liar.
I remember well supporting the sainted Ronald Reagan when he said that the additional employer sanctions in the 80's would fix the problem. And I watched for 20 years as more illegals came in and America ignored the problem.
I no longer trust the federal government on the issue. Not even the new laws passed in the House. Any of them can be ignored by law enforcement, prosecutors, on and on.
The only real "fix" for this problem would be if the illegals "want" to comply with the new law. If they don't want to, they won't. Try enforcing *anything* on 11+ million people that they don't want to do. LOL.
This problem won't be fixed until we have serious rules on employment (there are far fewer employers than illegal employees, and they have more to lose, thus you *can* enforce laws against them).
I don't like ID cards either and the prospect of "papers please" sends shudders up my spine. But if anyone can walk up to an employer and say "I'm Narby" and pop out a forged document to "prove" it, then all the border enforcement in the world will have been wasted. Databases with no way to connect the database with the human in front of you will not work. Take your pick, national ID cards, or illegals, we're going to have one or the other.
Most plans have an achillies heal, and the lack of verifiable ID and hard core employer sanctions that will be enforcable are what's missing in these plans. The fact that employers can claim that they were shown a document "proving" legality is the legal loophole that prevents any laws against them from being enforced. Don't quote the House's bill about employer sanctions, tell me how they can be enforced when the employer has this get-out-of-jail-free card, that they couldn't tell whether the document they saw was forged.
All this mess will do is ensure the liberals will control the country for the next 30 years. Again. The Republicans and the "No Amnesty" crowd have ensured that we will have 60 million mexicans living here in 20 years, irregardless of whatever laws are passed. Because passing such harsh laws will ensure Democrats are elected, and Democrats will make sure the laws aren't enforced, if not just change them outright.
Republicans truly are the stupid party.