[Fatalis]

Did you miss the whole part about illegals registering their *employers*?!

Once the employer is registered by an illegal, he's going to be subject to compliance verification...something that we can't yet do to over 1 million currently anonymous employers of illegals.

Here's a thing or two I didn't miss:

Southack at #363: Apparently, criminals all seem to have it in their heads that the penalties don't matter because they think that they won't be the ones who get caught...

Southack at #316: Mandatory workplace registrations won't work. Voluntary registrations will work.

First you said "mandatory workplace registrations won't work." Then you said criminals ignore penalties because they think someone else won't get caught.

Now you're saying the legalized illegals will turn in their employers, who would comply with the law because they would presumably be subject to penalties. That would make the workplace verification program no longer "voluntary."

I don't see much consistency with your arguments and your premises.

[Fatalis]

"someone else won't get caught." = "someone else will get caught."

[Torie]

I think the golden thread is incentivizing snitches.

[Southack]

"Now you're saying the legalized illegals will turn in their employers, who would comply with the law because they would presumably be subject to penalties [VERIFICATION]."

You have two choices.

Your 2 choices are:

1. Let illegals and their employers remain unregistered and anonymous, or
2. Convince illegals to voluntarily register themselves (and their employers).

I know, I know, you hate those two above options, deny them, and insist upon some magical 3rd way, but those 2 options are all that actually exist.

Once registered, we can verify compliance. That's something that we simply can't do for 8 million anonymous illegals and more than 1 million anonymous illegal employers. The scope of the problem is simply too large (bigger than the roundup in Germany of 6 million during WW2).

Will people comply once they are no longer anonymous? I think, yes.

Will they comply if we continue to allow them to operate anonymously and unregistered? I think, no.

So to me, the obvious answer is to convince those 8 million illegals to voluntarily register themselves and their employers. Once registered, we can enforce compliance through verification.

For everyone else, i.e. those who oppose President Bush's registration/plea bargain plan (you know the ones, those who mischaracterize that plan as being an "amnesty"), then those are the people who are supporting, perhaps by default, the above option 1 that continues the status quo of not registering illegals and allows them to remain anonymous.