It's not silly, and both Tancredo and President Bush are offering roughly the same incentive: in exchange for registering themselves and their illegal employers, illegal aliens get a legal work permit (the so-called "blue card") for 1 to 3 years, the right to travel across our borders legally and frequently to see their families, full banking and wire transfer rights, and immunity from future raids during their legal tenure...the latter being important because...
...both Tancredo's and Bush's immigration plans register *employers* of illegals. This means that if a single illegal worker applies for her blue card, that our government suddenly knows to go audit that entire sweatshop (e.g. for immigration violations, minimum wage violations, workman's comp violations, etc.). So anyone left at taht sweathsop who *hasn't* applied for this blue card is about to get arrested and deported because of that one illegal applying for this blue card.
To avoid that, all of them will go register rather than risk deportation...moreover, the *employers* of these illegals get ratted out under both Bush's and Tancredo's immigration plans...so unless each employer gets *all* of their illegal workers to go register, said employer will get BUSTED in the forthcoming audit.
So both new plans from President Bush and Congressman Tancredo offer a carrot and a stick to both the illegals and their employers.
So there is no question that they will register in very, very large numbers.
Once registered, this problem becomes manageable. The anonymity that protected millions suddenly disappears.