You can pass a law that qualifies every illegal for the death penalty, but unless that law can be realistically enforced it is less than worthless.
In addition, the logistics of enforcing some laws can be so difficult, it is almost no use having the law on the books. It feels good and nothing more.
If there are the 12 million illegals that are suggested, how many law enforcement personnel are going to be needed to process these people? Where will you hold them on a temporary basis? If they have been here for many years, where will you deport them to? How would you deal with the media reaction of showing scores of people herded into detention camps? Would you put them in buses to Mexico or rail cars? The logistics of the deportation option are completely infeasible.
Never mind all that! Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead.
You've got a lot of nerve coming around her injecting reality into this thread.
Which is why our country is now being overrun by illegal aliens.
Prosecutions of those who illegally employ illegal aliens has gone to almost zero under this administration.
Illegal aliens therefore have nothing but contempt for our laws.
How about we enforce the law against employers and take away the government benefits for illegals so that they leave on their own? No tears, no deportation, no expense.
And this country used to be capable of deporting hundreds of thousands of illegals. Ike did it in the '50s, under what was called "Operation Wetback."
Our immigration laws aren't enforced because they're too hard to enforce. They're not enforced because our political elites don't want them enforced.
Puh-leeze.
Traffic law enforcement doesn't work on the notion that every single driver on the road is checked for having a valid driver's license.
But that's what you're suggesting we do for immigration enforcement.
But, since you support granting amnesty to illegals, here's some food for thought.
In June, 2004, George W. Bush's appointed Social Security Commissioner signed with her Mexican counterpart the Social Security Totalization Agreement with Mexico. Among other things, it waives federal laws and allows the Mexican illegal alien:
To apply for and receive US Social Security benefits after having worked (illegally, of course) in the US for only 6 quarters (18 months). US citizens (read: you and I) have to work at least 40 quarters (10 years) before we're eligble to apply.
To apply for and receive US Social Security benefits for their Mexican (national) wife and Mexican (national) children, even if they have never stepped foot in the USA.
Sounds good?
Here's the punch-line. The GAO reviewed the methods used by Bush's Social Security Commissioner to investigate how financially sound the Mexican Social Security Administration is and how robust their accounting methods. (Proposed Totalization Agreement with Mexico Presents Unique Challenges) Here's what they had to say:
SSA has no written policies or procedures it follows when entering into totalization agreements, and the actions it took to assess the integrity and compatibility of Mexico’s social security system were limited and neither transparent nor well-documented. SSA followed the same procedures for the proposed Mexican agreement that it used in all prior agreements. SSA officials told GAO that they briefly toured Mexican facilities, observed how its automated systems functioned, and identified the type of data maintained on Mexican workers. However, SSA provided no information showing that it assessed the reliability of Mexican earnings data and the internal controls used to ensure the integrity of information that SSA will rely on to pay social security benefits.
The proposed agreement will likely increase the number of unauthorized Mexican workers and family members eligible for social security benefits. Mexican workers who ordinarily could not receive social security retirement benefits because they lack the required 40 coverage credits for U.S. earnings could qualify for partial Social Security benefits with as few as 6 coverage credits. In addition, under the proposed agreement, more family members of covered Mexican workers would become newly entitled because the agreements usually waive rules that prevent payments to noncitizens’ dependents and survivors living outside the United States.
The cost of such an agreement is highly uncertain. In March 2003, the Office of the Chief Actuary estimated that the cost of the Mexican agreement would be $78 million in the first year and would grow to $650 million (in constant 2002 dollars) by 2050. The actuarial cost estimate assumes the initial number of newly eligible Mexican beneficiaries is equivalent to the 50,000 beneficiaries living in Mexico today and would grow sixfold over time. However, this proxy figure does not directly consider the estimated millions of current and former unauthorized workers and family members from Mexico and appears small in comparison with those estimates. The estimate also inherently assumes that the behavior of Mexican citizens would not change and does not recognize that an agreement could create an additional incentive for unauthorized workers to enter the United States to work and maintain documentation to claim their earnings under a false identity. Although the actuarial estimate indicates that the agreement would not generate a measurable long-term impact on the actuarial balance of the trust funds, a subsequent sensitivity analysis performed at GAO’s request shows that a measurable impact would occur with an increase of more than 25 percent in the estimate of initial, new beneficiaries. For prior agreements, error rates associated with estimating the expected number of new beneficiaries have frequently exceeded 25 percent, even in cases where uncertainties about the number of unauthorized workers were less prevalent. Because of the significant number of unauthorized Mexican workers in the United States, the estimated cost of the proposed totalization agreement is even more uncertain than in prior agreements.
How much effort did the SSA officials expend? Read what the GAO has to say:
The law also does not specify which elements of other countries’ social security systems must be evaluated during totalization agreement negotiations. SSA officials met with Mexican officials to exchange narrative information on their respective programs. Senior SSA officials also visited Mexico for 2 days in August 2002. During their visit, these officials told us that they toured social security facilities, observed how Mexico’s automated social security systems functioned, and identified the type of data maintained on Mexican workers. SSA took no technical staff on this visit to assess system controls or data integrity processes. In effect, SSA only briefly observed the operations of the Mexican social security program. Moreover, SSA did not document its efforts or perform any additional analyses then, or at a later time, to assess the integrity of Mexico’s social security data and the controls over that data. In particular, SSA officials provided no evidence that they examined key elements of Mexico’ s program, such as its controls over the posting of earnings, and its processes for obtaining key birth and death information for Mexican citizens. Nor did SSA evaluate how access to Mexican data and records is controlled and monitored to prevent unauthorized use or whether internal and external audit functions exist to evaluate operations.
Lovely.
This is what you're supporting.
Sorry for the long delay in answering your excellent post--real life keeps interfering with my FReeping.
I understand and agree with your argument about the impossibility of finding/processing/deporting all illegal immigrants.
What I propose is that SOME of them be deported--as many as possible without creating the problems you mention. The purpose would be to send a message to all current and would-be illegals that it's becoming more difficult to get here and stay here illegally. I think that would be worth doing. And the cost involved could perhaps be balanced by the money saved in providing these people with free primary education, health care, and other handouts provided by taxing citizens and legal immigrants.