Note: the bottom message --- it's in Espanole on the reverse side.
Posted on 04/09/2006 2:54:11 AM PDT by Tom D.
No Easy Answers On Immigration Conundrum
April 9, 2006
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Here's my immigration "compromise": We need to regularize the situation of the 298 million non-undocumented residents of the United States. Right now, we get a lousy deal compared with the 15 million fine upstanding members of the Undocumented American community. I think the 298 million of us in the overdocumented segment of the population should get the chance to be undocumented. You know when President Bush talks about all those undocumented people "living in the shadows"? Doesn't that sound kinda nice? Living in the shadows, no government agencies harassing you for taxes and numbers and paperwork.
Go ahead, try it. In Michelle Malkin's book Invasion, she recounts the tale of two fellows who in August 2001 pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot in Falls Church, Va., in search of fake ID from the illegal-alien assistance network that hangs around there. Luis Martinez-Flores, who'd been living here illegally since 1994, took them along to the local DMV, supplied them with a fake address and falsely certified they lived there. The very next day, the two guys returned with two pals of their own, and used their own brand-new state ID on which the ink was not yet dry to obtain in turn brand-new state ID for their buddies. A couple of weeks later, all four of them used their Virginia ID to board American Airlines Flight 77 at Dulles Airport and plowed it into the Pentagon.
Think about that. From undocumented illegal alien in the 7-Eleven parking lot to lawful resident of the State of Virginia in just a couple of hours. Wow. Say what you like about Luis Martinez-Flores, but he runs one efficient operation.
By comparison, say you've got two kids under 5, and you'd like to bring over a nice English nanny to look after them. Name of Mary Poppins. Good references, impeccable character. If you apply now, there's a sporting chance the process may be completed before your children's children are in college.
Given that the new immigration "compromise" bill retrospectively approves all the millions of people who've been through the super-efficient Luis Martinez-Flores immigration system but without doing anything to improve the sclerotic U.S. government immigration system, maybe it would be better just to subcontract the entire operation to Senor Martinez-Flores and his colleagues. It would certainly be cheaper. The extensive Undocumented American support network manages to run it out of the back of the car from a parking lot without a lot of air-conditioned offices full of lifetime employees on government pensions, and given that the net result is exactly the same people who'd be living here anyway, why not go with the lowball bid? Legal immigrants to the United States can only envy the swift efficient service Messrs. Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar received outside that 7-Eleven.
All developed countries have immigration issues, but few conduct the entire debate as disingenuously as America does: The president himself has contributed a whole barrelful of weaselly platitudes, beginning with his line that "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande." True. They don't stop at the 49th parallel either. Or the Atlantic shore. Or the Pacific. So where do family values stop? At the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. If you're an American and you marry a Canadian or Belgian or Fijian, the U.S. government can take years to process what's supposed to be a non-discretionary immigration application, in the course of which your spouse will be dependent on various transitional-status forms like "advance parole" that leave her vulnerable to the whims of the many eccentric interpreters of U.S. immigration law at the nation's airports and land borders.
Here's another place where family values stops: The rubble of the World Trade Center. Deena Gilbey is a British subject whose late husband worked on the 84th floor: On the morning of Sept. 11, instead of fleeing, he returned to the building to help evacuate his co-workers. A few days later, Mrs. Gilbey receives a letter from the INS noting that as she's now widowed her immigration status has changed and she's obliged to leave the country along with her two children (both U.S. citizens). Think about that: Having legally admitted to the country the terrorists who killed her husband, the U.S. government's first act on having facilitated his murder is to add insult to grievous injury by serving his widow with a deportation order. Why should illegal Mexicans be the unique beneficiaries of a sentimental blather about "family values" to which U.S. immigration is otherwise notoriously antipathetic?
How about "the jobs Americans won't do"? Most of them would be more accurately categorized as the jobs American employers won't hire Americans to do -- that's to say, in a business culture ever more onerously regulated, the immigration status of one's employees has become one of the easiest means of controlling costs. I see no reason why this would change, and given that, as a matter of policy, U.S. illegal-immigration law is not enforced by the U.S. government, it's hard to know why private employers should do it.
Meanwhile, U.S. immigration is cracking down on classical violinists. Don't ask me why. Presumably, Brahms' violin concerto falls into the ever dwindling category of jobs Americans will do. At any rate, the Halle Orchestra of Manchester, one of England's great orchestras, has just canceled its 2007 concerts at Lincoln Center. Why? Because all 80 musicians plus the 20 support staff are required -- under new "homeland security" regulations -- to be interviewed personally at the U.S. Embassy in London before each visa can be issued. They can't go en masse on the tour bus: They have to make individual appointments stretched out over several weeks. And they can't go to the local U.S. consulate in Manchester because -- and this detail is worth savoring five years after 9/11 -- the consulate's computers cannot handle the biometric data. The orchestra worked out that in train fares and accommodation it would cost about $80,000 to get the visas and decided it would rather cancel the tour. The good news is that Lincoln Center subscribers don't have to worry about the tuba player having plastic explosives packed down there. The bad news is, if a rogue tuba player ever breaks through the system, Homeland Security won't be able to e-mail his data back to the U.S. consulate in Manchester for a background check.
We're now expected to believe that this system will be able to stop hassling 68-year-old cello players long enough to process an extra 10 million-plus immigration applications, and that furthermore an agency that keeps no reliable records of legal entry into the United States will somehow be able to determine on the basis of utility bills whether this or that undocumented alien falls into amnesty-eligibility category.
Sure, believe that if you want to. It'll be good practice for swallowing the amnesty for the next 40 million circa 2025.
© Mark Steyn, 2006
Copyright © Mark Steyn, 2006
Nice ....I'm glad to see he is not drinking the koolaid some pundits are....particularly on Fox news
I went thru hell with some very nasty INS folks who were immigrants themselves to get my ex-wife legal back in the early 90s....and about 5K
and when my ships had the occasional stowaway or crewman who jumped port in the US, I had to buy a bond and pay a fine per each....usually several thousand each
now...it's all a damn joke....we got millions of illegals in our streets...demanding Reconquista at worst and rope jumping preference at best
and Nero continues to fiddle
Sing it WarDaddy
and his base crumbles.....I'm not sure he can recover unless unforeseen events overtake him
coulda been a contender
never thought I would be so put out with him and his RINOs....it feels damned awful I tell ya...what a waste of an opportunity
i used to think some now banned FReepers like JH, JB, FZ, Mo etc were sorta alarmists a few years ago.
They weren't. They were right. I was wrong.
Note: the bottom message --- it's in Espanole on the reverse side.
He may be counting on an "Iranian surprise" to sweep this off of the front page.
500,00 in Dallas! They have to shut-up.
Dallas is over run.
What cities are next?
Spector actually PROMISED on FNSunday, that he';s bringing back his damn legislation after the recess.
He is clueless and has to be voted down.
Sessions is my hero.
Kyle and Cronyn are in second place.
He damn sure needs something.
His base is as riled as I've ever seen.
I'm not sure he cares but some of those GOP trying to get elected will
bttt
That is the fault of our Immigration Department.
No, that's the fault of the Administration, starting at the White House and who they put in charge of the Departments and how they tell those folks how to run the department.
Thanks for the ping to the Mark Steyn, "No Easy Answers..." article.
Yes. I heard him say this (on the radio). This was particularly infuriating.
Mindless platitudes such as these insult the intelligence of his supporters and are obviously designed merely to manipulate.
This is the kind of foolishness that everyone cen expect from the low-life, self-serving, decadent, lying Democrats--but not from the Republicans, who are far better men and women.
Such as this erode President Bush's support among his supporters and account for his low approval numbers.
HOWEVER, never forget that the Democrats have NOTHING GOOD to offer America!!! They MUST be defeated at the polls.
The Democrat Party is the Party of Decadence and the Party of Sociopaths and Morons (S & M)!
And furthermore--no matter what criticisms may be ligitimately applied to President Bush, the following is the bottom line:
Thanks, Pokey!
Since I am in the immigration system, I can tell you that Immigration deliberately works at cross-purposes. Those of us here legally and who are in the system for permanent residency have to jump through hoops like crazy. Immigration looks for the slightest reason to deny applications and/or to find reasons to deport you. People following the rules are the low hanging fruit and Immigration gets to look tough on immigration practices in order to make up for their incompetence when it comes to dealing with illegal aliens. This way they can say they are enforcing the laws, doing a good job and deflecting criticism away from the illeagls issues.
That story about Mrs. Gilbey and her family is sickening.
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