Many good people objected to Kennedy's proposals when we opened up immigration in the late 1960s - to base it completely on who wanted to come and not who we wanted to come - and to the "adjustments" he got into the "reforms" in the 1980s (yes, the same Ted Kennedy). Everything his critics said then that would happen has happened. And now our "conservative" President and that same Kennedy are on the same side of another round of "reforms". What's that that they say about twice burned?
The facts and logic tell you that if you have no intent to adequately even try to enforce the current law, and secure your border, then after you've added 12 more encyclopedic volumns of additional complications and requirements into the law, who in their right mind believes you will enforce the enforcement provisions in the reforms? Only idiots.
Either we have immigration laws or we don't. If we have immigration laws and we 12 million illegals in the country that have skirted the law, then nobody can tell me there was any serious attempt to enforce the law.
The only thing wrong with the current law is that it is not enforced, by choice of our Presidents and our congress. They will not, absolutely will not enforce the new laws if they are not made by us, the people, now, to enforce the existing law.
There is nothing "comprehensive" needed to enforce the existing law.
Most employers of illegals do so using the fraudulent Social Security numbers the illegals get. The IRS knows they are fraudulent, because they match them against the official Social Security database. When they don't match, its like found money to the treasury, because they have no person to match it to. The income tax side just goes into the general fund and the FICA goes into an account set up just for these "unkowns".
A simple 800 telephone number where the employer keys in their employer federal ID, then keys in the Social Security number he's been handed and a recording comes back with "OK" or "Fraud", and records the employer ID and the bocus social in an indexed file.
Employer makes their quarterly tax payments. Before any payments are applied, the IRS checks the list of social security numbers the money is to be applied to, against the same Social Security database. If their is one bocus number in their, the IRS does not accept the payment, at all.
Employers taxes are not paid.
After a few quarters of mounting tax arrears, and a couple tax lien letters from the IRS, the employer will get the message and fire his illegals.
If employers cannot conduct their financial business with the government, using bocus social security numbers, they will quit being the honey that attracts the workers.
No act of congress or "reform" is needed. Just executive authority to use every legal means to enforce the law.
Amen to that! All the laws that are needed are in place now.