And therin lies the heart of the debate. The Senate bill does not do that..
I am a consultant. Of sorts. For the past ten years or so I've freelanced for various companies, advised on when to sell property, setting up systems, that kind of thing.
So how WOULD a business handle this immigration problem? Forget the government, filled with congress critters wanting to get re-elected and thus only thinking of the immediate future. The government rarely makes the right decision on these long term things.
FIRST thing, when entering into a situation with an existing problem such as the non-stop flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico...any fool who works for a living would advise to STOP this before doing anything else.
The illegals have been living here for yea long, leave them alone for another year. Do a thorough assessment of that southern border and figure out how best to stop the flood of humanity pouring in. Don't fool around, no jokes, hire an outside company to make the assessment if need be.
NEXT, set up an immigration system that WORKS. Show me how employers can check for bogus SS cards or show me this biometric thing. Set the limits for immigrants, scream and rant but get it down in writing. Show me the GOVERNMENT is up to setting up a decent system. Hire an outside company to do it.
Get THAT job done, then let's have a national dialogue about how to handle the illegals already here.
Common Business Sense 101.
IF all this were done in an orderly and believable manner, and in the above order, then the disgruntled American people would be up to a fair system to lead the illegals to citizenship. I am one who does not believe that any sort of mass deportation would work or even if it's all that desireable. Your mileage may vary and that's okay. Let's talk about it; engage in a national dialogue, figure the pros the cons and the fairness of it.
And I do mean have a national dialogue. No totally unrealistic stuff; no back taxes or crap that is not going to happen. Few illegals are going to step forward only to be slapped with huge fines; money they likely do not have. We know what happened with that 1986 bill and the American people, most of us who work at legitimate businesses and have a clue or two about how things are done, are not going to like any other mass amnesty, indeed don't even want to talk about it, until those first two items are handled.
Unfortunately such big problems take some time and the congress critters want to get re-elected. Thus they do, from time to time, do the most expedient thing and grant a whole bunch of illegals amnesty just to take care of the pressing issues and get the silly voters off their back.
This time I really believe it's not going to work.