No, I'm going to lie to you.
Of course I'll give you my honest opinion, right or wrong I always try to do that.
I think it will pass, at least in the Senate, but not exactly in its current form. There will be enough weasle worded amendments allowed for the shamnesty first crowd to continue spinning any objections as nothing but racism.
The real battle is in the House where it may never come to a vote. The only hope for passage there is to get enough of the MoveOn Dhimmicrats on board and their Union bosses won't let that happen so long as the guest worker provisions are still there (unless they build in something like mandatory union membership?) and if the guest worker program gets pulled the pro slavery business RINOs in the Senate will never agree to that in committee.
Bottom line, I don't think it will get out of the House or will go to committee in such a radically different form that it'll never get out of committee.
This fight could be a great launching point for a Thompson campaign. If he publicly went to the House members who have indicated interest in his campaign and was able to marshal them around the slogan of "border control first" he might really strike a spark with a lot of people. There are also a lot of non-hispanic immigrants who feel their communities are being raped by this bill as well. If he makes the notion of immigration fairness the theme he can successfully deflect charges of racism and would make a big dent in those communities, as well as in the black community, who are increasingly bitter about illegals coming here and taking "their benefits."
There is no such animal as a good border bill. We need cheap labor for mowing lawns and washing cars etc. I know many business owners that need low cost manual labor due to the labor shortage. We do not have that workforce here so we need some sort of Guest Worker program. There will be that or nothing.
Course those truths make me as popular as a cactus in a nudist colony.
Pray for W and Our Troops
I believe it will pass the Senate largely intact. The House will be a different matter in terms of how the bill emerges, but I believe it will come out of the House narrowly with most of the so-called Dem concessions modified or removed, e.g., guest worker program, merit based immigration vice chain migration, etc. The enforcement part will probably be strengthened to get more Rep and blue dog Dem votes. The House represents our best hope of killing the bill. Once it goes into conference, there will be lots of negotiations to keep the "bipartisan" coalition together.
I think it is 50/50 that the final bill is passed. The Dems first and main objective is to legalize the status of the 12 to 20 million illegals. They can change the provisions they don't like in subsequent Congresses. The Reps who are trying to sell us this amnesty want some sort of guest worker program and an increase in the number of H1B visas. If that is part of the final bill, they are happy.
Ultimately, the turncoat Reps are going to be very unhappy as this bill morphs into something else, especially if the Dems take over the WH. It will become less business friendly and more to the liking of La Raza and the unions. The Dems need "bipartisan" cover to make this happen. They don't want to be tagged as the ones responsible for this bill that will eventually change the very nature of this country. As the problem metastasizes around the country, it is going to be quite clear that we have made a Faustian bargain and a colossal mistake. And there will be a new crop of illegals coming into replace those newly-minted legals who have lost much of their attractiveness to employers. The Dems can then point to the fact that this was a bipartisan bill and signed by a Rep President. So the buck stops with the President.
The idea that the US economy must import millions of high school dropouts, many of whom don't even speak English, is absurd. And what happens when we move into an economic downturn and unemployment goes to 6%? Unlike widgets, we cannot move people out who have been legalized. They will become an increasing drain on our schools, hospitals, and local welfare systems, for which the federal government and business do not have to foot the bill. By 2030 we will have 70 million people of retirement age, twice as many as we do now. They will see their state and local taxes, e.g., property taxes, going up to support school expansion, etc. cutting into their fixed incomes. And our health care systems will be stressed to support these additional requirements. God help us.