I was trying to come up with some analogy of what federal laws you could break in comparison to being in the US illegally which is against federal law. There was a case where this teenager girl from Australia was leaving the US into Canada. Her visa expired one day earlier. She was arrested and held in jail for three weeks. Her parents were frantic because they weren’t told where she was. She finally was released. One day! Expired visa! She was in the US legally during the time. But one day on an expired visa?????? So it’s okay for illegals to be here twenty-five years but since they were all goodie they can stay??? What’s the problem with that analogy?????
If she were an American robber and didn’t get caught for 3 or 7 years, depending on the state, she couldn’t be prosecuted for the robbery.
What you describe concerning your Australian acquaintance is the OTM (Other than Mexicans) policy promulgated by supervisors in ICE. This policy seems to apply to certain countries of origin and not to others.
Immigration officials —like all bureaucrats—strain out gnats but swallow camels. What Newt is alluding to is that many illegal immigrants are here as part of a mass immigration that has been unopposed by the government. Sort of like the Franks moving en masse across the Rhine into the old Roman Empire. Is a totally assimilated person to be punished because the government chose to ignore the laws, because both parties were bribed by businessmen who were trying to keep labor costs down? THAT is as unjust as the tons of paperwork that government dumped on these businessmen which made such chicanery necessary for them to stay in business.