Thinking About That "Amnesty"

The American Spectator ^ | 1/9/2004 | Lawrence Henry

[lonewacko_dot_com]

"Deport 'em all!" has come the cry from talk radio hosts in response to President Bush's proposal to create a new guest-worker status for the estimated 8-12 million illegal aliens now living in the United States.

"An abomination!" columnist Michelle Malkin called the proposal on a TV show.

"An insult!" legal immigrants have protested.

"Amnesty!" has come the widespread howl.

Step back. Stop. Think. Imagine you have some administrative responsibility for the actual running of the United States government, some influence on its economy, on its laws, on its stability. Imagine you have inherited (say) 10 million illegal residents, here, now, the actual consequence of terrible immigration policies and mostly non-existent immigration enforcement, accumulated over 30-plus years.

Imagine first the difficulty if you simply tried to "deport 'em all," no matter how gradually (and this against the backdrop of being at war).

Our entire armed forces number significantly less than 10 million. It took more than a year to move half a million of them (plus equipment, true) to another country -- and we know who those guys are, and they follow orders.

There is no law enforcement establishment in the free world large enough to move that many people...

[lonewacko_dot_com]

He offers a great argument against "deporting them all." However, few people want to simply "deport them all." Most people want a reform of our immigration policy that's consistent with American law and values.

Most people don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past: one amnesty will beget another as millions more illegal aliens come here in expectation of the next amnesty.

And, the very fact that we can't deport all of the illegal aliens in the U.S. points out that we have a serious problem, requiring a solution that has been shown to work and not more of the same.

Please send the American Spectator's editor a brief polite note with your thoughts on this matter: editor@Spectator.org

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[DumpsterDiver]

Please send the American Spectator's editor a brief polite note with your thoughts on this matter

That "polite" stuff kinda cramps my style, dont'cha know, but I'll take a shot at it tomorrow if I'm not feeling too surly. ;^)

[Happy2BMe]

Bush's Ridiculous Speech About Immigration Reform

DUMPING CONSERVATIVES AT THE BORDER

Jobs Americans Won't Do: Voodoo Economics from the White House.

[Rimfire Rob]

I highly recommend Michelle Malkin's book,"Invasion", on immigration.

[Ronin]

bump

[Kay Soze]

[WinOne4TheGipper]

Why thank you for that e-mail address. **Evil laugh as I copy and paste that flame.**

[John H K]

"However, few people want to simply "deport them all."

Eh, I think you're wrong about that.

And I think there's a small but significant subset that won't say it out loud, but I believe fantasizes a bit every once in a while about rounding up and shooting, not deporting, them all.

[Kay Soze]

I dont recal asking W to step up and start deporting people.

I do recall asking W to use the INS (ICE now) to step up their screening of illegal unfriendlies.

Now that we are granting amnesty which will require a massive amount of background checks on millions of people and subsequent follow up- Will this allow W use INS to make the US Safer?

[JoeSchem]

Deport them all wouldn't be a good idea?

Let me tell you the joke about the engineer and the scientist. A psychologist decided to set up an experiment where a beautiful woman stood a hundred feet away from the test subject for one minute. Then the next minute, she came half as close, or fifty feet. Then the next minute, she came half as close, or twenty-five feet -- and so on, for each minute.

The scientist refused to participate in the experiment. "It's an infinite geometric series," he explained. "There will always be a finite distance between us."

The engineer, however, decided to participate in the experiment. When asked why, he replied, "I can get close enough!"

That's how it seems to me with regard to deporting illegals. We don't need to achieve perfection in order to get a payback. Whatever we achieve, big or small, there's a payoff.

If we send even just 1% of the illegals home, then that's a 1% improvement on the cost to our infrastructure -- no more public schools for little Juan, no more crowding on the freeways, no more electrical brownouts, no more welfare, no more emergency room visits, no more crime -- need I go on?

Indeed, given the money that we save on that 1% improvement, we can afford a 2% improvement. And given the money that we save on the 2% improvement, we can double the program again, and get a 4% improvement. And so on. Do you see where this is leading?

No, I guess you don't. Because if you can't see where letting someone invade your country is leading, then you surely won't see this, either.

[sweetliberty]

"to stuff the Democrats into the black hole of a permanent minority. Within another election cycle, this theory says, the Dems will be as gone as the Whigs."

This is the only part of the whole article I like.

[Allan]

No need to deport anybody.
As they said on the John and Ken show yesterday
just prosecute 100 businessmen
who illegaly are employing illegals
not declaring them
and not paying their benefits
and just watch the fall-out from that.

But don't expect this administration to try that!

[Revel]

"There is no law enforcement establishment in the free world large enough to move that many people..."

Yeah and why did they let them all in in the first place. And do nothing to send them home when they caught them. They always wanted them here is why. And now they have this excuse to do let them stay. Hog wash!

[Mike Darancette]

For as long as I can remember, the left and pro-immigrant amnesty types have told us that illegal immigrants are a net positive on the economy, they all work hard in jobs American's won't do and they don't use medical and social services.

Well it looks like Bush has directed the Congress to come up with legislation that will test that hypothesis. I'll bet that only about 25-30% of illegals would even qualify for the program.

[Mike Darancette]

But don't expect this administration to try that!

I think that they would.

[hawk1]

Agreed. Fining businesses and stopping benefits to illegals would go a long way to correct the problem. Also, actual deportation would send a strong signal to all parties involved. The problem is the political will to actually take these measures.

[DoughtyOne]

am I the only one that notices how close amnesty is to amnasty

I guess that's quite fitting

the idea of this amnesty seems quite nasty to me

[drypowder]

Mass deportation is probably the best way to stop the influx of illegal immigrants. Enforcing the laws on businesses who employee illegals is also needed. It will be a slow process and I agree that only a fraction of the illegals that are here will ever be deported but the point is to send the message that "there ain't no use in coming if there ain't no jobs and your just going to get sent back". Anything short of enforcing our current laws will just encourage more illegal immigration.

[Zipporah]

Yes.. we do have a serious problem.. one created by the US government. If I had my preference I would say deport them but if we put sanctions on businesses that hire illegals and stopped all benefits, they would repatriot themselves..they wouldn't have to deport them. Closing our borders is something that is important to the national security if we had the resolve but I honestly do not think the government has that resolve.