The Constitutional Amendment Con

American Spectator ^ | 09 aug 2010 | W. James Antle, III

[rellimpank]

Last Friday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) let the cat out of the bag: his sudden crusade to reform birthright citizenship is directly related to his need for political cover on amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"Yeah, I think it's fair to say that I need to go home to South Carolina and say: listen, I know we're all upset that we have 12-14 million people illegally, " Graham told National Review's Daniel Foster. "I'm going to have to be practical. We're not going to deport or jail 12-14 million people." Graham's practical solution is the same old "comprehensive immigration reform," the logic of which is that it would not be amnesty for grand theft auto if the perpetrator got to keep the car in exchange for paying a fine and promising to read the owner's manual.

Of course, Graham already gave away the game when he entertained a constitutional amendment to clarify what the 14th Amendment says about birthright citizenship. The New Republic's Jonathan Chait recently snickered at the number of conservative constitutional amendments floating around that have been endorsed by "mainstream Republicans," but the joke is really on conservatives: a no-hope constitutional amendment is the usual way a GOP politician pays lip service to some conservative concern he plans to do nothing about.

A classic example is the antiabortion human life amendment. At its peak in 1984, it got 49 votes in a Republican-controlled Senate with a sympathetic, articulate pro-lifer in the White House -- 18 votes short of passage, two shy of a simple majority. Fast forward more than twenty years to the federal marriage amendment. With a 10-seat Republican majority in the Senate and a sympathetic if inarticulate president, the gay marriage amendment failed 49 to 48.

[Publius6961]

I am sick of this false argument. There is no need to deport 12-14 million. It is necessary to make the first ones STICK. The rest will deport themselves.

Specially if it is made clear that the ones who deport themselves have the option of returning legally, if they choose. The ones who must be unwillingly deported permanently forfeit that option.

Criminals, goes without saying, are jailed appropriately, deported and permanently barred.

It's not rocket science. But it does require character, commitment, and the ability to see the clear distinction between "the right thing" and the "easier thing!"

[Publius6961]

We definitely need other limits on congress and president's power too. These Senators are arrogant after a few years.

My favorite, and ever present example of this arrogance from MY senator, Diane Feinstein, when a delegation from the most agriculturally productive valleys in the country visited her and expressed concern for the water supply and the health and food supply of people over bugs and bunnies, she famously snapped,

"It's the LAW! Deal with it!"

I hate that woman.

[TomasUSMC]

Actually, Eisenhower did not “deport millions” of illegals. He assigned one of his former generals to do two things: crack down on the border, and crack down on the enployers of illegals. In that effort, a minority of the solution involved deportation by the US government.
The majority of the results were “self-deportation.” Recognizing the handwriting on the wall, hundreds of thousands of aliens picked up and went home to Mexico. Exactly the same thing was happening in Arizona until the idiot judge Bolton enjoined the enforcement of the law.

If the American press would read the actual history of Eisenhower’s effort (the last successful one) it would bury the “you can’t deport millions of people” false claim.

John / Billybob
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