Thread: Immigration Rant

Home Immigration Rant
Contributed by Kevin Bouffard - Posted: July 9, 2007 4:58:36 PM

"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin from her one-woman show, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe."
Tomlin easily could have been talking about the debate over U.S. immigration policy that culminated with the June 28 defeat of a reform proposal backed by President Bush and most of the congressional Democrats. Tomlin certainly would not have found any signs there.

Let's start with the canard that this was a "national security issue." It's true enough that the U.S. government needs to tighten its border control measures to keep potential terrorists out. So why did the debate focus on the U.S.-Mexican border? When was the last terrorist attack to come across that border?

Despite the fact that several potential attacks had come across the Canadian border and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Congress and Bush were ready to waste billions of dollars on a supposed high-tech "security fence" along the Mexican border. A two-word reminder of the likely prospects for the fence's success -- Maginot Line. That was a series of fortified bunkers and other defenses the French built across their German border after World War I. French military leaders guaranteed it would stop a future invasion. Hitler went around the line through Belgium and the Netherlands.

As long as U.S. employers are offering to employ Mexican workers, they too will find a way through or around any U.S.-built fence. Off hand, I can easily envision Mexican smugglers and illegal immigrants flouting the fence with boats and rafts launched from Mexico bound for the Texas and California coasts. The Cubans have been doing it for decades.

An equally silly aspect of the proposed bill is that a certain number of immigrants would have been expected to return to their native countries to reapply for admission back to the U.S. The Bush-backed proposal required this only of immigrants who first arrived in recent years, but some were pushing it for all illegals. Honestly, how many chowder heads would expect anyone with the common sense of a gnat to take that offer? "Trust us. We'll let you back, despite all those nasty things we said." Yeah, sure.

The fact is there's one straightforward, inexpensive solution to illegal immigration, and that's to fine, and perhaps even imprison, the employers who hire illegal immigrants. No one from Mexico or any other country would undertake the dangerous journey if he/she knew the odds of getting a job were slim.

Of course few mind imprisoning the illegal immigrants, but fewer still, but for the most ardent anti-immigrant crusaders, would stand still for tossing executives from Wal-Mart down to the mom-and-pop business into the slammer. There's a word for that, and it begins with an "R." I'll let you guess.

The fact is the last immigration reform measure in 1986 contains employer sanctions, but officials in both Democratic and Republican administrations refused to enforce them because of the potential public blowback, particularly from the very people who finance their campaigns. Most of the politicians demagoguing the immigration issue know this because they too ignored the influx of some 12 million illegals since 1986 until they discovered it as a political issue.

Keep looking, Lily.
http://blogs.theledger.com/default.asp?item=647067

Of course few mind imprisoning the illegal immigrants, but fewer still, but for the most ardent anti-immigrant crusaders, would stand still for tossing executives from Wal-Mart down to the mom-and-pop business into the slammer. There's a word for that, and it begins with an "R." I'll let you guess.


I don't know who exactly wrote this - but don't speak for me. I would have no problem with the employers actually have to serve some time - or at the very least probation - huge fines - and lots of community service.

Ode to Amnesty’s Defeat:

Obfuscation and duplicity are their tools,

Assuming that we are fools.

We answered with rectitude

And much more fortitude.

In the acrimonious end,

We did not bend.

They came with noggins blazing;

We got nary a grazing.

Like Picket’s futile charge,

They suffered large

Condemned today by the blues,

They nurse their battle wounds.

Both sides to fight another day.

Beware the new lies they will say.