Thread: 3 Tracks for Illegals–Send All Lawmakers Home QUICK before i

http://www.steveyuhas.com/columns/yuhas_20060406.htm

Three Tracks for Illegals – Send All Lawmakers Home QUICK before it passes!

By: Steve Yuhas

As Senate Republicans cower in the face of a bill from the House of Representatives that would actually do something about illegal immigration; news on Thursday was about the “consensus” formed around a new plan seemingly embraced by enough Senators to pass.

The bill would be a multi-tiered approach to illegal immigration that would allow people who are criminals who happened to time their arrival correctly to be on the path to citizenship while others would be sent home. Forgot for a minute that we don’t send the people home that are here today and another law would do nothing to correct that disregarded fact.

It should be apparent that whenever a lawmaker prefaces his or her remarks with, “while it admittedly is not perfect…” (Senator Specter R-PA) that the law should not pass – it appears that lawmakers may well be on their way to passing yet another amnesty that would require little more than a phone or gas bill to prove that a person has been in the country for more than five years in order to stay.

Social Security cards, drivers licenses and even money are counterfeited at amazing speed – what would it take to fake a phone bill? Nothing!

Here is the bill from the Senate in a nutshell: come across the Rio Grand five years ago and are able to prove it? BINGO – you’re well on your way to becoming an American without waiting in line and without going home to so much as fill out a form.

Saw the border more recently – say between two and five years? Well, you have to head to LAX or one of the other ports of entry into the country and fill out a few forms there, but you still get to stay and you still get to live the American dream.

Less than two years since you saw “Mexico: It’s a Whole Other Country” in your rear view mirror? Out of luck – you have to go back and fill out your forms in your home country and wait your turn like almost everyone else. Except – nobody else is going to wait and the idea that these people will end up not being able to forge their way out of the two year rule is absurd.

All of the people will have to pay a fine, of course, that the government will promptly spend on bridges in Alaska that lead to nowhere and the inevitable farm bill that goes to the farm belt to make farms that should be out of business stay in business instead of going under.

The Senate bill is certainly not a done deal and as of this writing (late Thursday night) the Senate stalled in debating the amendments and bill entirely and it is likely, and many of us who care that our nation has been invaded by illegals, that Senators will go home for Passover and Easter before the bill can pass.

Add to the recess for the holiday the fact that the House of Representatives passed a bill that criminalized illegals, that sparked a bunch of protests that scared Republicans even though most Americans (including Hispanics) want everyone to wait in line for their turn to come to America and gave Democrats an issue for the upcoming election.

The fact of the matter is that lost in the debate over all of this amnesty is that the idea, like almost all other government ideas, has been tried and failed. Americans were told during the amnesty 20 years ago that legalized a few million people that doing it would come with increased border protection and that it would never happen again.

Government was as wrong as it typically is. Instead of a few million illegals now – there are at least a dozen if not more waiting for the next amnesty to come along and it appears that the Senate is willing to give it.

Thank goodness the framers of the Constitution were smart enough to allow a bicameral form of government and the Senate cannot make decisions for all of these “not so perfect” laws coming out of Washington actually affect people.

I think I speak for many Americans when I say that I would gladly pay a quarter more for a head of lettuce or a bit more for a clean hotel room or car wash if there are no illegals to do the job. I would much rather pay a bit more for that and know that the Constitutional duty of protecting our nation is being done by the government rather than what is happing in government today: declaring days to celebrate peanut butter and proclamations honoring people who scuffle with Capitol police officers.

Surely the Senate could come up with laws that do not have to be prefaced with how imperfect they are and certainly if they are prefaced with that phrase they should not be a law at all. Better to have no law than one that the people who wrote it and voted on it agree is not the best it can be.

Illegal immigration is an issue that is not going away and the band-aid approach coming out of the Senate will only further upset Americans and immigrants who waited their turn to become legal American residents and citizens. By and until both parties realize that the mere fact that citizens in lawn chairs are scaring away illegals at the border while they argue about imperfect laws we will forever have immigration problems in the United States.

Yes, this is a nation of immigrants, but it is not anymore and there is nothing in the Constitution that demands we keep the door open; let alone the illegal door that has been left ajar to benefit subsidized farmers and fast food joints. Just once I’d like to order a hamburger without having to figure out the Spanish way of asking for it.

The time has come for Congress to act and to stop talking tough and acting like scared little girls when it comes to enforcing the border. If we are going to spend time and money prosecuting Martha Stewart for allegedly lying about a crime that never happened then surely we can come up with some way to do something about people who definitely committed a crime rather than reward them with the greatest gift of all.

Citizenship to the greatest nation on earth.

Steve Yuhas is a columnist and radio talk show host on KOGO AM 600 and may be reached at www.steveyuhas.com or steve@steveyuhas.com

The time has come for Congress to act and to stop talking tough and acting like scared little girls when it comes to enforcing the border. If we are going to spend time and money prosecuting Martha Stewart for allegedly lying about a crime that never happened then surely we can come up with some way to do something about people who definitely committed a crime rather than reward them with the greatest gift of all.

Citizenship to the greatest nation on earth.

Well said!!!

Just once I’d like to order a hamburger without having to figure out the Spanish way of asking for it.