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Amnesty? Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Ever
By Paul Streitz
Jul 6, 2005, 21:02

Amnesty for the illegals in the United States sounds like a good idea, but is not. It sounds like it would wipe the slate clean and start again. Americans generally believe in redemption, new beginnings and new hope and progress. It would also be humanitarian. Many of illegals have spent years working in the underground economy and have established a life in the United States.

The first reason not to have amnesty is that it would not decrease but increase the flow of illegals into the country. Every amnesty or talk of amnesty has simply increased the number of illegals coming over the border. No proponent of amnesty has also proposed to firmly shut down the massive illegal immigration. Somehow, amnesty and a secure border don’t mix for amnesty advocates. Amnesty, then, is simply an excuse to continue the massive migration into the country without legal consequences.

Second, no citizen in the country trusts the federal government or the President to enforce any immigration laws or protect the border. The Mexican border is like Swiss cheese. Only it is Swiss cheese with more holes than cheese. For miles, there are only thin strands of barbed wire to keep out illegals. There are holes under the wire and well beaten paths as thousands of immigrants come across nightly.

Each night using infra-red cameras, helicopters and night scopes, the Border Patrol plays cat and mouse with thousands of illegals coming over, under and around strands of barbed wire. They catch most of them, but miss some. Those they return will try again another night.

The President called the Minutemen vigilantes. These are middle-class Americans, who are so fed up with the situation that they camped out on the border in the Arizona sun and chilly nights to assist the Border Patrol. After the Minutemen left Arizona, the Border Patrol agents were told to apprehend fewer illegals coming across to decrease the apprehension rate. This was done to make the Minutemen’s efforts look less effective. Who side is the President on anyway?

This amnesty is not amnesty. It is coercion. It is giving in to a hold-up man’s demands because he is holding a gun in your face. "If you don’t give us amnesty, we are going to stay here anyway and keep coming," is what the illegals are saying. Amnesties, like pardons, are given when you hold the power and decide that clemency should be given to a repentant person or group. But, the American people have no power. The government is derelict in its refusal to protect the border, enforce its immigration laws and enforce its employment laws. This amnesty is a sham give-away.

The INS had an effective means of identifying employed illegals in 1998. They simply went to employers and asked to interview those employees with suspect social security numbers. The illegals simply left. The businesses were losing their cheap labor and interceded with their elected officials and forced the INS to stop this effective program.

Somehow, with modern technology, millions of Americans can go to any gas station in any state in the Union and insert a credit card to get gas. This is instantaneous. Yet, the federal government cannot develop an electronic system to make sure that a person has a valid social security card. Simply denying employers the right to deduct the wages of illegals as business expenses would dry up illegal employment in months.

Americans are not fools. They know that illegals are here because businesses want illegals to drive down costs and drive up profits. Cheap labor is only cheap for the business, not for the rest of society. Illegal labor is a cheap drug. Once one business in town employs illegals, other companies have to start doing it to stay competitive. Soon what are four or five illegals becomes, ten, fifty, two hundred. The illegals drive the legals out of their jobs.

There is Gresham’s law that says, bad money drives good money out of circulation (Named after Thomas Gresham, counselor to Queen Elizabeth I). That is, people tend to hoard the good money that has value and trade with the money of uncertain value. In the same manner, one can posit Streitz’s law, "Illegal labor drives legal labor into unemployment."

Amnesty? Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Thank you very much.

Paul Streitz was a Minuteman in Arizona in April. He is a co-director of CT Citizens for Immigration Control mailto:CtCIC@optonline.net or www.ctcitizensforimmigrationcontrol.com/. CTCIC will hold a demonstration against the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Bill in front of Senator Joe Lieberman’s office, Saturday, June 25th at 9:30 a.m.