PricelessThis bill had some trade legislation in it and it was good for Mexico. I’ve been hearing about that aspect some now on talk radio. It’s time to return to the original legislation and see why the president was so frantic that it would pass. There’s a reason why senate leaders wanted to pass it quickly so that folks wouldn’t have a chance to read what was in it. We should now get educated for the next round. Hugh Hewitt, for one, has read this and knows a lot about the small print.
PricelessHugh did some fine work, but he (and almost everyone else) missed the most disastrous and dangerous element of the bill.
You need to know one and only one thing: the Z Visa would have provided permanent residence and work authorization to 15 to 20 million peasant laborers who are greatly desired by the corporate members of the American Meat Institute, Assoc. of American Home Builders, the Council Of Chain Food Operators, the American Restaurant Assoc., and many hundreds of other business lobbies (the foregoing all hire large numbers of DC and K Street lobbyists).
Most importantly, the very second thet George Bush signed the bill, all illegal aliens and their U.S. employers would instantaneously be immunized from every aspect of U.S. immigration law!
It is one thing to say the bill was "not an amnesty" for illegals. The same cannot be said for the American businesses that would be let off the hook for immigration crimes as if the law never existed. That meets every dot and tittle of the Black's Law definition of "amnesty".
Bottom line is that this was a top to bottom amnesty for American business, which has been increasingly exposing uitself to citizen-backed RICO lawsuits for immigration crimes (thousands of predicate offenses are easily proven).
Back to the Z Visa itself, it would have been completely and totally unvetted. There was no requirement whatsoever for identification. NONE. There were no health checks, immunizations, extra-U.S. criminal checks, financial checks, or anything else that legitimate and lawful immgrants must undergo. Nothing.
ANYONE FROM ANY NATION could assert Z Visa eligibility, and thereby obtain immunity in the U.S. from all further immigration violations. Plus permanent residence, work and work authorizations and a nice new official U.S. federal ID card.
The underlying problem is that George Bush, Congress, and their business association buddies wanted to quickly immunize U.S. businesses from investigation or prosecution of our immgration laws (e.g., some like Tyson and Cargill employ tens of thousands of illegals each).
And they were perfectly willing to do so with a sham Z Visa that threatened our national security and daily law enforcement.
And finally, they know that the USCIS cannot possibly process 15 to 20 million visas of any kind without complete and total breakdown. The very idea is risable, and every person on Capitol Hill knows that to be true (a staffer told me several years ago that INS/USCIS "generates more constituent complaints [on the Hill] than all other issues combined".
This was not about "coming out of the shadows". It was entirely about protecting American business from prosecution, at the thoughtless expense of national security and law enforcement.