[Southack]

"I also noticed you don't deny that he will do it."

You noticed that I thought that by your very own self, without even asking me?! Oh please.

President Bush's immigration reform plan *registers* illegals with the federal government, a far cry from leaving them all anonymous as they are today. His plan also makes them pay a fine.

How many real "amnesties" involve paying a fine (answer: none)?

[raybbr]

As long as you get illegals legitimized, is all you are really interested in. To heck with what a vast majority of people want.

[Spiff]

How many real "amnesties" involve paying a fine (answer: none)?

The ones that don't punish the lawbreakers under the laws that they broke. A simple, measly one-time fee to be paid by the lawbreaking employer is not the penalty for being a lawbreaking illegal alien or for being a lawbreaking employer of an illegal alien. It is hardly a penalty, it is more like an administrative fee or a bribe.

[Regulator]

How many real "amnesties" involve paying a fine (answer: none)?

An amnesty exonerates a criminal prior to ever being charged, so as to avoid the negative effects of wearing a criminal record, which generally would disqualify anyone from immigrating legally to the United States, let alone being naturalized.

No such blanket amnesty for citizens of the United States is being proposed for any other broad category of crimes.

Don't you think it just a tad odd that the President of the United States would reserve such extraordinary treatment for foreign nationals, and not the citizens he allegedly represents?

A tiny little note: I met an amnestied illegal alien in Los Angeles the other day (yeah, I asked him). He's now a security guard. He had a rather large semi-auto pistol strapped to his waist. It was truly surreal: knowing that this guy broke a laundry list of laws to get into, and stay in the United States, and he has nothing - nothing - in his background now that would point to such. Clean as a newborn baby, walking around with a big ol' hog-leg. "Yo soy Norteamericano".

And you think a lousy administrative fee is all its worth?

I might buy a little gastarbeiter program. Here's the conditions (only for those who apply from inside the U.S., while here illegally):

• They plead guilty to 8 USC 1325 , and accept a minimum 3 month sentence. They wear the record the rest of their lives.

• They are banned from using citizen services in the form of entitlements.

• They are not counted in the census for any apportionment of political districts, and their ethnicity is not recorded so as to influence such districts.

• They can never be the beneficiaries of preferences based on their nationality, ethnicity, or any other protected class set aside.

• The work visa can only be renewed once, and then the alien must start the ordinary application process to become a Legal Permanent Resident. At the end of term 2, he goes home. If the Permanent Resident application is in limbo at that point...Oh Well.

Actually I think even the last point is little too generous. We really already have such programs, such as H2A and H2B. The people we're discussing are the ones who decided they didn't want to bother with silly formalities like that. At most, those programs could simply be expanded.