Posted on 03/25/2006 3:01:53 AM PST by dennisw
PRESIDENT Bush's proposal to legalize the country's 10 or so million illegal aliens rests on a fallacy: that immigration enforcement has failed to stem the tide of illegal aliens. Therefore, the argument goes, amnesty is the only solution to the illegal-alien crisis.
But immigration enforcement has not failed — it has never been tried. Amnesty, however, has been tried, and it was a clear failure that should not be repeated again.
For decades, the country's immigration enforcement has looked like this: a largish number of Border Patrol agents clustered at the border with Mexico, then a vast empty space beyond where illegal immigrants are home free — as if a football team had placed its entire defense on the line of scrimmage.
Roughly 2,000 immigration agents have been responsible for all interior enforcement, a massive portfolio which includes checking work sites, eradicating document fraud and alien smuggling, and apprehending criminal aliens. Their numbers are dwarfed by the millions of illegal aliens, the hundreds of thousands of employers who hire them, and the tens of thousands of counterfeiters and smugglers who facilitate their passage.
This dearth of enforcement resources has had the most dire consequences in the workplace. It is the lure of jobs that draws most aliens across the border illegally. The highest priority of immigration enforcement should be to disengage that jobs magnet by penalizing employers who hire illegals. The opposite is the case: A combination of inadequate manpower and weak laws has ensured that illegal aliens and their employers enjoy near immunity from detection and prosecution.
Currently, a mere 124 immigration agents are responsible for enforcing the law against hiring illegal aliens, according to the Associated Press. Only 53 employers were fined in 2002. An employer's chance of punishment for breaking the law, therefore, was a scant one one-hundreth of a percent.
But even were immigration authorities to get adequate resources, it would have little effect on the jobs magnet, because the government's tools for prosecuting illegal employment are so weak. Under public pressure to end the illegal-alien crisis, Congress in 1986 banned the employment of illegal aliens and imposed liability on employers who did so. It was a pyrrhic victory. The 1986 law (the Immigration Reform and Control Act [IRCA]) was emasculated at its inception and has been continuously thwarted in its application.
Here's how: A ban on illegal labor can work only if employers can reliably determine a worker's employment eligibility. Business and ethnic lobbies defeated worker verification in 1986 and every time it has been proposed since then.
What we have instead is a system of playacting. Millions of illegal workers pretend to present valid documents, and thousands of employers pretend to believe them. The employee merely needs to proffer, and the employer merely eyeball, any two documents from a dizzying list of 25 — all eminently counterfeitable — to establish the employer's compliance with the 1986 law. If the documents are not obvious fakes— scrawled on a matchbook with a red crayon, say — the employer must accept them.
In fact, if an employer looks too closely at a worker's papers, he may face a lawsuit for racial discrimination. Civil rights and ethnic lobbies made sure that IRCA included a whole new anti-bias bureaucracy: the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, which sues employers who demand clear proof of worker eligibility.
Having eyeballed the worker's papers, the employer is now virtually insulated from liability. He can be penalized only if the government can prove that he knowingly hired illegal aliens — an almost impossible burden as long as the worker has proffered some reasonable set of fake work papers.
It is this workplace sham that has guaranteed the onslaught of illegals into the country.
In trying to sell his amnesty program, Bush made a vague gesture towards correcting the sham: "Employers must not hire undocumented aliens," he said. "There must be strong workplace enforcement with tough penalties for . . . any employer violating these laws." This is meaningless verbiage. Unless Bush advocates a fraud-proof method of verifying a worker's eligibility — such as electronic checks of Social Security numbers — his new amnesty and guest-worker programs will have only one effect: The flood of illegal aliens will increase exponentially.
Illegal workers will still be able to proffer counterfeit documents to get hired, and even more will cross the border than before, lured by the reasonable expectation that in a few years, the U.S. will offer another amnesty.
The last large-scale amnesty in 1986 nearly sunk the INS. The barrage of applications for work papers, many fraudulent, overwhelmed the agency. Ethnic advocacy groups sued constantly to widen the eligibility criteria for citizenship, and under political pressure, the INS penalized agents with high denial rates. The results? Several Islamic terrorists got legal papers, and a new era of high-volume illegal immigration began.
Expect a worse outcome this time around. Immigrant advocacy groups are even more powerful, the numbers of illegals even higher than in 1986, and the Department of Homeland Security, now responsible for immigration enforcement, even more overwhelmed by its paperwork obligations.
Rather than granting President Bush his election year amnesty, Congress should give immigration authorities the resources and legal tools to protect the country's borders. It would be a novel experiment.
Wrong. We are a nation of mostly natural born citizens, and we are a nation that ignores the law for immigrants.
And our immigration laws are in need of reform.
Wrong. We need to inforce the laws we have.
The illegal aliens and the criminals who hire them and the criminals who harbor them are getting out in the street making their desires known. It is way past time those of us who support the rule of law and secure borders did the same.
Join Veterans for Secure Borders, The Minuteman Project, Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, and other groups protesting amnesty for these criminals, and demanding the government protect our borders.
http://www.areckoning.com/
FReepers should be at this rally in strength. Saturday, May 6, in Crawford, TX.
"When a person applies for a job, treat them like they're buying a gun"
It isn't the employees that are the problem... its the employers.
While FR was down today I read an article on drudge where President Bush is quoted as saying that he is totally against any kind of amnesty.
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He just changed his definition of amnesty. It’s like Clinton saying he didn’t have sex because it was oral sex.
BTTT
"Let's discuss and learn more about the current legislation and whether or not it contains the tools and means to stem the future flow while also addressing the current millions already in country."
"I really have no ideas of the specifics ...."
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Below please find the comparisons of 6 "bills" or "plans" that are in our "esteemed" CONgress critters hands.
Comparison of the Main Immigration Enforcement, Guest Worker, and Amnesty Bills in the 109th Congress:
http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/GuestworkerAmBillsin109th.pdf
Sensenbrenner's H.R. 4437 vs. Specter's "Plan"
http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/SensenbrennervsSpecter030106.pdf
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Fact Sheet: Fair and Secure Immigration Reform
White House 1-7-04:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040107-1.html
Fact Sheet: President Bush Signs Homeland Security Appropriations Act
White House 10-18-06:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051018-3.html
Nope read his new definition of amnesty, “no jumping to the head of the line”. Total NEWSPEAK bull$hit. Nothing changed except his definition of the word.
Jump to head of the line refers to citizenship. 3rd world Illegal aliens could care less about citizenship. They just want to live and work and have children here and collect welfare here. They don't need US citizenship to do this
I will admit that the more cultured & civilized illegal aliens do crave citizenship but will settle for guest worker any old time because they know if they stick around long enough they will get the citizenship option. Especially under a Democrat president
I agree which is why Bush's new definition of amnesty is bull$hit. Amnesty has nothing to do with letting them become citizens. Bush knows that but figures he can BS enough people to get away with it.
"they know if they stick around long enough they will get the citizenship option. Especially under a Democrat president"
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Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986:
http://www.oig.lsc.gov/legis/irca86.htm
"This country has lost control of its borders. No country can do that and survive."
President Reagan made those remarks in 1986 as he signed a bill known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, or IRCA, that granted amnesty to illegal aliens. That bill was sold to the American people with the assurance that it was a "one time" amnesty for nearly 3 million illegal aliens. IRAC '86 came with the promise of severe employer sanctions and strict border security.
http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/2005/05/11/270/10182773.prt
A good article from a year ago.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17649
Then why was I required to learn Spanish within 6 months if I wanted to keep my position as a supervisor (which requires I have a masters degree) at the largest health clinic in Houston? Talk the talk, but walk the walk, Mr. President. It's about sovereignty.
Wow! I did not know President Bush owned the largest health clinic in Houston.
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