| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
17 Jun 2007 09:01:19 AM |
| Object: |
Immigration bill is a fraud |
Chicago Sun-Times
June 17, 2007
Immigration bill is a fraud
MARK STEYN
I forget where I was when I first heard the phrase ''undocumented
worker.'' Possibly it was after swimming the Rio Grande and emerging
dripping on the northern shore to be handed a fake Social Security
number and a driver's license. But I assumed, reasonably enough, that
this linguistic sleight of hand was simply too ridiculous to fly even
with the American media. I underestimated my colleagues, alas.
The ''undocumented'' are, as it happens, brimming with sufficient
documents to open bank accounts or, on the other hand, rent a Ryder
truck, as Mohammad Salameh did in 1993 when he and his pals bombed the
World Trade Center first time round. Being ''undocumented'' means
being documented up to the hilt as far as everyone else is concerned
but ''undocumented'' only to the U.S. government. Which, when you
think about it, is a very advantageous status to have.
Anyway, about five years or so back, I started making references in
columns to ''fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American
community.'' But from the lame Steyn joke of yesteryear to the reality
of tomorrow is a mere hop and a skip. A few days ago, Harry Reid, the
Senate majority leader, declared: ''This week we will vote on cloture
and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border
security, bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the
shadows, and keep our economy strong.''
Talk about ''a fast track to citizenship''! Never mind probationary
visas, Z-visas and green cards, in the eyes of the Democrat steering
''comprehensive immigration reform'' through Congress, these guys are
already ''undocumented Americans.'' Was it simply a slip of the
tongue? (Speaking of which, I thought thanks to George W. Bush we had
''the worst economy since Herbert Hoover.'' When did it get
''strong''?) Or did Sen. Reid mean it?
If he did, the very concept of citizenship is dead, and the Senate
might as well opt for ''really comprehensive immigration reform'' and
declare everyone on the planet a U.S. citizen with backdated Social
Security entitlements. As Le Monde's famous headline of Sept. 12,
2001, put it, ''Nous sommes tous Americains.'' Literally.
I don't know whether this sham of a bill is dead or just resting ''in
the shadows'' like a fine upstanding member of the Vampiric-American
community. But, if it rises on the third night to stalk the land once
more, I would advise its supporters to go about their work more
honestly. First of all, the only guys ''living in the shadows'' are
the aides of American senators beavering away out of the public eye to
cook up this legislation and then present it as a fait accomplis to
the citizenry (if you'll forgive the expression). That is an affront
to small-r republican government, and, if intemperate hectoring
mediocrities like Trent Lott and Lindsay Graham don't understand that,
then their electors should give them a well-deserved lesson.
Second, the bill's supporters should stop assuming the bad faith of
their opponents. On Fox News the other night, I was told by NPR's Juan
Williams, ''You're anti-immigrant!'' Er, actually, I am an immigrant
-- one of the members of the very very teensy-weensy barely
statistically detectable category of ''legal immigrant.'' But perhaps
that doesn't count anymore. Perhaps, like Colin Powell's blackness,
it's insufficiently ''authentic.'' By filing the relevant paperwork
with the United States government, I'm not ''keepin' it real.''
I wouldn't presume to speak for the millions of Americans who oppose
this bill, but it's because I'm an immigrant myself that I object to
the most patent absurdity peddled by the pro-amnesty crowd. The bill
is fundamentally a fraud. Its ''comprehensive solution'' to illegal
immigration is simply to flip all the illegals overnight into the
legal category. Voila! Problem solved! There can be no more illegal
immigrants because the Senate has simply abolished the category.
Ingenious! For their next bipartisan trick, Congress will reduce the
murder rate by recategorizing murderers as jaywalkers.
Back in the real world far from those senators living in the non-
shadows of their boundless self-admiration, the truth is that
America's immigration bureaucracy cannot cope with its existing
caseload, and thus will certainly be unable to cope with millions of
additional teeming hordes tossed into its waiting room. Currently, the
time in which an immigration adjudicator is expected to approve or
reject an application is six minutes. That's not enough time to read
the basic form, never mind any supporting documentation. It's
certainly not enough time for any meaningful background check. Under
political pressure to ''bring the 12 million undocumented Americans
out of the shadows,'' the immigration bureaucracy will rubberstamp
gazillions of applications for open-ended probationary legal status
within 24 hours and with no more supporting documentation than a
utility bill or an affidavit from a friend. There's never been a
better time for Mullah Omar to apply for U.S. residency.
America has an illegal immigration problem in part because it has a
legal immigration problem. Anyone who enters the system exposes
himself to an arbitrary, capricious, whimsical bureaucracy: For
example, one of the little-known features of this bill is that in
order to ''bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the
shadows,'' millions of legal applicants are being hurled back into
outer darkness. Law-abiding foreign nationals who filed their
paperwork in the last two years would be required to go back to their
home countries and start all over again. Not only does this bill
reward law-breaking, it punishes law-abiding.
The people who are truly ''anti-immigrant'' are the folks who want to
send that immigrant from Slovenia or Fiji who applied in May 2005 back
to the end of the line. But then ''comprehensive immigration reform''
is about everything but immigration, including subverting sovereignty
and national security. Remember the 1986 amnesty? Mahmoud abu Halima
applied for it and went on to bomb the World Trade Center seven years
later. His colleague, the aforementioned Mohammad Salameh, was
rejected but carried on living here anyway. John Lee Malvo was
detained and released by U.S. immigration in breach of its own
procedures and re-emerged as the Washington sniper. The young Muslim
men who availed themselves of the U.S. government's ''visa express''
system for Saudi Arabia filled in joke applications -- ''Address in
the United States: HOTEL, AMERICA'' -- that octogenarian snowbirds
from Toronto who've been wintering at their Florida condos since 1953
wouldn't try to get away with. The late Mohammed Atta received his
flight-school student visa on March 11, 2002, six months to the day
after famously flying his first and last commercial airliner.
All the above passed through the U.S. legal immigration system. And,
whether they were detained, rejected, approved or posthumously
approved, in the end it made no difference. Because U.S. immigration
had no real idea who these men were.
But, don't worry, they'll be able to handle another ''12 million
undocumented Americans'' tossed in for express processing.
The real ''immigration fraud'' is not Mahmoud abu Halima's or John Lee
Malvo's or Mohammed Atta's, but that of the politicians who attempted
to foist this sham bill on the nation.
.
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| User: "Tim Crowley" |
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| Title: Re: Immigration bill is a fraud |
17 Jun 2007 10:00:40 AM |
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On Jun 17, 7:01 am, wrote:
The people who are truly ''anti-immigrant'' are the folks who want to
send that immigrant from Slovenia or Fiji who applied in May 2005 back
to the end of the line.
Of course if you had read the proposed bill, or even was reasonably
informed you would know this moron is a liar. There is nothing in the
proposed legislation that would send someone to the end of the line.
Why does this scum sucker need to lie? Why are you so guillible to
repeat such nonsense?
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| User: "Don Gabacho" |
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| Title: Re: Immigration bill is a fraud |
17 Jun 2007 10:14:37 AM |
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On Jun 17, 11:00 am, Tim Crowley <timmyturm...@gmail.com> wrote:
Of course if you had read the proposed bill, or even was reasonably
informed you would know this moron is a liar. There is nothing in the
proposed legislation that would send someone to the end of the line.
Are you brain damaged?
Just being allowed in line puts the whole line back!
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