Showing posts with label amnesty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amnesty. Show all posts

December 15, 2009

Amnesty Kabuki Theatre: April Fools Day Countdown

From the Washington Post,
A broad cross-section of House Democrats unveiled a new comprehensive immigration reform bill Tuesday, laying down an early marker for what they hope will be a major 2010 debate.

More than 80 co-sponsors have already signed on to the legislation, which is authored by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and titled the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009, or "CIR ASAP" for short. The bill includes provisions strengthening border security, creating a streamlined employment verification system, altering the visa program to promote the reunification of families and establishing a commission to recommend changes to the current system of H-1B and H-2B visas for skilled workers.

The measure, a summary of which is available here (PDF), also contains an "earned legalization program" for current undocumented workers, giving them the chance to get legal status if they pay a $500 fine, pass a criminal background check and show that they have made valuable contributions to American society "through employment, education, military service or other volunteer/community service."

Gutierrez and several members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as well as the Congressional Black Caucus and other groups jammed into an overstuffed, sweltering House committee room Tuesday to release the bill and demand action.

Standing before a cadre of activists chanting "Si, se puede," and a group of children wearing shirts that said "future voter," Gutierrez said that years of hard work and negotiations on the issue had brought them "to this bill and to this meeting, which marks the final push toward comprehensive immigration reform."

All through 2009, the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats have repeatedly announced that they are about to begin work on amnesty legislation Real Soon Now. Their unstated goal is to freeze unemployed illegal immigrants in place in the U.S. through April 1, 2010, the date of the Census, by implying that if they go back to their warm homelands this winter to live with their families, they'll miss out on the coming Amnesty.

But, from the point of view of people like Rep. Gutierrez, the key date is April Fool's Day, when the Census will count every warm body it finds in the U.S., citizen or legal immigrant or illegal immigrant equally. The more unemployed illegal immigrants stick it out through the winter before going home, the more power professional Hispanics like Gutierrez will enjoy under the Voting Rights Act, the bigger the explicit and implicit quotas for Hispanics, and so forth and so on.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

June 18, 2007

"Bringing them out of the shadows"

As I've pointed out before, the priority of new immigration legislation should be to stop the situation from getting worse. But the media and the Kennedy-Bush Axis of Amnesty assumes the most crucial issue is"doing something" about the illegal immigrants currently here. Specifically, we must "bring them out of the shadows," as the cliche goes.

Why?

Can anybody document what bringing 2.7 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows into legality accomplished in 1986?

These amnestied illegals were preponderantly living in California, so we can look at California's experience. Did amnesty:

- Help California's standard of living? Well, from the standpoint of becoming a homeowner, California's combination of high cost of living and low median income now offers the second worst standard of living of any state in America, better than only isolated Hawaii.

- Improve California's schools? California, home to Silicon Valley, now battles states like Arkansas and South Carolina for the runner-up position at the bottom of the NAEP scores.

- Persuade the amnestied illegals' kids to stop spraypainting their tags all over every vertical surface in LA? Ever since Villaraigosa got elected mayor in 2005, the city has been swamped by gang graffiti.

- Stop more illegal aliens from coming to California? Yeah, right ...

So, why does Axis keep trying to yank our chains about the benefits of amnesty when it failed so spectacularly in the biggest state in the country?


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer