What Is, Is What? Immigration Reform and Congress

There are some things that you just know are a bad idea. Leaving teenagers unsupervised on a weekend. Letting the neighbor who can’t even remember your name “borrow” your new rider mower. And trusting a “bipartisan” bill from Congress.

What a piece of work, this latest thing on “Immigration Reform”.

It’s got something for everyone, which is what usually happens when committees of poll-driven narcissists put out public policy. There are Republicans who like it, there are Republicans who hate it, there are Democrats who like it, there are Democrats who hate it, there are both Republicans and Democrats who won’t say whether they like it until they find out from their staff which position is more poll-popular in their state or district. The whole issue of Immigration Reform has been a total mess for years, and it’s not as if putting Pelosi and Reid in charge of the whorehouse has improved the character of the lineup.

As you might expect, I give President Bush a little slack for this. The GOP-controlled Congress sat on its hands rather than deal with this for years, so it’s not as if he could expect Donkey Kong to get it right. And like it or not, President Bush’s 2007 position on Immigration Reform is the same as it was in 2000 when he first ran for President.

On the other hand, I have to say this bill will hurt Bush in the long term. Most of his decisions were made with a proper attention to the ethical results, doing what was right rather than what was easy or popular. I think that in this case, however, the results as time passes will be disappointing, because of one critical flaw in the bill.

Oh, the bill has more than one flaw in it. As self-serving political postures go, this one actually has some good points, but also more than a few warts. But there is one aspect to it, which is so serious that even if the rest of the bill was perfect in its intent and design, would doom it to failure.

Enforcement.

People who work with Immigration and who know the issues first-hand, have always said that a lot of the problems we face could be solved by simply enforcing the laws which are already on the books. There are a number of reasons why this has not happened, including friction between local and federal law enforcement agencies, politics played by local governments which do not wish to obey the law themselves, and gaps in the legislation which need to be fixed. Congress, as you might guess, is not in the habit of going back and fixing its mistakes, and the Pelosi/Reid team is not about to show the maturity and diligence needed to address the matter in depth now. And the present bill demonstrates that fact. There is no mention about how the fence being built will be repaired when, as is inevitable, ‘coyotes’ and leftist activists cut into it. There is no mention about who will prosecute the businesses caught hiring illegals, or how they will be caught (It’s already illegal now, you know, just not enforced). And so on.

The Senate ought to vote this bill down, but it will not. Bush ought to veto this bill, but he won’t. And we ought to know better than to believe that this Congress would seriously try to address the flood of illegals crossing the border, but you know Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charles Gibson will sing the praises of Senora Pelosi for a long time on this.

At least with the teenagers, you could ground them.