May 21 2007
Michael Barone Joins The Heathen Moderates
The immigration debate has re-opened the purity pustche on the right. When arguments from the far right are found wanting by the moderates, then cries of anger well up from those losing the political battle for the hearts and minds of the general population. Michael Barone’s reasoned analysis of what this Bill can do is welcomed breather from the firebrands running around claiming the world is at an end, the sky is falling, and the wolf is at the sheep…
To regularize the flow, we also have to do something about the illegal immigrants already here. The bill, as I understand it, would provide them immediately with a chance to regularize their status without putting them on the road to citizenship. They would have to pay a fine and would be subject to deportation for criminal offenses, but if employer sanctions were known to be enforceable they would have an incentive to regularize.
Also, to get in line for a green card and citizenship, the head of household would have to return to the country of origin — a “touchback” provision that was not in the bill passed by the Senate last May.
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The bill also contains a guest-worker program that is being attacked by immigration proponents as ungenerous. The provision would allow guest workers to work here two years — then they would have to return to their country of origin for one year before they could come back for another two-year stint.
This seems designed to create a program in which guest workers would indeed be temporary. You couldn’t make a life’s career of such work — it would tend to be a stopgap.
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Changing U.S. public policy is like steering a giant ship — it’s impossible to sharply reverse course, but you can change the direction in a way that will make a significant difference over time.
That’s what I think the Bush administration and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas accomplished in the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, much criticized by many conservatives. They sent the health care ship moving in the direction of market mechanisms and away from government ukase.
Barone points out all the huge progress this bill entails. Yes, it doesn’t go into fantasyland were we have the time and money and resources to round up illegals and ship them out. Which is why I like it so much. I gave up on fantasies when I was a kid.
I think this Bill will pass because the American people have been very supportive of the guest worker program in the past. And if the offer to remain here is tied to remaining crime free, the American people will be satisfied that the problem immigrants will get the boot. And those workers who are doing well here, by us and by themselves, will not be harassed for being without proper papers. The criminal element will be culled from the illegal worker population – as is right. And we will have dealt with process crimes in a manner that befits them – with fines. Because right now that is THE LAW of the land. Working without papers is a misdeamnor – not a felony. All the cries to endorce the current laws will not change the fact the current laws are inadequate to the problem at hand. We have a golden opportunity to make a big difference – or to keep the status quo. Fix it or do nothing. Those are the only real options here. And the do-nothing crowd better have a darn good reason why we cannot let the hard workers stay, get rid of the criminal element, and get rid of this underground economy. And good reasons do not include extrapolating isolated crimes to cover every immigrant worker or theoretical problems which may or may not come true. They need to be as tangible as these changes would be.
Addendum: Even O’Reilly sees the writing on the wall on this issue:
The far right wants all illegal aliens deported. This is the talk radio crew that actually believes the federal government will form roving bands of agents to pull people out of their homes and businesses.
Now it’s not going to happen. It’ll never happen. And according to a recentGallup poll, only 24 percent of Americans want it to happen. So mass deportation not going to occur, no matter how many pundits jump up and down.
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Also, any alien who commits any crime, including DUI, is gone. And any alien who doesn’t work is gone. No welfare! None for illegal aliens or their families. That is crucial.
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The new immigration bill is unfair to those who’ve obeyed the rules. It is dangerous if not tightly controlled. And it is definitely amnesty. But if the bill does not pass, things will get even worse in America.
I am happy to see my ‘one-strike-your-out’ clause was included in this bill. That is the kicker for Americans who want to fix the problem. And that neuters the hard right who use the acts of the criminal minority to smear the general population. So now all those immigrant horror stories will be answered with immediate deportation. As they should have been done. And there goes any final resistance to the bill from the broad middle of America. If the criminals will be rejected or booted then the guest workers will be tolerated. BTW, the guest worker program has polled as high as 79% support in March of 2006. In November it was 69% support. My guess is it is not this high right now, but it is still well supported.
It is fantasyland to supose we have or can put in place an administrative structure capable of handling this new program now. I recognize the value of those “good provisions” Barone has highlighted, but like many, if not most Americans, I look with jaundiced eyes at another huge expenditure that has little chance of actually working to achieve it’s stated goals.
Close the border first and then imrpove the INS and we can talk about the other things.
In the meantime, the hugs sum this would entail would be better put to giving grants to inventors of fruit and vegetable picking machines.
***hugE sum****
I still don’t understand what this will do to immigrants in legal limbo. The ones who were denied and are waiting for their paper work to contest it? Do they just hide out and wait until they are illegal then pay another $5K onto what they’ve already paid trying to be legal? Or do they contest the decision in court and ask for the deal the illegals got?
Clarice,
Could you kindly explain to me what alternative you have to this bill that doesn’t involve the status quo?
By coincidence, I posted this today:
http://insidestraight.typepad.com/the_inside_straight/2007/05/immigration_ref.html
giving grants to inventors of fruit and vegetable picking machines
So, Clarice, will fruit and vegetable picking machines carry hods, put on roofs, drywall and mud, empty septic tanks, dig ditches and process chickens??
Condescendingly dismissive AND ill-informed. Interesting combo.
Have been watching the debate on CSPAN 2 about the cloture vote today.
There is bipartisan support to listing a laundry list of issues as the bill stands.
Also it was pointed out a few minutes ago that the CBOE has not even done an estimate on what the bill will cost.
Many senators today have repeatedly attacked the total bypass of normal Senate procedure in how this bill is being handled.
Some are estimating the bill in final legal bill form will easily approach 1000 pages.
Just noting what has been said.
No commentary as to the merits of those points.
Kennedy just claimed the bill raises border agents to 28,000 contrary to what all other reported numbers of only 18,000 total.
Kennedy is stressing how family members including spouse , children and parents will be chain legalized.
At 2 parents, one spouse, and 2 kids per family and only 12 million lowball number illegals that means almost 60 million drag alongs plus the 12 million illegals.
72 million addition will cause all sorts of issues including just where are you going to house 72 million people.
Merlin:
I think that he is saying the total will be 28,000.
Clarice is right in that they can do it all at once, but the bill is not set up that way, besides this is the government we are talking about. When did they ever do anything at once?
I think the right has forgotten they are not in a majority and that means compromise. I used to sell real estate. I hated that job because people never understood what negotiation meant. They always seemed to think it means, I get everything I want and screw the other guy.
I can honestly say I think less of a lot of people on the right after this. I voted for Bush and have been voting Republican for some time, but over the last few days it has dawned on me that not all the loons are in the Democratic Party. We gotta few over here too. I mean come on, if you suggest that a virtual fence and high tech might work pretty well under certain circumstances and someone calls that Orwellian double speak and says you are in favor of open borders just because you strayed from the talking points…well that is Orwellian in and of itself.
I saw this at Big Lizards :
1. We desperately need more border security, especially including the fence, but also including more Border Patrol agents, deportations of illegal aliens who commit crimes, and significant employer sanctions.
2. The Democrats will never allow that without regularization of the 12 Million. No, no, it’s completely irrelevant why the Democrats won’t allow it; I’m sure everything you’re thinking about them is correct. But the fact remains that they will not.
3. The Democrats will allow (1) if regularization comes with it… probably. (If not, then the deal doesn’t happen, and both sides whine.)
4. The Democrats control the Congress.
5. Ergo, we desperately need to cut a deal with the Democrats that more or less resembles the current bill.
But now we go back to our starting point: It makes no difference to the country whether the 12 Million are legal or illegal. They’re never going to be deported; the economies of several states would be wrecked if we tried. And it’s not physically possible… at a rate of one immigration hearing every five minutes, 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, without even a break for lunch or a Christmas holiday, it would take forty years — to deport the first one million of the 12 Million.
The democrat supports of cloture are suddenly declaring GWB the visionary leader of the best way forward. Even Leahy is sputtering this now.
Does the immigration bill invoke an anti BDS capability?
Leahy is still taking time to bash the Justice Department, the war and other issues, guess the anti BDS stuff ain’t working.
Leahy just said this bill invokes trust but verify and makes him a Raganite on this issue.
Leahy is against the home country touchback requirement.
Everything that makes the moderates like what they have heard is in the bill – since we only have talking points to go on – looks like the Dems want to remove –
The chain legalization is a no-go for me….we might as well annex Mexico and be done with it.
Domenici
Is now saying that no provisions of this bill will be implemented until portions of the bill will be implemented, sounds like a catch 22.
It was pointed out that many of the illegals have no intent to become citizens, that they only want to earn money and go home.
That would be right for guest workers.
So why would a only intended guest worker come out and pay fines just to be a guest worker without a citizenship path.
Like leaning into a left hook.
No financial impact assessment has been done or even requested from the CBOE as to what this bill will do.
Specter just claimed the bill will have violators paying back taxes which never made it into the bill.
Merlin,
The answer is easy. You come forward to be a guest worker you pay a $1000 fine. You want to go the citizenship path it is a $5000 fine. If you do nothing you get the boot and lose all your income….
Not hard to figure out really.
AJStrata
Many pro and con note this could be called the gang of 10 bill.
AJ, I don’t know if this bill is good or bad. But, it is bothering me that it is being pushed through the Senate before it is even completely written. If the bill is, indeed, 1000 pages long, how can anyone have had the time to read, much less study, the ‘gotcha items in this bill. It may be good, but the interesting part will be in the details or ‘fine print.’