EckerNet.Com

Ok the text for the amnesty bill (HR 1645) going through the US House has FINALLY been released (gee wonder what took so long?? Waiting till the heat dies down?). Taking a quick spin through the text I think my original appraisal was largely correct. I want to take the chance to dig through the details a little more first. If I spot anything major, or particularely interesting, I\’ll bring it up at a later date…sorry, but it\’s the best I can do, work is still kicking my ass.

Instead, I wanted to share how this immigration amnesty push is likely to go down. They weren\’t stupid when they wrote this bill. It contains just enough fluff that they can spin it to sound like something it\’s not.

First of all, you\’re gonna hear the term \”enforcement first\” alot. Our legislators learned last year we weren\’t gonna fall for another amnesty without enforcement like we did in 1986 (and 6 other times). So they know they have to hit the enforcement pulpit hard. So they\’ll use the term \”enforcement first\” alot. Here\’s the catch, notice the second term, \”first\”. Well when you use \”first\” that sorta implies something comes second right?? That\’s where the amnesty comes in, and then something about putting lipstick on a pig (or sheep for any muslims out there).

Why do we need the amnesty part at all. How about we get enforcement, and then deal with the remaining problem. How about we try to deal with the problem without using amnesty first without just saying it\’s impossible?? It\’s never been tried, let\’s try it.

Secondly, you\’ll here alot about the \”touchback\” provisions. Basically they are trying to fool people into believing that they are forcing illegal aliens to leave before they can get amnesty. Not try, really all they have to do is touch the border at some point in the six years after they make their presence known. So if sometime in the next six years they go down to Tijuana for a few tequilas with their buddies, requirement fulfilled. The trip doesn\’t even have to be to Mexico, they could go watch a hockey game in Toronto and it meets the requirement.

My guess is they won\’t go into too much detail about the guest worker program because public support for it is almost non-existant. But you certainly won\’t hear that they are creating an entirely new class of Visas just for all this BS. Of course, you won\’t hear any information like how they actually expect the Homeland Security Department to track all these guest workers, considering there are already 600,000 that we\’ve lost track of.

Right now the bill has been referred to the Homeland Security Committee. My guess is they\’ll sit on it for awhile. But they\’ll slowly work on it over the next few months. They want to get this down well before the 2008 elections heat up, so I would expect a vote on it before the end of the year. At the same team, work continues on the Senate\’s version, which I would guess is going to be the worse of the two. More on that as things develop.