Immigration Bill Rates an “F”

In my analysis of the Illegal Alien Amnesty Travesty (a.k.a. the U.S. Senate Immigration Bill) it appears that my bottom line position was not entirely clear. Good friend Ken Sax: “I liked your blog, but I am a bit confused as to your position. Maybe I misinterpreted your statement during the last Moral Decisions Group meeting, in that you thought that the present bill approved by Kennedy, McCain, and Bush was a good one, and that you had read most of the main provisions.”

Ken’s right, my initial reaction to the Senate Bill was hopeful. At least there was a bipartisan group of Senators who were serious about improving the status-quo. The draft Bill contained elements of good policy: a border fence, increased border patrols, a tamper-proof ID, workplace enforcement, immigrant selection based on U.S. need, and an attempt to regularize the 12-20 million illegal aliens already here. As I said, the devil is in the details.

In my opinion the Bill lacks sufficient emphasis on security, but it could be fixed by appropriate sequencing. My first three priorities deal with security.

1. Construct a (double) border fence of no less than 700 miles in addition to the 300 miles of vehicle barriers.

2. Hire and train an additional 20,000 border control agents.

3. Create a tamper-proof ID card and implement the required infrastructure.

No other provision of the Bill should be effected until these security items are completed, whether it takes one year or three. The next steps deal with the 12-20 million illegal aliens here now.

4. Hire and train a sufficient number of deputies to conduct background checks on the 12-20 million illegals in a timely manner, say one year.

5. Take applications for Z visas that would allow illegals to remain in the country, but not receive government benefits.

6. Conduct background checks sufficient to weed out criminals and potential terrorists. Jail or deport them.

7. After the background checks are complete, issue tamper proof Z-cards that are required to hold a job.

8. Fine and/or jail employers who hire illegals not holding Z visas. Deport the illegals.

The fundamental question is whether a permanent Z-visa condition would be good or bad for the country. Victor Davis Hanson wrote today about “The Global Immigration Problem.”

“Given the social costs of illegal immigration, this is not a win-win situation of hooking up our available jobs with their available workers. Instead, it too often turns into a sort of cultural apartheid, where both unassimilated foreign workers and Western citizens are resentful of each other.

Employers may console themselves that they pay better than what the immigrants earned back at home. This might be true, but the wages are never enough to allow such newcomers to achieve parity with their hosts.

Naturally, immigrants soon get angry. And rather than showing thanks for a ticket out of the slums of Mexico City or Tunis, blatant hypocrisy can follow: The once thankful, but now exhausted, alien may wave the flag of the country he would never return to while shunning the culture of the host county he would never leave.

In the second generation, as we see from riots in France or gangs in Los Angeles, things can get even worse.

There is a final irony. The more Western elites ignore their own laws, allow unassimilated ethnic ghettos and profit from an exploitive labor market, the more their own nations will begin to resemble the very places immigrants fled from.”

It’s clear that immigrants who do not assimilate are not good for society and are frequently dangerous. Thus there must be a path to citizenship that has meaningful measures of assimilation for the holders of temporary Z visas. The Republican proposal for 200,000 more temporary workers per year (holders of the new Y visas) is brain dead and should be stricken from the Bill.

Bottom line, the present immigration bill is critically flawed and should not be passed without the increased security measures and with the Y visas.