The Immigration Bill Stinketh, I Thinketh

Well, I am trying to decide something. If both Nancy Pelosi AND the Heritage Foundation oppose a bill, does that mean it is likely good or bad? Hmmm.

Personally from what I can tell I am disappointed in the Immigration Reform Bill, and maybe finding myself agreeing with both Pelosi and the Heritage Foundation in limited areas.

So, what’s the big deal about amnesty? Good grief, if we didn’t give amnesty to one another every once in a while we’d all be dead. Sometimes, when you’ve done something so bad for so long, you just have to accept the consequences. I know a person who did a very bad thing. It is long done now. That person’s life is a wreck. Now that person needs help. I think I need some amnesty in my heart.

We’ve had terrible immigration enforcement laws for a long time. We let this state of affairs get to what it is. What, we blame Mexicans for wanting to come here. It is a compliment.

New laws should first strive to restore families, and only then shift toward bringing in talented and gifted people? So, we’re going to send a family member home and break up the family? Unless the person is a criminal that is just not right.

And are talented, gifted, educated people the ones we really most need? I mean, as one Mexican said, how many degrees do you need to make $9 an hour picking beets? Seems to me Mexico needs to keep their doctors and engineers and we could really use their labor.

I am for amnesty for the illegal aliens that are here now. We have screwed it up for so long we have to accept our responsibility in that. Not for the ones with criminal records or felonies. But or the ones who have been decent members of our communities. We need to send Mexico’s criminals back to Mexico. For the rest, we need to fast track them to citizenship and to full immediate family restoration without making the “illegal” go back to Mexico or wherever first. This whole splitting up families thing gives me a very bad vibe, makes me think of another very dark and terrible part of our national history. I don’t like it one little bit.

I am also for strict crimes that we will enforce against employers who willingly hire illegal aliens, or who make no effort to find out their status, or who look the other way.

Then, I do think we need to crack down on the border. I do not trust Pelosi and gang to do that no matter what the bill says. Fences, walls, barbed wire, electric wire, I don’t care. Whatever it takes and no matter how much it costs – we’ve got to get a handle on our border. Good grief, people could be walking in with suitcase nukes as far as we know.

And then we need a good guest worker program like we have now with temporary visa’s. But we have to be able to track these people. Civil libertarians won’t like it, but we may just need to get those national ID cards. We can’t let people in on guest worker visas only to let them melt into the population and never go back.

So, personally, I think the bill is too hard as regards the “A” word. Let’s just accept reality, call amnesty “amnesty,” and then extend it.

I think the bill is too soft regarding the borders. It seems to me, as far as I can tell, just to be words. I want to see the money, the backbone, the resolve in a real funded plan with teeth, and fences, for how we are going to do this. I don’t see that yet.

So, in summary, I think we need to get tough and get gentle at the same time. And we need to keep families in mind before our own need for Ph.D.’s.

Joel