Amnesty During A Recession?

Posted on April 9, 2009

Ed Morrissey entitles his piece on Obama’s immigration reform “Pushing immigration reform during a recession?”, but, what this really is is an attempt to give 12-20 million illegal aliens amnesty: Obama to Push Immigration Bill as One Priority

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,” said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

As Ed points out, unemployment is at 8.5% and rising. I know that here in the Raleigh area, there are more talks of big layoffs, both in private business and in the State government. Now, granted, most illegals would not be qualified to fill so many of these positions, but, with so many out of work, would we rather leave construction and other “blue collar” jobs available for Americans, or for those who came to America illegally, and are made legal?

We all know how this is going to end up, if it actually makes it through, which a John Hawkins article says won’t happen, not enough votes: amnesty for law breakers, and the actual issues with legal immigration that need fixing, such as the time it takes, the cost, how to monitor those here on visas (1/3 of illegals are folks who overstayed their visas,) assimilation of legal immigrants, repealing Section 1 of the 14th Amendment from this day forward, etc, will never happen.

They should just call it what it is: amnesty for illegals.

Mark Noonan: What we learned vis a vis immigration reform is that the American people, by an overwhelming majority, want the border secured first. Only after it is clear that no more illegal immigrants are able to just waltz across the border will there start to be support for any program to legalize those illegals already in-country and start up a guest-worker program for foreigners not currently in-country. Any effort to pass a bill which can in any way, shape or form be portrayed as amnesty will become a millstone ’round the neck of any party identified with it. Obama would get less grief if he revived gun control efforts.

Personally, I think that there might be some exceptions made on a case by case basis for a very, very small amount of illegals. But, consider, most other countries require anyone applying for citizenship to bring something to the table. Money, valued skills, etc. We don’t. Never have. We welcome the dregs of other countries to join us and be a part of our wonderful nation. Yet, as of late, so many come here and isolate themselves from the overall society. That is a problem. Furthermore, if you want to, say, become a French citizen, they are going to require that you actually speak French. If you want to be a citizen of the USA, you need to learn English so you can communicate.

Giving free amnesty to law breakers is not a good idea, but, hey, if the Democrats, and Obama, want to take on a toxic concept, I say, go for it. It hurt the GOP with the base, and it will hurt the Dems with Middle America.

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