National Review (Opinion)
By Mark Krikorian
August 5, 2015
In
preparation for this week’s debate in Cleveland, Jeb Bush this week
posted his immigration plan: “Securing the Border and Enforcing Our
Immigration Laws.” It’s basically
a six-page summary of the Schumer–Rubio bill passed by the Senate in
2013, though without the other 1,194 pages of details.
It
outlines six enforcement steps that he says must accompany — accompany,
not precede — amnesty. He makes this explicit in the concluding
paragraph, which begins (my
emphasis):
These
six proposals, when combined with a rigorous path to earned legal
status, would realistically and honestly address the status of the 11
million people here illegally
today and protect against future illegal immigration.
The
beginning makes this clear, too, where he says illegal aliens will
“obtain a provisional work permit” and then, “over an extended period of
time earn legal status.”
This con is so old that it’s hard to believe Team Jeb still thinks it
will sell; as everyone figured out years ago, the “provisional work
permit” is the amnesty. The only thing the former illegal aliens would
“earn” is the right to upgrade from green-card
lite to green-card premium.
And
even the requirements for getting and keeping the amnesty are just
Schumer’s (and Rubio’s) warmed-over talking points. At least whoever
wrote this has learned not
to repeat the “back taxes” lie that illegal immigrants applying for
legal status would be required to pay back taxes on money earned during
the years they lived illegally in the United States, since Bush’s
outline says only “pay taxes.”
But
Bush’s outline does say that the “rigorous path” illegals will have to
follow would require them to “learn English,” “work,” and “not receive
federal government assistance.”
What about illegal immigrants who are too old to learn English or just
don’t have a knack for languages? Will they be arrested and deported?
What’s more, as with any large population, about one-third of illegal
aliens don’t work (too old, too young, moms at
home, disabled, etc.) — are the 3–4 million illegals who aren’t in the
labor market ineligible for the amnesty? What about people in the labor
market who are laid off and can’t find other work? And why does Bush
imagine there’s no overlap between people who
work and people who “receive federal government assistance”? Even the
most cursory examination of the facts would show that virtually all
illegal-alien households collecting welfare (ostensibly on behalf of
U.S.-born children) contain at least one worker;
in fact, our welfare system is designed specifically to help the
working poor.
If
Bush means what he says here, virtually no one would qualify for the
amnesty. That is to say, none of this means anything — it’s just boob
bait.
But if the amnesty part of the proposal is malarkey, what of the six enforcement parts? Not much better, I’m afraid.
The
core of Point 1 is the creation of more “forward operating bases”
(FOBs) for the Border Patrol, so agents can be on the spot for multiple
days, instead of driving
in for each shift from offices miles north of the border. This is a
good idea; I wrote in 2011 about the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association
demand for more FOBs. But this is a peculiar thing to place at the top
of a border-security outline.
Point
2 is increased use of surveillance technology. Sounds good, but is this
really something new? The Border Patrol has been using ground sensors
since the Army gave
them Vietnam-era surplus developed to keep an eye on Communist soldiers
filtering south through the Ho Chi Minh Trail. And Bush’s mention of
drones brings to mind Krikorian’s First Law of Immigration Politics:
“Any politician who talks about drones on the
border is full of it.” John McCain is for drones. Lindsey Graham wants
to triple the number of drones patrolling the border. Chuck Schumer is
for more border drones. President Obama requested a “drone surge” for
the border a year ago. (Unfortunately, drones
are not very useful.)
Point
3 calls for more border-enforcement infrastructure: fences, new roads,
and “new boat ramps.” Again, I’m happy to give the Border Patrol
whatever it needs to do the
job, but are boat ramps really a detail that warrants mention in a
brief document like this?
The
other three points relate to interior enforcement, and there’s little
to disagree with in them: universal E-Verify, visa-tracking to prevent
overstays, and a call
to “crack down on sanctuary cities.”
What’s
interesting is that the first five points (except for the boat ramps)
all come under discussion in Bush’s recent book on immigration,
Immigration Wars, co-authored
with Clint Bolick. But the final point, on sanctuary cities, does not.
Sanctuary cities aren’t mentioned once in the book. It’s not as if this
is a new issue; the 1996 immigration law sought to crack down on them.
What is new is Donald Trump’s rise in the
polls, partly propelled by outrage over Kate Steinle’s murder by an
illegal alien shielded by San Francisco’s sanctuary policies. So now
that the proles are in a lather about sanctuary cities, Bush seems to
have tacked on a bit about them at the end.
The
belated inclusion of sanctuary cities reinforces the fear that all the
enforcement promises are really just designed to get an amnesty bill
past the public. Once illegal
immigrants are safely amnestied (and massive increases in immigration
are put in place, something he alludes to only at the end), then the
enforcement measures can safely be watered down, whittled away, and
rendered nugatory, setting the stage for George P.
Bush’s amnesty push 15 years from now.
Jeb
still doesn’t get that the main obstacle to immigration legislation is
that the public doesn’t trust politicians’ promises to fix the
situation. Only by fully implementing
enforcement measures first, without any quid pro quo, can the political
class earn the right to even ask for amnesty.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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