Maybe you'd like to see the bill first? Its 326 scintillating pages are here. To find your way through the wad, this site looks to be useful. (The bill outline on the left is what I'm thinking of. I don't fully grasp how the comments they're offering are organized.) Best bet would be to have these two sites open in separate windows.
On to six discrete horrors!
1. Law professor Kris Kobach, chief counsel for Hazleton, PA in its struggle with the Treason Lobby, wrote a startling article a few days ago on the interaction of the proposed "Z" visas and — among other soon-to-be-protected classes — illegal-alien gang members. See "Rewarding Lawbreakers," New York Post, 5/21/07. Kobach's conclusion: "This bill isn't a 'compromise' in any meaningful sense. It is a surrender."
2. Hoover Institution research fellow Stanley Kurtz is a sporadic contributor to "The Corner" blog at National Review Online. On 5/22, Kurtz wrote a brief analysis on the "supposed shift from family unification to a merit-based point system" in S.1348 that is well worth reading. It's one example among many in the bill of supposed toughening of our immigration system that will certainly be waylaid by events without ever being implemented. (The Corner is a good site to monitor these days for commentary on the S.1348 struggle by Mark Krikorian, John Derbyshire, Andrew McCarthy, and others.)
3. Ken Boehm, Chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), has discovered an item in the bowels of S.1348 which he is highly qualified to explain. His title tells it all: "New Immigration Bill Makes Taxpayers Pay Illegal Alien Legal Bills," Southwest Nebraska News, 5/22/07. (Note also the vociferous feedback from readers, following the article.) Ken wrote me today, "We've been swamped with media since that release went out." That's good to hear, since this wrinkle won't play well in Peoria.
4. This one isn't literally part of S.1348, but it's highly timely and pertinent. In his Townhall.com column of 5/23/07, Terence Jeffrey takes an illuminating look at enforcing (or not) the immigration laws on employers: "Demand-Side Immigration Reform." If we could still be astonished, this one might do it for us. (The list of readers' comments at the end of the column — already nine of them by 3 a.m. Eastern Time on 5/23 — will only get longer.)
5. So it's not an amnesty because they'll have to pay "stiff fines," yada yada yada? Hal Netkin is an expert by marriage and by inlaw-ship on how the federal bureaucracy interacts with the illegal aliens it legalizes. He gives you the benefit of his experience here. (OK, OK, this isn't a part of the bill, either. This is the wisdom of experience applied to the bill.)
6. They'll also "have to pay back taxes"? The Boston Globe torpedoed that old chestnut on Saturday, 5/19/07: "Bush removes provision requiring back taxes from illegal immigrants." This elicited a bunch of notable comments at a Free Republic web page. Here are some highlights:
Does each illegal immigrant also get 10 acres and a mule?
I love the phrase "difficult to determine tax liability" with respect to illegals. .....like it's EASY FOR THE REST OF US to determine OUR tax liability? Isn't it 67,000 pages of IRS tax code now?"Difficulty" has never been an allowable excuse for law abiding U.S. citizens with respect to determining our tax liability and filing our returns.
Oh, if only our nation's capitol would break off and fall into the sea! Our government has become a hateful, stinking pile of corruption.
If they want to be American Citizens, they should not be allowed to get tax breaks right away. In fact, each one of them should be required to sit at a kitchen table with a pencil, calculator, and a book of instructions and forms to complete their back taxes. (In English only) If they get it right, they can stay. If they get anything on the tax return wrong, they should be immediately ejected and never allowed back in the United States. And I hope they all have to file the AMT form and pay the tax.
Finally, there was an entry at the same Free Republic page that reminds us again of how unintended a bill's unintended consequences might be:
There's an element to this process that has been referenced somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but in reality, may be quite attractive. I speak, of course, about citizens filing their own amnesty applications. Here's the point: illegals by definition have no truly proper form of identity. (Forget matriculas, drivers licenses, etc — these were all issued on non-binding IDs as well.) That means any starting point will require some sort of tracking ID to be assigned by ICE. What's to stop me from filing an application under whatever name I wish to get an ID? Then, as I go through the process, how is ICE going to determine that I'm actually an existing citizen? (That is, if they don't have my fingerprints on file anywhere, i.e. I've never been arrested, etc?) I'm not being facetious; how is ICE going to prevent citizens from getting whole new parallel identities?
