Make A Run for the Border? Why Bother?

More on the Republican immigration sellout:

That bipartisan immigration “reform” bill, crafted during secret negotiations led by President Bush, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. John McCain, combines a Republican desire for cheap labor with a Democratic vision of cheap votes. The result is a stubborn refusal to halt illegal immigration, one of the most serious problems facing the United States. By granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, this legislative chimera would make securing our borders even harder than it is now.

The Senate plan hinges on issuing three categories of renewable Z visas for skilled temporary and agricultural workers (and in many case their families as well), with provisions that would supposedly prevent document fraud. But the new visa program would be run by the same bureaucracy that has proven incapable of enforcing existing immigration laws. And if it’s impossible now to “round’em up and deport all 12 million of them” — as we incessantly hear — why should anybody believe the immigration bureaucrats will be able to find the millions of illegals to make sure they jump through all the new hoops?

Robert Bluey:

The GOP’s failure on immigration reform is most astounding because the issue is crystal clear: There are those who follow the law and those who break it. If one issue galvanized conservatives, this was it. Some have even traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to safeguard our country. Two Republican members of the U.S. House, Reps. Duncan Hunter (Calif.) and Tom Tancredo (Colo.), launched long-shot presidential bids because of the issue.

As defenders of the rule of law, conservatives have always maintained that anyone wanting to enter the United States -- much less reap the benefits of citizenship -- must do so legally. The deal that Kennedy negotiated violates that principle.

More than 20 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and Congress experimented with amnesty. It failed miserably. Nearly 3 million illegal aliens were legalized in 1986. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who served under Reagan when the law was enacted, regrets the deal today.

Unfortunately, Bush is repeating the mistake -- only this time the consequences are even more significant. The deal cut by the White House grants 12 million illegal aliens immediate and indefinite amnesty.

As Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said last week, “This rewards people who broke the law with permanent legal status, and puts them ahead of millions of law-abiding immigrants waiting to come to America. I don’t care how you try to spin it, this is amnesty."

He might want to tell the other member of his state's Senate delegation that.

The open borders crowd challenges "restrictionists" like myself to propose an alternative reform.

Fine.

Here's the Teflon Plan:

1. No public assistance for non-citizens. Ever.
2. No public education for non-citizens.
3. No driver's licenses for non-citizens.
4. No voting for non-citizens.
5. No jobs for non-citizens.
6. Any medical services provided to non-citizens will be deducted from the foreign aid provided to, or trade with, their country of origin. In the event country of origin cannot be definitively determined, these amounts will be debited based on the estimated proportion of illegal aliens sent by said country.
7. Border fences will be erected, beginning in urban areas.
8. The U.S. Department of Education will establish an audit arm. Every illegal alien caught employed at a place of business will result in the employer being fined $10,000 to be paid to the Dept of Education.
9. The Dept of Labor will establish an audit arm. Every school caught educating illegal aliens will be fined $10,000 to be paid to the Dept of Labor.
10. The Border Patrol will be funded through a fund comprised of 50% of the fine revenues brought in by the Labor and Education audits.
11. Border patrol funding will be cut $10,000 for every illegal alien caught by the Department of Justice or state and local law enforcement. Said funding cuts will be payable to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
12. The Department of Homeland Security will fund 12 million one-way plane tickets back to the country of origin of illegal immigrants. They will do so because in the wake of 9/11 it is their job to know who is in this country illegally, and they have not done it.
13. A general amnesty will be announced---leave the country within 60 days and you may apply for U.S. citizenship as any other non-citizen would without penalty. Fail to do so and in 60 days you will have no job, no education, no welfare, and only the barest medical care your home nation cares to pay for.
14. Congress will set and employers will fund a defined number of work visas which will enable immigrants to begin application for citizenship. This number may be set as high as employers care to fund. Minimum wage and U.S. employment laws fully apply.
15. The immigration service will be funded out of this pool.
16. Any visa applicant who cannot speak, read, and write English at the 6th grade level will be denied.
17. Any visa applicant without a firm job offer will be denied.
18. Any visa applicant unwilling to renounce former citizenship will be denied.
19. Birthright citizenship will not apply to children of illegal immigrants.
20. Male immigrants may bypass work requirements by agreeing to enter the U.S. military for a standard enlistment. Honorable discharge at the end of their enlistment, or agreement to reenlist, automatically confers U.S. citizenship upon the serviceman and his immediate family.

Hard-nosed?

Surely.

But not materially different from the immigration norms which endured throughout much of our industrial revolution.

If anything, these restrictions may be less rigid than those my Portuguese great-grandfather had to meet when he came over in 1910.