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Cleveland
Plain Dealer
Derail
the amnesty express
By Kevin OBrien
This
all looks so distressingly, depressingly
familiar.
People
working on Capitol Hill have spent
months building a massive bill that would greatly expand federal power
and
reach while raining gifts on favored constituencies.
At
the last moment, the introduction of an
equally massive amended version has thrown the process into darkness
and the
potential effects of the legislation into confusion. Once again, we
won't
really know what is in a piece of legislation that will affect the
lives of
every American -- and millions of unlawful trespassers on American soil
--
until it passes.
We
won't know how all of the pieces will
"work" until the secretary of Homeland Security promulgates tens of
thousands of administrative rules that tell the federal enforcement
apparatus
and all of the states what the law really means.
The
comprehensive immigration
"reform" bill to be voted on in the Senate, probably today, is a
measure
made for complexity.
A
1,100-page bill already designed to confuse
and obscure gets superseded by a 1,200-page amendment.
Proponents
threaten. Opponents warn. The
Congressional Budget Office shrugs. Senators with doubts are offered
the kinds
of goodies that used to be called earmarks.
The
debate, such as it has been, over the
immigration bill smells just like the one that produced that massively
destructive con job Obamacare: It reeks of secrecy, deception,
duplicity and
politically motivated haste.
The
stench that clings to the Republican dupes
who champion it is equal parts foolishness and fear. Its Democratic
sponsors,
meanwhile, exude the unmistakable odor of opportunism.
Every
seemingly desirable component in the bill
-- improving the chances of highly skilled immigrants to find their way
into
this country legally and making foreign-born entrepreneurs more welcome
here,
for example -- is more than offset by provisions that result in de
facto
amnesty for millions of people who couldn't be less interested in
becoming
Americans…
Read
the rest of the article at the Cleveland
Plain Dealer
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