This is from a few days ago, but certainly worthy of my getting it up here. While we certainly are all on the same page as Steyn, his discussion of the issue, and specifically the concept of ‘citizenship’, is worthy of tucking into.
Immigration bill is a fraud
I forget where I was when I first heard the phrase ”undocumented worker.” Possibly it was after swimming the Rio Grande and emerging dripping on the northern shore to be handed a fake Social Security number and a driver’s license. But I assumed, reasonably enough, that this linguistic sleight of hand was simply too ridiculous to fly even with the American media. I underestimated my colleagues, alas.
The ”undocumented” are, as it happens, brimming with sufficient documents to open bank accounts or, on the other hand, rent a Ryder truck, as Mohammad Salameh did in 1993 when he and his pals bombed the World Trade Center first time round. Being ”undocumented” means being documented up to the hilt as far as everyone else is concerned but ”undocumented” only to the U.S. government. Which, when you think about it, is a very advantageous status to have. [...]
The people who are truly ”anti-immigrant” are the folks who want to send that immigrant from Slovenia or Fiji who applied in May 2005 back to the end of the line. But then ”comprehensive immigration reform” is about everything but immigration, including subverting sovereignty and national security. Remember the 1986 amnesty? Mahmoud abu Halima applied for it and went on to bomb the World Trade Center seven years later. His colleague, the aforementioned Mohammad Salameh, was rejected but carried on living here anyway. John Lee Malvo was detained and released by U.S. immigration in breach of its own procedures and re-emerged as the Washington sniper. The young Muslim men who availed themselves of the U.S. government’s ”visa express” system for Saudi Arabia filled in joke applications — ”Address in the United States: HOTEL, AMERICA” — that octogenarian snowbirds from Toronto who’ve been wintering at their Florida condos since 1953 wouldn’t try to get away with. The late Mohammed Atta received his flight-school student visa on March 11, 2002, six months to the day after famously flying his first and last commercial airliner.
All the above passed through the U.S. legal immigration system. And, whether they were detained, rejected, approved or posthumously approved, in the end it made no difference. Because U.S. immigration had no real idea who these men were. [...]
The govt. happily hires incompetents, then, when they F-up, nothing is done to correct the problem or discipline the incompetence. Govt. workers are union, their jobs, salaries, and raises protected no matter how wretched their performance. And to think M. Moore thinks govt.-run health care is the answer – God help us all!
Watch this youtube snippet of Newt comparing govt. immigration competency with that of FedEx. It’s hilarious!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15D3ElV1Jzw
Thanks to the link to Mark Steyn’s article. Steyn has been through the immigration system, and many of his experiences are similar to those of my wife and I.
One of the more obnoxious phrases used by the pro-amnesty crowd is that the amnesty bill is designed to “bringing people out of the shadows”. It is intended to suggest that living in the richest and freest country in the world is on the same level with living in North Korea, Iran, and other Third World hellholes.
But the real people living in the shadows in this debate are the poor saps like my wife and I who came through the immigration system legally – not to mention those who still wait for the chance to come legally.
My wife has several relatives and friends that would love to come to visit us in the US. But because of restrictive immigration laws on family members and others – and because they live half a world away in Africa where they cannot sneak across the Rio Grande – they almost certainly will never be allowed to come.
That would be bad enough were it not for the amnesty bill that the Senate seems destined to pass. My widowed mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and my wife’s best friend have never broken the law – in either the US or their home country. They do not belong to terrorist organizations. In short, they have done nothing wrong. But the immigration lawyers and US Embassy officials that we consulted were unanimous on this point – they would almost certainly not be allowed to come.
By contrast consider the fact that there are some 12 to 20 million illegals in the US – most from Latin America. By being here without permission these illegals are already breaking the law. If they have obtained a driver’s license, they are breaking more laws. If they have a Social Security number, they are breaking even more laws. If they have any fake IDs they are breaking still more laws. These are the folks that get amnesty, while my wife’s family and friends get squat.
I knew that the Senate had hit bottom when they were debating whether or not to deport violent criminals. No wonder they have some of the lowest poll numbers in history.
Mark Steyn is phenomenal, in a handful of paragraphs he can point out and ridicule a topic that the rest of us struggle with all day.
That piece was spectacular, it would have been nice to see the look on Juan Williams’ face when Steyn pointed out that he himself was a legal immigrant. However it may have gone by Williams like any other logical statement or argument that wasn’t from the desk of George Soros.
(that will be the only barb I will toss today)