Amnesty Challenges

Today in history courtesy of the Center for Immigration Studies: Mar 28, 1951 - This act enables the exclusion or expulsion of aliens due to their membership or affiliation with a Communist organization. The United States is a government of the people with the unstated assumption that the people are willing citizens of the United States. Political and human rights are distinct topics and America is being challenged to define the difference.

Michelle Malkin has the usual excellent round up of the reactions to Immigration Reform in the Senate and to demonstrations in the streets. How 'Bout Media Guest Workers seizes an excellent point from Thomas Sowell.

Guests or Gate Crashers: How often have we heard that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price. Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.

In the broadest of brushstrokes the number of illegal residents is a result of business interests exerting influence over legislation and enforcement of existing laws. The millions of individuals and families living outside the law, however, can no longer be ignored. We are not going to fill railcars with bodies so the political question to be answered is how to demand individual responsibility which is the price of human rights while also defining our national expectations about cultural assimilation and validating ways to achieve citizenship.

Amnesty is a word that will become the central point of any political solution and the following variations come from a Federal Bill Comparison PDF File developed by NumbersUSA.

A. EXIT AMNESTY: The lawbreaker is forgiven the crime and not assessed the penalty. The Exit Amnesty waives one or more of the penalties the law currently assesses for illegal immigration, including civil and criminal penalties and bars on legal re-entry. An Exit Amnesty would, however, require illegal aliens to leave the United States.

B. REWARD AMNESTY: The lawbreaker is actually rewarded for lawbreaking by being given the very thing he/she attempted to steal in the first place. In the case of illegal aliens, most are seeking a job in the United States. A Reward Amnesty would give illegal aliens the legal right to work, either temporarily or permanently.

C. INSTANT JACKPOT AMNESTY: The lawbreaker wins the jackpot - he/she is instantly rewarded for breaking our immigration laws by being given lawful permanent resident status and put on the path to U.S. citizenship. Instant Jackpot Amnesties generally are limited to illegal aliens of a certain national origin (e.g., the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act) or who are working in a particular occupation in the United States (e.g., the Special Agricultural Worker amnesty included in the Immigration Reform and Control Act).

D. MULTI-STEP CITIZENSHIP AMNESTY: The lawbreaker is first given a Reward Amnesty (usually through a legal work permit and temporary resident status or “cancellation of removal”). After a period of time and usually after other criteria (e.g., holding a job; paying taxes; working in a particular industry), the formerly illegal alien is given lawful permanent resident status and put on the path to U.S. citizenship.

E. BLANKET AMNESTY: This is basically the Instant Jackpot Amnesty but for the entire population of illegal aliens (minus a few exceptions, such as certain criminals), although it may be limited to illegal aliens who have lived in the United States for a certain period. The “general amnesty” included in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, for example, was a Blanket Amnesty for all illegal aliens who had lived in the United States since January 1, 1982.

F. DE FACTO AMNESTY: This does not immediately reward illegal aliens with legal status but holds out the promise that if they avoid arrest long enough they will be exempted from the penalties for illegal immigration and granted legal status. The now expired Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act is a De-Facto Amnesty because it says that all illegal aliens in the country who have the right through jobs or relatives to apply for lawful permanent resident status may do so from within this country with the tacit assurance that they may remain in this country illegally until their name comes up to the top of the list for a green card sometime in the future.

Democrats will paint Republican attempts at organization and control of illegal residents as racist and oppressive measures aimed at harming the poor and peaceful. Progressives dream of millions of Latino voters sweeping them back into power with promises of protection, income and healthcare. This Statism is a great danger to freedom as we cherish the concept and all of us who oppose the socialists need to be clever in the humane re-establishment of workable citizenship laws within our borders.