A compromise on immigration is a surrender on immigration

Randall Parker at Parapundit responds to a compromise amnesty plus enforcement plan put forward by Senators Mel Martinez and Chuck Hagel:

The US Congress has had decades of opportunities to show that it will seriously enforce immigration laws and has failed to do so. The Congress has passed bills that purported to toughen immigration law enforcement and then proceeded to gut enforcement by pressuring agencies of the US government to hold back from doing vigorous enforcement. Any time the employer fines or round-ups of illegals began to scale up to a level that would make a difference Congressional committees applied pressure to gut the enforcement initiatives.

In a nutshell: Congress can't be trusted. Unless Congress does enforcement first any supposed compromise that purports to combine an amnesty with enforcement will inevitably become an amnesty only. When Senators like Martinzez and Hagel try to tell us differently they are just flat out lying. I feel insulted by the brazenness of their lying.

We were cheated in 1986: Congress passed a law giving amnesty to current illegals and imposing employer sanctions to eliminate the incentive for new illegals to enter the country, but, as Randall notes, the sanctions were gutted by Congressmen calling the INS and warning them off.

The cheap labor lobby wants to do it all over again: legalize the current illegals and then invite in another ten million new illegals. Well, fool me once, shame on on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The absolute essential first step to dealing with illegal immigration is to stop letting in any more. Any discussion of any kind of amnesty for current illegals must be off the table until a large and permanent reduction in new illegal entry is evident.

And the only way to ensure the reduction is permanent is to build a fence. Only a fence is forever. Trying to cut back illegal entries with employer sanctions alone is just inviting Congressmen to gut the sanctions as soon as they get their amnesty.

And here is John O'Sullivan saying the same thing more elegantly.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer