Random notes on Bush's immigration speech:
If this speech reassures conservatives, we definitely are the Stupid Party, just like John Stuart Mill claimed.
- There was no call for a border fence, just "We will construct high-tech fences in urban corridors and build new patrol roads and barriers in rural areas," which is not at all the same thing.
- Let's do the math on sending 6,000 National Guardsmen to the border for one year. At an average of 21 hours per week on sentry duty, that's 750 men for a border that is almost 2,000 miles long, or about one per 2.6 miles of border.
- And anyway, "Guard units will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities." [Emphasis mine]. And the National Guard force will be drawn down after one year.
- Bush denounced "catch and release" treatment of "other-than-Mexican" border crossers. Congratulations to Juan Mann of VDARE.com for introducing this issue to the national discourse.
- Bush has renamed his "Guest Work Program" as a "Temporary Worker Program." Presumably, this is intended to confuse the public, to make them assume that both the program and the workers are only temporary. Of course, neither is true. The idea that the workers would only stay temporarily in the U.S. is a total joke. All Bush says about this is: "And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay." In other words, he doesn't have any plan to deport temporary workers once their years are up. And once the program gets going, the lobby for perpetuating it ad infinitum would be rich and powerful.
- What happens when the "temporary workers" have children during their "temporary" years in America, children, who, under the current reigning (although dubious) interpretation of the 14th Amendment are instantly American citiizens.
Bush's non-amnesty amnesty:
"Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully, and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration."
Bush has been obfuscating for years on this subject. Amnesty is not about citizenship, it's about residence. Very, very few illegal aliens have a burning desire for citizenship so that they can start, say, doing jury duty. Plenty of them who were amnestied due to the 1986 bill never bothered to become citizens. What they want is residence.
- Bush's "wait-in-line" scam:
"I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law … to pay their taxes … to learn English … and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship. But approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I have just described is not amnesty..."
It's important to understand that Bush is trying to pull the wool over our eyes through the use of the phrase "will have wait in line behind those who played by the rules." This sounds like illegal immigrants would have to go home and wait in line behind those from their own countries who have applied for legal residence in America. But what he's actually saying is that illegal immigrants should get legal residency here right away but then have to wait in line for citizenship (i.e., mostly the right to vote) behind legal immigrants.
- Don't you love how politicians, when they are on side of the elites against the voters, always say things like, "We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone’s fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain"? Isn't exploiting issues for political gain an essential of republican government?
- The response by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) was basically like Br'er Rabbit asking the fox to throw him in the Briar Patch. He desperately wants Bush's plan to pass to produce more Democratic voters. The American Establishment wants the Senate bill bad. The networks should have had Rep. Tom Tancredo give the response.
- I tabulated how Bush's speech did on Gateway Pundit's "Open Borders Drinking Game" and found you would have needed to chug four Dos Equis beers, down 8 tequila shots, and do something called a "beer bong." You can see the details here on VDARE's blog.
-The VDARE.com blog is all over today's immigration events in real time.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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