Steyn on Amnesty
Mark Steyn on the so-called Immigration Reform bill:
Don’t worry: It’s not an “amnesty.” Every politician in America is opposed to amnesty — if not the concept, then at least the word. That’s why the visa starts with the letter that’s furthest away from the one “amnesty” begins with. “Z” stands for zellout . . . no, hang on, zurrender or Zapatista, or some other word way up the other end of the alphabet from “amnesty.” But the point is, at a stroke there will be no more illegal immigrants. Because being illegal means you’re now legal.
Unless, of course, you came to America after Jan. 1, 2007, and thus aren’t covered by the zamnesty. But in that case why not apply for the Z-1 anyway? After all, you’re here illegally so how would U.S. Immigration know when you arrived? Especially with 12-15-20 million urgent applications tossed in on top of what’s already a multi-year backlog. They’re not exactly going to be doing a lot of in-depth background checks, especially not for a visa category whose only entry requirement under U.S. law is that you’ve broken U.S. law when you entered.
By the way, when I said “came to America,” if you’re visiting Toronto for a weekend break from Yemen or Belarus, don’t be deterred by the fact that Canada is not technically in America. Why not just head down to Buffalo and apply for the old Z-1, too? After all, it’s not such a stretch to regard every single person on the planet as a Z-1-in-waiting. This being America, pretty soon — a court decision here, a court decision there — the presumption of every school district and hospital and welfare administrator will be that they’re obliged to treat everyone who walks in through the door as if they were a Z-1. You zee one, you’ve zeen ‘em all.
As for the notion that dumping a population the size of four mid-size European Union nations into the lap of America’s arthritic “legal immigration” (please, no tittering; apparently, there is still such a thing) bureaucracy will lead to tougher enforcement and rigorous scrutiny and lots of other butch-sounding stuff, well, if that were the case, there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place. You can declare that “illegal” now mean “legal” very easily; to mandate that “incompetent” now means “competent” is a tougher proposition.
Read the whole thing, especially his devastating takedown of Super Maverick John McCain.
No related posts.
Category: Cool Columnists and Wicked Writers, Our Melting Pot
