McCarthy Speaks for Me.
I was all set to write a long post about the so-called Immigration Reform bill that’s sliming its way through Congress. I ended up deleting the whole thing after reading this post by Andy McCarthy.
As a human being, I want to support legalization, even though everything in my experience tells me it is always a mistake to reward illegal behavior, and the equities tell me that (a) the illegals have chosen to be illegal so it’s not unfair to make them live with that choice, and (b) legalization would be a slap in the face to the people who have respected our laws and tried to immigrate lawfully.
Despite those two weighty considerations, I think I could swallow hard and go along. Except for one thing: I don’t believe the government is serious about enforcement. I’ve been in government, so I don’t doubt their good faith — I don’t doubt that they really hope and intend to do a better job. I just won’t believe they’ll follow through for any sustained amount of time until they actually do.
After decades of laxity, you don’t get to tell me you’re now serious based on what seems like 10 minutes of stepped up enforcement, with promises of a few hundred miles of fence and some additional border agents thrown in for good measure. You gotta prove it to me, and that’s going to take time. And remember, the people making the promises are going to be gone soon. What assurance do I have that there will be follow through on enforcement if the Democrats win in 2008? After all, they are only going along with the enforcement terms now as the necessary political price of getting the bill passed — what they want are the carrots, not the sticks, so why should I believe they’ll honor the sticks if and when enforcement becomes their responsibility?
If I thought the proposed legalization was really one time only, and that we had figured out a good way to separate the good, decent people from the terrorists, gang-bangers and assorted felons, I’d get beyond my hesitation (and probably my better judgment) to make accommodations for those millions to continue to work hard and enjoy a better life with their families — like my immigrant ancestors got to do. I’d rationalize that it was the humane thing to do even if it might not be the smartest thing to do. But I need, up front, to be confident it is not a ruinous thing to do.
That is nearly exactly my feeling on the issue.
The matter here among those who so insist on enforcement before amnesty is not that we want to oppress the brown people or that we want to crush the evil businesses beneath our jackboots.
We want some concrete proof that the government will do what it promises. We’re tired of watching the government promise us some scant bit of enforcement only to go back on its word. That’s what happened in 1986 and again in 1986. Now, another decade later, our government is offering us the same deal it always does and expects us to accept it as if we couldn’t remember ten or twenty years ago. More, it calls folks like me bigots and ignorant for finally demanding some proof that it’s not lying to us again.
Here also is a question I would like addressed seriously by anyone who likes the bill as it currently seems to be taking shape: If it is true that we cannot deport the 12 million illegal immigrants who are in the country now, how will the very same bureaucracy with roughly the same resources as it has now be able to register, investigate, and track them when they come in looking for Z-visas?
That’s a question that needs to be asked over and over again, like I’ve asked it over and over again here, until someone answers it.
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Category: Our Melting Pot
