A Stake Through the Heart of JFK – The Coming Immigration Legislation
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
– John F. Kennedy, 9/12/1962 at Rice University
I know it was about the moon, but it is about the greater purpose we have in all our endeavors, and this one, the issue of illegal immigration, is no different.
First: I have not read the text of the elite group of senators and the illegal immigration support groups done is a closed meeting, circumventing the manner in which the business of the people has been done for a long time. News reports began at “380 pages” and as of last night, it was “1000 pages.” Some of what I write may prove to be off the mark, but some, I predict, will remain as factually analysis of the situation we’re facing.
Update: Some details listed here.
Second: I have a complaint for this group, who would be able to find time in their busy schedules to hammer out such a long document, while our troops are still waiting for the fund to continue the prosecution of national security affairs. Shame on them. I’m sure at least a few service members and their families share my wonderment at the ability of these senators to take time from a pressing issue, to rapidly address and issue they have been largely ignoring since they did something like this in 1986.
On to my regularly planned comments on this bill:
The overall “feel” I get from the elected special people is “It’s too hard, so we just have to throw our hands up and surrender.”
This, I submit sounds exactly like the calls to pull out of Iraq, and also ties into the title of this post. Just as lawyers are forcing us to a risk adverse society (except for not trying to take the one thing that kills about 40K Americans annually away), Congress, and the will of the people is shifting to not wanting to take on the long, hard, uphill effort that complex issues require. Bad trend.
What are these guys thinking? A 1000 page bill, not even published for review by we “extra-curricular” types of people. let alone the many lobbyists, and they want to take it to the floor the following Monday? For a few months, while working on my Master’s I had to read 600 pages of history a week, plus write a paper, plus attended classes (Monday – Thursday 0900-1500). It was a challenge to not just skim through the reading, and to actually absorb the information well, and that was with the help of the Dick Cavet speed reading course they offered for free. I would submit the 100 pages of information will be difficult for any outsider to read and comprehend fully in the time alloted before we need to be able to intelligently comment and inform our representatives of our thoughts.
I know one talk show host told his interns they would each have to read 20 pages (wow, that’s a lot of interns!). I don’t think that will do it either. Why? Simple. The many processes and procedures listed will have to intertwine significantly. While I may comprehend the 20 pages I read and provide an adequate “book report” to the boss, the dead ends and illogical connections that will abound in the document will be missed, some of which, unless someone catches, may need major rewriting, before they become law.
I say this because, in order to not make bad decisions, I got pretty good at making myself chase references to other parts of government writings, or the other documents linked to. I was constantly amazed at the problems that surfaced, while each document had been written in good faith for success. What does that mean? Several smart people need to get their coffee, donuts and pizza orders placed, and get a comfortable, but no to much so, chair, a few highlighters and note paper. Not only will they have to read the work from one end to the other, but be ready to chase each and every rabbit trail presented, ensuring the consistency and continuity is there. Not only will associated/referenced documents need to be read, but they must be checked for their currency.
It is in this type of review that the “unintended consequences” will be uncovered. While the document was most likely written by many, only in the reading by individuals will uncover the flaws.
From an implementation standpoint, the details I so far understand are for the illegals to come forward and identify themselves. AT this point, they will have background checks run to see if the meet some standard of “lawfulness” and allowed or not to stay n the country. This check will only indicate their criminal history while they have been in the US. What about the history they may have had in their countries of origin? I’m sure the proposed legislation will cover this, but I’m also suspecting it will assume other nations have such interconnected crime databases as we do (which, by many accounts, are still lacking all the details for issues noted within our borders), which, I believe is a bad assumption across the board.
As far as asking the illegals to “step into the light” and sign in, please, consider our own internal attempts to register and track the residences of sex offenders in the country. The numbers do not even come close to 12M people and there are regular reports of how a number of them have not met the requirements to report and register and law enforcement has a difficult time devoting the assets to this chase. How much better do you think this will be when we at this task? Not only is it a time consuming effort, there are funds, currently unbudgeted, I’d guess, for the man hours to just do this, let along the requirements for office space, vehicles, computer resources, databases storage and connectivity, creation of the tamper-proof IDs (I have priced printers to make ID cards for a job I once worked – they are above $1K just for plain old ID cards), etc, etc, etc. Besides the trauma of all of a sudden dealing with the added burden on the social welfare payment system, what about the extra cost for enforcement and the administration? Maybe that’s why the Dems want the war ended, so they can shift the funds to getting the new voter base in place for 2008…but maybe I’m just cynical.
Once more I will bring up the need for all of us, born or legally documented citizens to soon have the same biometric data card the “illegals” will have. In the risk adverse society we have been indoctrinated into by the legal caste, employers, subject to monetary penalties beginning at $5000, and moving up from there, will not want to risk their business by having unknowingly having an illegal working for them. The bill, I’m sure, will state they have to have knowledge of the illegal status as a part of the offense, but think about this: The defense of any charges will still cost the owners time and money to keep from being fined. The result? They won’t hire us, unless we have the same untamperable evidence to present to them. Once more, they lawyers feather their own nest by making sure an entirely new set of crimes can be added to the list of defenses they can provide. I’m sure it will become another legal specialty, and the Yellow Pages of communities everywhere will need to have this section added soon.
I’m not liking the tenor of the message from those elected to serve us, not the speed at which this is all happening, especially when we aren’t able to take care of the “wolf closest to the sled”, let alone our increasing inability to take on the hard things we encounter in our time.
And in ending, two thoughts for Senator McCain:
– My experience in government is that when things are non-controversial and beautifully coordinated, there is not much going on.
– In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside.
– John F. Kennedy
Categories: Political