It is so frustrating to watch how long it is taking for "political reality" to get up to speed with the Reality of our immigration laws monster. Even in today's Yahoo News story indicating an atom of progress are statements and clues that they our American political leaders should know better.
Rep. Goodlatte, Republican, from Virginia, doesn't want automatic citizenship for "illegals". But he wants an eventual path for them. Which raises the unanswered question, how automatic is "automatic"? He doesn't say. No details. Just generalities so general that they potentially contradict each other, depending on how you interpret them.
Apparently his condition on a path to citizenship is that it should not be "easy" or "special", whatever that means. I don't think anyone needs to fear that any plan coming out of Congress will be "easy".
The news reporter says Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is trying to come up with a plan that "reform critics will not deride as amnesty". AArrgh again! Why aren't people who understand the immigration monster publicly ridiculing every public use of that poor misused word "amnesty", twisted to mean either "the other guy's immigration solution" or "any attempt to fix our broken immigration system"?
The news article may make Goodlatte's plan even less clear than Goodlatte made it, but my impression is that he would put "illegals" at "the back of the line", but then would try to make the line shorter by clearing out the "huge backlogs".
Now here is the biggest clue that "political reality" has a LONG long way to go to catch up with reality - this characterization of the position of Democrats: "As a practical matter, they say, putting as many as 10 million people into a system that currently admits 1 million per year will lead to years upon years of waiting."
In other words, the scenario is putting these 10 million in "the back of the line" that exists for applicants from abroad. But even faced with this "irresistible force meeting an immovable object", no one asks whether our problem is those numerical limitations that only admit one million a year! Or whether that limit to one million a year, even applied to applicants from abroad, meets U.S. interests. Especially considering our desperate need for more taxpayers to help lift the burden of our crushing national deficit.
But the statements in this article over which I have lost the most hair are from a woman who should know better. She is " an immigration specialist at the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund. She should understand Reality about immigration law. Yet Angela Maria Kelley is quoted as saying “I don’t think there is a magic number” of years to wait for citizenship. She says undocumented immigrants “can’t jump ahead of those in family or other backlogs, but [the time] can’t be so long that they’re being admitted to nursing homes at the same time they’re applying for citizenship.”
See? She knows the waiting time is not 2-5 years, as it was from 1789 to 1882, but is two or more generations. Yet she declines to offer a "number" of years to wait for citizenship, even though not offering a number leaves unchallenged the current wait times. She says the Shadow People "can't jump ahead" of others, as if to acknowledge the moral or even legal legitimacy or even the existence of any predictable order for processing applicants. When the "line" is a rampaging mob, what measures will ensure that you have not "jumped ahead" of your rightful place in it? We need to talk about bringing order to the system so that it will be possible, some day, to tell if anyone is "jumping ahead" of their "place" in the "line". Meanwhile we need to march in with our legal machetes and just start whacking away stupid regulations as fast as uninformed "political reality" permits.
Here is the kicker: “I find it stunning and cynical and short-sighted, and I think it will set [Republicans] back” politically, Kelley said. “If there are any Republicans in the House whose goal it is to rebrand themselves and be Republican Party 2.0 with the Latino community, this is taking them way back, back to the era of fax machines,” Kelley continued. “It would be highly insulting. I hope this is early chest-thumping.... I hope they would calm down.”
She is referring to those who resist any "path to citizehship" for "illegals" ever, and I share her frustration with Republicans - as well as Democrats - that out of touch with reality. But I am equally frustrated at the reluctance among people well informed about immigration reality to explain that it is mathematically impossible to ever legalize our 10 million Shadow People through a "path to citizenship" placed at the "end" of a mob with no end, whose occupants receive citizenship after typically 12 to 40 years if they live long enough because of Numerical Limitations that only admit about one million immigrants legally a year.
There need be no "magic" in setting forth the target of 2-5 years from application to citizenship, for non-criminal applicants. That is a historical number, which is even better than a magic number.
I don't understand how our nation can survive our current debt and deficit, without importing way more taxpayers than even repeal of our Numerical Limitations will bring in.
I listened to Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman, Tuesday night, before a congressional committee. I don't think he understands either. He talked about what Congress needed to do to get the budget under control - austerity, raise taxes, but don't raise taxes because that depresses the economy, etc. I don't think he knows how it is possible either, so his job was to paper over reality with words, and enjoy the gravy as long as the train can roll.
How can America's political leaders be so consumed with the two top issues of immigration and our crushing deficit, and not a one of them notices the connection?
Aarrgh!
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