National Review Online
June 13, 2006
Another `No Amnesty’ Amnesty
It was a nice try, at least.
By Mark Krikorian
It’s funny how every new `middle ground’ on immigration is in the same place
as the old ones.
The latest `middle ground’ proposal comes from Rep. Mike Pence (R., Ind.).
Pence, who has solid conservative credentials as head of the House
Republican Study Committee, offered what he billed as `The Real Rational
Middle Ground on Immigration Reform’ at a Heritage Foundation speech last
month. Since there’s no actual bill to look at, we have to judge from Rep.
Pence’s speech and other materials what the program would be like.
It starts out well enough. In seeking an alternative to amnesty, on the one
hand, and mass deportations, on the other, he laid out a four-step plan. The
first step is securing the border, and he included the entire enforcement
bill passed by the House in December (with two minor modifications) in his
measure.
Step two is to reject amnesty. That also sounds good, until you remember
that Senators Kennedy and McCain also deny their amnesty plan is an amnesty.
As do Senators Hagel and Martinez. And President Bush. They all deny that
they support amnesty because, as the president says, the only thing that
constitutes amnesty is `automatic citizenship,’ whatever that is.
Pence has a broader definition of amnesty:
Amnesty is allowing people whose first act in America was an illegal act to
get right with the law without leaving the country. Allowing twelve million
illegal aliens to stay in our country instead of leaving and coming back
legally is amnesty, no matter if fines or back taxes are paid, or how it is
otherwise dressed-up or spun by its proponents. The only way to deal with
these twelve million people is to insist that they leave the country and
come back legally if they have a job awaiting them.
This is exactly the same as the `touchback’ gimmick in the Senate amnesty
bill, which would require illegal aliens who have been here between two and
five years to cross the border to be enrolled in the permanent `temporary’
worker program and then immediately return to their homes and jobs.
That brings us to the third step: the guestworker amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Or,
if you prefer, legalization. Or normalization. Or regularization. Or earned
adjustment. Or whatever is the euphemism du jour. The fact remains that the
guestworker program in the Pence plan is explicitly designed to allow all
illegal aliens to keep their jobs and domiciles in the United States without
interruption.
The congressman is quite explicit on this point. In explaining the need for
speedy processing of the guestworkers, he says:
No employer in America wants to lose employees for an extended amount of
time. No worker who is earning money to feed and clothe a family can afford
to be off the job for long. … And, an illegal alien currently employed in
America will be willing to take a quick trip across the border to come back
outside of the shadows and in a job where he does not fear a raid by
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In fact, I envision employers working
with placement agencies to make sure that their long-time illegal employees
get their paperwork processed, background checks performed, and visas issued
so that they will be back on the job quickly.
In the 1950s, this process was called – in official U.S. government
publications – `drying out the wetbacks.’ Whether it’s called an amnesty
instead, or is given some other label, the point is to let all illegal
aliens stay legally.
But maybe the amnesty is time-limited? And in fact, part of Pence’s `no
amnesty’ claim is that the guestworker visa would be limited to a total of
six years. This would be an encouraging requirement, except that, in the
congressman’s words, `At that point, the guest should decide whether to
return home or enter the separate process of seeking citizenship.’ If legal
immigration quotas are to remain in force, then these formerly illegal, now
`temporary,’ workers will have to leave, en masse, six years from now, which
is precisely the mass deportation the congressman said (correctly) is
unworkable. On the other hand, if these workers will be able to receive
permanent residency outside the current limits, as they would be under the
Senate amnesty bill, then this plan is the very `path to citizenship’ that
Rep. Pence made a big show of condemning. It’s unclear which of these is
true, but it’s undeniable that the plan is either dishonest or amateurish.
Step four really takes the cake: a promise – really, truly,
cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die – to enforce the ban on hiring illegals in
the future. Pence himself says that since every illegal alien will be
legalized, employers wouldn’t need to hire illegals, but that enforcement
will be phased in nonetheless. This is exactly the bait-and-switch Congress
perpetrated in 1986 – legalization first, enforcement later (i.e., never).
It is for this reason that the House, animated by a `fool me twice, shame on
me’ skepticism, has insisted on `Enforcement First.’
There are plenty of other reasons to dismiss the Pence plan as unserious: by
not calling for an end to automatic citizenship at birth, it makes the
`temporary’ claim meaningless; his gimmick of having the private sector
screen the workers misses the point that they will still need to use (and
receive security clearances for access to) the very same databases that the
FBI and Department of Homeland Security use now; and to get `temporary’
workers, employers will merely have to attest that they tried to hire
Americans, rather than using objective measures to determine need, like
rising wages or low unemployment in the specific occupation in question.
In fact, I didn’t write about this plan when it was announced because I
didn’t think it possible that anyone could take it seriously. I was wrong.
Though the Pence amnesty plan hasn’t been widely covered, it has received
support, or at a least respectful hearing, from insiders who will affect the
final outcome of any bill. It’s no surprise, for instance, that amnesty
supporters like Dick Armey, John Fund, and Michael Barone have had nice
things to say about it (not to mention several newspaper editorial pages),
but even supporters of Enforcement First, like Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and
Newt Gingrich, have been more receptive of the plan than a close reading of
it would warrant. It’s also ironic that Pence’s speech was delivered at the
Heritage Foundation, given that his plan appears to violate Heritage’s
`permanent principles’ on immigration; it will be interesting to see what
Heritage has to say about the plan.
In the end, the Pence Amnesty wouldn’t go down with the public any better
than the string of other amnesty plans that have been proposed over the past
couple of years. As Peggy Noonan wrote last week about the public’s
suspicions regarding immigration plans: `they think – they assume, at this
point, reflexively – that slithery, slippery professional politicians are
using and inventing complications to obfuscate and confuse. … Americans
don’t trust `comprehensive plans,’ because they don’t trust the
comprehensive planners.’
There’s only one way Congress and the president can earn back the public’s
trust on immigration: Enforce the law – comprehensively, confidently,
unapologetically. Then, after several years have passed and enforcement
mechanisms are in place and working, and the illegal population has shrunk
through attrition, Washington will have proven that, this time, it’s not
lying about immigration.
Until then, no deal.
Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies
and an NRO contributor.
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