THIS IS MADNESS

Here's an example of the false advertising for the Senate immigration bill.

Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher asked an immigration lawyer friend what he thought of the bill.  This was his reply:

"This bill has no enforcement at all.  It says, in effect, that no Y (guest worker) or Z (amnesty) visas will be issued to anybody until the following steps are taken.  But in the meantime, provisional Y and Z visas will be issued, with exactly the same effects and benefits except they can't be turned into green card status."

This is madness.  To grant an amnesty before the border is secure is to invite another massive influx of illegals.

It gets worse. 

"If an ICE agent apprehends aliens who appears to be eligible for the Z visa…the agent cannot detain them.  Instead, ICE must provide them a reasonable opportunity to apply for the Z visa," noted Kris Kobach, counsel to then Attorney General John Ashcroft. 

"Instead of initiating removal proceedings, ICE will be initiating amnesty applications.  This is the equivalent of turning the Drug Enforcement Agency into a needle distribution network."

The bill may make it harder to deport the roughly 30,000 illegal immigrant gang members in the United States.  Mr. Kobach notes that all these criminals need do to obtain a Z visa is to sign a form renunciating gang affiliation.  A White House spokesman said this isn't so, that those who have committed certain crimes are ineligible for Z visas. 

But Mr. Kobach notes that most illegal immigrant gang members have not been convicted of crimes.  Today we can deport these bastards if we catch them.  If this bill passes, we may not be able to.

There are many, many other things wrong with it, including provisions which would give illegals more rights and privileges than aliens who enter this country lawfully, and that which requires taxpayers to pay the legal fees of illegals applying for Z visas.

The immigration bill is a fraud, and deliberately so, because it was drafted chiefly by aides to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass), principal architect of the immigration bill disasters of 1965 and 1986.

An example of Sen. Kennedy's duplicity is the advertised shift from granting visas chiefly for family unification to a point-based system favoring immigrants with education and skills America needs. 

But Sen. Kennedy told the San Francisco Chronicle that for the next eight years, the bill would award 75 percent of new green cards to family members, a substantial increase from the current 60 percent.

The Republicans who have signed onto it may be doing so more out of laziness, stupidity,  and fear of being called "racist" than out of a deliberate effort to deceive.  Few actually have read the bill.

It's principal GOP supporter, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), has been too busy seeking another job to pay much attention to the one he has now.  Sen. McCain expressed surprise to learn the measure he champions exempts illegals from paying back taxes.

Americans are a generous people.  But we're tired of being lied to about immigration by politicians in Washington.  This may be why only 26 percent of respondents in a Rasmussen poll said they supported this bill, though earlier surveys indicated between two thirds and three quarters of Americans support a path to legalization once the borders have been secured.

The ranks of the bill's supporters likely will shrink as its provisions become better known. Knowing this, Senate Democrats have short-circuited the legislative process to ram it through before more Americans become aware of what's in it.

It may be too late for that.  Three of the four Republicans who have a realistic chance of being nominated for president have come out against the bill.  Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson oppose it because the enforcement provisions are fraudulent.  Mitt Romney opposes the whole concept of amnesty.

Many Americans are outraged by illegal immigration.  But that rage is misdirected at the illegals themselves.  It isn't they who are responsible for Washington's refusal to secure the border; for multiculturalism in our schools, or for the insolvency of our social welfare programs.

I wish we could deport the person most responsible for all of this.  Who is more of an alien to America, who is more deserving of deportation than Teddy Kennedy?