With all the hand-wringing in the news the past couple of days over Arizona making it illegal to be in America illegally (wait…what? Redundant redundancy!), and requiring folks once arrested to prove legality with an ID, I’ll bet you’ll think these quotes came from an Arizona legislator about that law:
“It’s the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking.”
“If you say they can’t get a job when they come here, you’ll stop it.”
Holy Minuteman, Batman! Those quotes given to the Wall Street Journal are from uber-liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)! But he wasn’t talking about Arizona’s law. He was talking about his own proposed law.
Coinciding with Arizona’s effort to make people who are legally in America prove it with an ID, Schumer and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) have been working on a federal law to make people carry a national ID to prove they are legally in America.
Schumer’s card won’t just be a piece of paper with your name on it. He’ll have you report a variety of personal information to the government to get your card, and it will be biometrically signed with your fingerprints or vein patterns from your hand. Vein patterns? Must be for skinny people.
And you can forget about illegal aliens being abused by scurrilous employers who give them jobs. Under Chuck’s plan it will be illegal to give out work without the card. Economic totalitarianism rocks!
So contemporary is Chuck and Lindsey’s work on ID cards with Arizona’s law on ID cards that they met with President Obama about the idea just last month.
I can understand Arizona’s need to deal with cross-border illegal immigration because they are on the border and the problem there is both acute and chronic. I’m not sure of the urgency in Schumer’s New York, although I would chip in for a fence there to keep out all the hipsters from Hoboken, New Jersey.
So last night I made the big bowl of popcorn to watch the fireworks against Chuck Schumer on TV.
I expected President Obama to call Schumer “misguided.” He only said it about Arizona.
I expected Al Sharpton to point at Schumer and scream “raaaaaaaacist!” He only did that to Arizona.
I expected Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney to compare Chuck Schumer’s compelling people to carry ID papers to Nazi Germany. He only said it about Arizona.
I think I see the pattern here: If a conservative proposes an immigration policy, it’s racist. If a liberal proposes the same policy, it’s not.
Good grief.
Tommy De Seno is a political columnist with the triCityNews in New Jersey, a Fox News Forum Contributor and editor of the blog Justified Right.