[Note: This page will try to follow the day’s events in traditional blog style, with updates added on top of older items. This avoids having to post separate items with separate headlines, etc., for each entry–an unfortunate characteristic of the WordPress system used by D.C..]
Hands Across America! Chuck Schumer, in ecstasy on the Senate floor over the prospect of a “breathtaking show of force … boots on the ground and drones in the air … it will create a virtual human fence of border patrol agents. Under the border surge, the border patrol will have the capacity to deploy an armed agent 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to stand guard every thousand feet all the way from San Diego, California, to Brownsville, Texas …” Schumer was proctor at my dorm at the tail end of the psychedelic ’60s. Maybe he took more drugs than it seemed like at the time. …
Seriously, if the conceptual problem with the Corker/Hoeven approach is that Democrats will start undermining the enforcement parts as soon as the legalization (which happens immediately) takes effect, the actual vision of the amendment’s proponents–an Afghan-style militarization of the border– is so absurd and burdensome that it will practically collapse of its own weight anyway. The ACLU and La Raza will be pushing on an open door. … Fiscal crisis? Why not cut some of those 20,000 expensive new border agents. … Plus that’s 20,000 new opportunities for agents to get corrupted. …
And of course Schumer wouldn’t need more border troops if it weren’t for the amnesty/legalization part of his bill that will itself attract more border-crossers (who look at those who went before and see–hey, they got to stay!). …
Update: Already a protest about the Gang’s new “outrageous … militarized border” reported here. … It will not stand, at least once Democrats get what they want (immediate legal “PRI” status for the 11 million) and withdraw their support …. 2:31 PM 6/30/13
____________________
Not so hard, but very very expensive! The now famous 90% “apprehension or turn back” rate–was talked up just last night by Sen. Hoeven as a prerequisite (“trigger”) for newly legalized former illegals moving on to get green cards and citizenship:
“You have to have not only the plan in place but the metric has to be met, prior to going to green card status,” Hoeven added.
That was yesterday. “The 90 percent is gone,” a Senate aide tells Byron York. “In its stead is the doubling of the Border Patrol,” to around 20,000 … A few points: a) This is an LBJ-style Big Liberalism solution. We’re going to throw manpower at the problem, Vietnam-style, while creating the very thing (amnesty, and the near-certainty of future amnesties) that will keep drawing desperate foreigners to keep coming. Is General Westmoreland still alive to direct the effort? b) More border patrol agents will do little to stop the problem of people overstaying their visas–especially people brought into the country under the new, allegedly temporary ‘”guestworker” programs who decide to not go back home. The recent CBO report suggests this will be the biggest sluice of illegal immigrants in the future ; c) I’m not so sure of that last point, since the border itself is likely to remain pretty porous, as it is now in South Texas. Mark Krikorian notes it may take a decade to train 20,000 new agents. Meanwhile the border fence, which unlike agents won’t require raises and pensions into eternity, can be blocked by the same forces that blocked it last time Congress promised to build it. …
But I guess the ICE union is happy! …
P.S.: Of course all these discussions are Kabuki on the head of a pin on stilts, because the Gang of 8 bill immediately gives illegals formal, renewable legal status. Once that happens, Democrats can freely begin lobbying to undermine whatever long-term border security measures the bill “requires” (as happened after the 1986 reform, and the 2006 “Secure Fence Act”). ….
P.P.S.: In the spirit of the bill, maybe they could just give the new border patrol jobs to the newly legalized illegals and complete the circle. …
P.P.P.S.: As for the rest of the Corker/Hoeven Fig Leaf’s promises–well, the amendment hasn’t been written yet, apparently. Until the loopholes are committed to paper it’s hard to spot ’em. …
P.P.P.P.S.: Keep calling! NumbersUSA says this is the moment to contact senators to tell them if you oppose the Corker/Hoeven amendment. They’re right … Senate contact numbers …. 1:42 PM 6/20/13
____________________
Hard Triggers: Today is the day scheduled for the unveiling of the Corker-Hoeven amendment, the long-awaited Magic Fig Leaf that will contain enough tough-sounding security provisions to give wavering senators an excuse to support the Schumer-Rubio “Gang of 8” immigration amnesty bill. However “hard” the new ‘triggers,” though, they will be in the wrong place. Under the “Gang” architecture, remember
“Provisional” legalization of the 11 million illegals currently in the U.S. comes first, virtually immediately. Then comes whatever border security the bill will produce, then (Step 3) the granting of green cards and ultimately citizenship to the already legalized “provisionals.” The Gang made this legalization-first structure emphatically clear this past week when it rejected the amendment from Sen. Grassley that would have required “effective control” of the border for six months before any legalization. It also became clear that legalization comes first when Sen. Rubio said, “First comes the legalization.”
Whether what Corker-Hoeven provides for Step 2 is as thoroughly phony as Schumer-Rubio remains to be learned. Usually it’s hard to spot the loopholes until you see actual legislative language, which may not even exist yet. …
Meanwhile, readers can share their thoughts on fig leaves with their elected represenatives at these Senate numbers and these House numbers. … So far, the calls are working (“[T]he bomardment is pretty one-sided”–Sen. Thune.) . … 1:26 AM 6/20/13