If they can wait 3 years …: If Republicans don’t trust President Obama’s implementation of an immigration law, suggests Sen. Schumer, why not a compromise that postpones the effective date until after Obama leaves office?
“Let’s enact a law this year, but simply not let it actually start till 2017, after President Obama’s term is over.”
I assume Schumer’s talking about delaying the amnesty parts of “reform.”** But if today’s illegal immigrants can wait three years for their instant work permits, why can’t they wait five--until the essential enforcement mechanisms like E-verify, a border fence and a visa tracking system are not only in place but have survived the inevitable ACLU-style assault in the courts? Then we wouldn’t have to trust Obama or the next president. The legalization wouldn’t happen unless and until the enforcement happened.
The answer, of course, is that then the enforcement might happen — which is the one concession Schumer and the Dems won’t make. That is what’s at the bottom of the whole debate — not whether there will be an amnesty but whether there’ll be enough enforcement to prevent another wave of illegals that has to be amnestied down the line. Democrats and La Raza have simply not, in practice, given up on the idea of a continuing flow of illegals in the future, strengthening them politically while requiring serial amnesties.
P.S.: Note that in the process of offering this seeming concession, Schumer cannily allows two-more-years-worth of illegal immigrants to get legalized:
“You simply move the date back from December 31st, 2011 to December 31st 2013 as to when people, the deadline for people who could get even legalization or citizenship.”
Clever! You have to watch that guy like a hawk. I don’t trust him either. Maybe we could postpone legalization until Sen. Schumer leaves office. I see common ground! …
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** — Otherwise he’s just making the law worse, from an amnesty-skeptical perspective– more explicitly permissive, with legalization now, as in the existing bills, but enforcement formally postponed.