Ellsworth on amnesty

The economic demand for these workers is very high. It will not be substantially affected by law enforcement actions. Increased enforcement against employers will mainly lead to the illegal immigrants getting better-quality fake IDs, which will increase identity theft.

Secure the borders better and provide an easy, legal immigration route for millions of immigrants, and maybe that'll stem the economic demand for the illegal immigrants. But that's just not going to happen. Congress won't have the political will to vote in favor of relatively unrestricted immigration of millions of unskilled and low-skilled workers.

I'm really getting very worried about these misguided efforts to "do something" by creating these national ID cards and databases, whereby the federal government must certify you as an individual legally entitled to work. I can imagine few things more un-American than that, frankly. In the end, they won't solve the problem, but they sound nice to the demagogues and they might pass. Then we'll be stuck with the still-unsolved problem of illegal immigration AND we'll have a new, massive bureaucracy in charge of determining who is and is not a citizen and legally allowed to be gainfully employed.

Though I suspect I might not agree with these folks on much else, I'm with them in their criticism of Ellsworth, a Democrat trying to move to the extreme right on immigration.

Now, we know that Hostettler understands his extremist view, but how familiar is Ellsworth with his? Let's explain this to Sheriff Ellsworth. By saying you are for the Sensenbrenner bill which passed the House last year, you are saying that all undocumented aliens currently living and working in this country will be deemed felons. You are also saying that all the employers who employ undocumented aliens will be charged as criminals. And, all those charities (religious charities included) providing services to undocumented aliens will be criminally charged for aiding and abetting them.

Our nation has chosen, over the past 2 decades, to take a very lax view towards illegal immigration from our southern neighbors. We have reaped, I believe, some fairly substantial economic benefit from their presence (perhaps at some cost to the taxpayer, perhaps not, I don't think that's been settled yet). On the whole, we have looked the other way and been perfectly happy to tolerate their presence in our country as they plucked our chickens, picked our lettuce, mowed our grass, and watched our children.

So to those who scream that these immigrants, the ones who actually work, are "FELONS!" I say, so are we all. We are their co-conspirators. You're right, they wouldn't have come here if we weren't hiring them. If we're going to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for law-abidingness, and refuse them amnesty because they entered this country illegally, then a substantial number of our own citizens are guilty as co-conspirators. Before massive deportation begins, I demand that the immigrants be required to name every single American individual and company who ever hired them, and then we must in good conscience arrest those co-conspirators, too.

Treating the immigrants, but not their previous employers, as unpardonable felons is like prosecuting the prostitutes but not the Johns.

Aside from the final graf, what follows is a tweak, so be patient, amigo.

THE TWEAK
Speaking legally, amnesty refers to granting of freedom from punitive measures. If you get amnesty, it means there's NO punishment.

This bill includes a provision for a $5000 fine. Again legally speaking, a fine is a legal punitive measure.

Therefore, legally speaking, this bill does NOT represent amnesty.

I appreciate, as per my conversation with Pat, that the common understanding of amnesty among the "anti-immigrant-amnesty" crowd is that any immigration reform which does not either jail or deport illegal immigrants is tantamount to amnesty.

But in the eyes of the law, it's NOT an amnesty measure. The new law, if established, would include a punitive measure. Surely as both a law worshipper and an idolator of bright line rules, you ought to be able to appreciate this. Conceivably, one could argue that it's partial amnesty, since the punishments currently dictated for illegal immigration will be superceded.

The only reason I've bothered to belabor this is that the amnesty/not amnesty framing seems to make it difficult for folks to move to any sort of reasonable discussion about what sorts of punitive measures are appropriate and reasonable and which ones are unrealistic and/or draconian.

I would offer this as exhibit #1 that Congress will not authorize larger numbers of legal immigration or guest worker avenues. Make no mistake, the vocal anti-immigration crowd for the most part wants less immigration, period, not just less illegal immigration.

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Representative Brad Ellsworth?s history of speeches on immigration can be found at: Representative Brad Ellsworth?s Record of Speeches

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For the past five years, Congress and the President have shortchanged border security and looked the other way while our laws were broken. In 2004, Congress enacted the 9/11 Act which mandated the hiring of 10,000 border patrol agents over the next five years. Yet from September 2001 through April 2006, only 1,641 border patrol agents were hired.

For a freshman he sure does a lot of posturing. He's fudging the numbers quite a bit, and in fact the number he cites is a flat-out lie as presented. His citations are downright dishonest.

Many more agents than that were hired, that's the net increase in border-agents-on-duty after attrition: retirements, transfers, etc. And it's strictly for border agents--many of those who transferred went to ICE and to the new "tech" border surveillance teams. I also like the back-dating of the legislation. A 2004 bill wouldn't come into effect until appropriations to match came through in the new budget, which wouldn't hit until 2005. In fiscal year 2006, CBP Border Patrol staffing increased by 8 percent, from 11,265 to 12,349.

And let's notice that attrition in the BP was running about 10% from 1996-2004. It was almost 20% in 2002, as agents left to join the Air Marshall serice, which pays better and doesn't require toodling around in the desert heat. Nothin' like picking a starting point right before a major setback in numbers! For Ellsworth's statement on hiring to be true, you have to ignore ALL hiring that filled positions opened by attrition.

In 2004 pay was boosted from GS-9 to GS-11, and attrition in 2005 was down to 4%.

He also doesn't mention that the previous staffing expansion (1996-2001) of almost 5,000 agents was (rightly) criticized for poor screening that let in some agents later accused of corruption, and assisting the smuggling of both people and drugs. Nor does he mention the NG border deployments, whihc provided effective increases in border agent numbers without using actual border agents.