Amnesty vs. true immigration reform: Part 1 ~ By Tom Tancredo

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Tom Tancredo Posted: January 16, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 In the heated debate over immigration reform, we seldom hear this simple truth uttered by anyone: Amnesty is the enemy of true immigration reform. Amnesty for persons in the country unlawfully exacerbates and magnifies every single problem our immigration system faces, yet advocates for "comprehensive immigration reform" never fail to make amnesty the centerpiece of their plans. This contradiction reveals a different agenda. They aim not to fix our broken immigration system but to destroy it. An attempt at genuine immigration reform would identify specific problems and propose specific solutions, with each proposal debated on its merits regarding its costs, ramifications and so forth. Instead, the amnesty advocates start with their political agenda and then argue backwards to find justifications for it. Let's take border security as an example. Eighty percent of Americans believe we need border security as a precondition for immigration reform. No one can deny that without secure borders, laws attempting to set limits or rules for immigrating to the United States are meaningless. Yet instead of fixing the problem, we see a hundred different excuses and dodges. Yes, Border Patrol apprehensions are down by 40 percent from the high levels of 2001-2005. Does it mean we do not have a border-security problem? No. Every newspaper in Mexico and Central America is full of stories indicating that the exodus northward will resume when the U.S. economy recovers from the recession. Besides, how many Americans think that 700,000 unidentified persons entering the country illegally each year across our northern and southern borders is an acceptable level of security? READ FULL STORY >