U.S. Senate Majority Leader and presidential wannabee Bill Frist strongly defends the Senate's path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, citing national security concerns.
On Fox News Sunday, the Tennessee Republican said a failure to hold out the hope of citizenship to people living illegally in the United States would encourage the estimated 12 million illegal aliens to "stay in the shadows."
"The reality is you can't just take 12 million people here, millions of whom are fully assimilated into our society ... and send them back" to their countries of origin, Frist said."If the goal is national security, for example ... it is mighty hard to say that we've got 12 million people living out around this country ... and say 'you stay in the shadows, everything will be OK'," Frist said.
We do, I feel, have to address the 12 million people to bring them out of the shadows.
[. . .]
"First and foremost you've got to lock down the borders," Frist said, but "we've got to address the fact that we are a magnet here," and that employers in construction, hospitality, agriculture and other industries need entry level workers they might not be able to find inside U.S. borders.
Frist is wrong.
First and foremost, the Senate's path to citizenship for illegal aliens will result in even more illegal aliens. The only lesson those who want to migrate to the U.S. will learn from the proposed legalization is that they should get into the U.S. any way they can, because eventually the U.S. will make them legal. Unfortunately, we have historic validation of this. We tried amnesty before with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. That reform legalized nearly 4 million illegals. That policy has proven to be an abominable failure, resulting in 12 million illegal aliens seeking to be legalized like those who came before them. Why can't Senator Frist see that if amnesty is given now to these 12 million, then in another 20 years, there will be 36 million illegal aliens demanding to be legalized?
Second, If the good Senator was truly concerned about the threat illegal aliens pose to national security, why does he not do something to force the government to take action against employers who hire illegal aliens? Why doesn't he do something to prevent state and local governments from providing non-emergency services to illegal aliens and enacting “sanctuary” policies, prohibiting government employees, including law enforcement personnel, from reporting an illegal alien’s status? Why doesn't he require the government to obtain adequate facilities to detain illegal aliens when they are caught, instead of releasing them knowing few will show up later for a court appearance?
Third, the illegals wouldn't come -- and might leave -- if they couldn't get a job because those that employed them went to jail, if they couldn't obtain government services, or if they actually thought they might be detained for coming here illegally.
Fourth, just how stupid do Frist and the other senators who voted for the Senate's so-called immigration reform think we are? Twenty years ago, we were told we should grant amnesty to four million illegal aliens in order to stop stop the illegal migration. Frist and the Senate are telling us exactly the same thing now. As they say, fool me once, shame on you ....
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