2006-04-02 - 11:05 p.m.
So I was gonna stay away from the immigration thing, at least for now, but the lovely X has prompted me to do otherwise.
If you check your history books you may notice a pattern. Every 20 years, the issue of illegal immigration comes up in American politics. 1965, 1986, and now 2006. The sad truth is, this problem is unlikely to be resolved.
If you do a bit of research, you may come across something called the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965. The man who pushed that act into law is someone that we're all familiar with and fond of, Senator Ted Kennedy. Just to give you an idea of what a failure the bill was, here is a quote from Ted Kennedy, 1965:
"Our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, the bill will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia -- and in the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think."
Well, didn't that turn out to be a crock of shit?
Anyway, moving right along, the problem with past bills and the bill being debated in Washington today is not the bill itself. We can argue till we're blue in the face over Amnesty and deportation and everything else. The point is that this bill will fail, just like every other bill has failed, because politicians are afraid of losing votes.
Personally, I have no problem with the fines and English classes or anything else in the bill. What I do have a problem with is the fact that it won't be enforced. As they did before, Washington will talk tough and promise reform, and let's say they do pass this bill into law. Fine. Now illegals must pay fines, learn English, and are not given priority over people attempting to gain citizenship legally. The problem with this is, what will America do when they say no? Absolutely nothing. They won't be deported, the problem will be swept under the rug for another 20 years. Sad, but true. All we are seeing right now is political pandering on both sides. Conservatives want to please their base by appearing to make an attempt to solve the border issue, and liberals want to turn it into a "civil rights" movement in order to make conservatives out to be racist. It's absolutely pathetic.
Anyway, I'll be happy when it dies down and we can all move on.
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