The “immigration reform” catch

I just read that a bipartisan group of senators “crafted” a bill, the Bipartisan Framework for Immigration Reform, as a solution to our immigration problem. It isn’t. If it passes in its current form, it will create yet another series of problems. Why?

The biggest reason is that it includes the sentence “Contingent upon our success in securing our borders and addressing visa overstays.” This means that the illegal population, eligible for a green card or citizenship will depend on the politicians, probably a Commission, stating that the borders are secure and our government knows who is here.

I doubt that they’ll ever make those statements, or perhaps only will under political pressure. Why? Because they will never be true. The borders are still and will stay porous, and our government doesn’t know who’s here anyway.

Many years ago, I lived in San Diego, California and was an insurance agent. One of my policy holders was in the Border Patrol, as it was known as back then. He invited me to come out with him one night and see what he did. I doubt that the public can ride along today, but back then it was okay. Anyway, it was fun when he switched on his Christmas tree lights, and all of the other cars pulled to the right to let us through. It was like being in a movie. But I digress.

Later that night we took up position a few thousand feet from the border, in the scrublands of Otay Mesa. I still remember him looking at his watch, and said for me to keep my eye on the ridge line in about ten minutes. At the ten minute mark, I used his night vision scope and saw what he expected. If you’ve ever seen an old Korean war movie, they have iconic scenes of mass charges by Chinese soldiers who just appear on the ridge and then attack our positions.

It wasn’t quite like that, but close enough that the movie genre came instantly to mind. He spent the next few hours rounding up the border crossers with his fellow agents. The border crossers were sent back to try again the next night. Many got through. That was how the game was played back then.

Although I don’t think that the border is that porous any more, much of the reason is that the Mexican job market is fairly good and that our job market isn’t. Illegal entries can’t be stopped; where there’s a will, there’s a way.

It’s the same problem the world over. I just heard that 1 in 8 people living in England weren’t born there. That’s the equivalent of about 40 million people foreign born people living here! People with less opportunity want to come to the closest land of opportunity. That’s us for Mexico, Central and South America.

Even the well to do Chinese are coming over so that newborns are U.S. citizens. They then fly back. You may have heard that Chinese law only allows one baby per couple. Not so. The wealthy Chinese circumvent the law and have the baby here as it only applies to babies born in China. The politicians are the same the world over. For the couple, that kills two birds with one stone.

As a final aside, I was so impressed with the Border Patrol pursuit car with its giant V8, 4 barrel engine, that I bid on a used car government auction and bought one. I picked it up on an Indian reservation, just south of Tucson, Arizona. It had been abandoned “carefully stored” and up to it axles in sand. It broke down a few times on the return trip to San Diego and had to to refill the porous radiator many times from the roadside water barrels, using my hands as a scoop, while driving up the Cuyamaca Mountains on I8. It was freezing. But get back I did.

I used it as my Saturday night Tijuana car as it seated eight. We had fun there; filled it with Mexican gas before driving twenty five miles back home. It needed Mexican gas as it only did about six miles to the gallon, and Mexican gasoline was really cheap back then. It isn’t now. I think those trips to Tijuana is why I developed my love for all things Mexican. I have good memories, plus some high quality Chinese rugs I bought there.

What the proposed bill could have said is that you must register within the United States to be eligible for legal entry, and be able to prove that you’ve been here for x years, perhaps through medical records or official documents. There will be a lot of fraud. It will stop many of the newcomers flooding over the border, which they will otherwise, proving just how porous it really is.

So the purpose of this sentence is to avoid meeting that criteria… ever, and still curry favor with the voting Hispanics. The other option is to (temporarily) certify that part just before an election to get a lot more of the Hispanic vote. It’s just bipartisan smoke and mirrors, developed to curry favor with the Hispanics. It has little substance. All show, and no go.

If they want verification for border security, they could ask the ranchers who have property on the border. They will laugh at the politicians claims.

The Republicans joined in “crafting the bill” as they had to. If they didn’t “craft” this fake legislation the Democrats would have attacked them for being anti-Hispanic. But both sides know that it’s a facade and theater, so it doesn’t really matter to them.

The public, especially the Hispanic public is being conned.

This is similar to the amnesty President Obama announced in mid-2012, just in time for the elections. The increasingly important Hispanic vote may have pushed him over the top. I don’t know if it did, but politics is central to immigration reform, not honesty.

Politics as usual.