now he\u2019s done it<\/a>. \u00a0Legalization for all, as long as you\u2019ve been here five years or longer and have managed to procreate. \u00a0The former will be easily open to fraud \u2014 after all, what sort of standard of proof would you require for someone who\u2019s been living and working with a false identity? \u00a0Presumably some kind of affidavit that you have, indeed, been working as \u201cJohn Smith\u201d since 2008. \u00a0The procreation requirement is probably a bit trickier \u2014 though you can bet there\u2019ll be a baby boom 9 months from now, and maybe a few single moms deciding to \u201chelp out\u201d an illegal-immigrant man by putting his name on the birth certificate. \u00a0(Can you do that retroactively? \u00a0I would assume so, as just among garden-variety unmarried couples, there are surely plenty of cases where they had a fight prior to the birth but then reconciled.) \u00a0Five years is also very, very recent \u2014 you just can\u2019t make the claim that someone who arrived here five years ago is so well integrated into the U.S. that it would be a hardship to deport them, or that their children (who likely only speak Spanish, as they wouldn\u2019t have entered elementary school yet) would face any similar hardship. <\/p>\nAnd this is really scary.<\/p>\n
The reality is that most of the country would have been willing to sign on to a partial legalization program, if it had been paired with more certainty about enforcement measures, rather than the Gang of 8\u2019s legalization-first, enforcement if we feel like it, plan. \u00a0(Pollsters get to high majorities for a widescale legalization by presenting two options: \u00a0either mass legalization or mass deportation.) \u00a0But now? \u00a0Obama cannot be trusted. \u00a0Compromise between two parties works when there is a shared goal, and when each truly sacrifices something in exchange for the other party doing likewise.<\/p>\n
Compromise is impossible when the other party has given a big FU and announced that any law he doesn\u2019t like, he won\u2019t implement.<\/p>\n
Imagine a Gang of 8-style bill with immediate legalization in exchange for the administration increasing border security, implementing e-verify, and so on. \u00a0Obama cannot be trusted to implement any of these enforcement mechanisms, when he has so clearly announced that he doesn\u2019t have to enforce any law that he doesn\u2019t like. \u00a0Even after the \u201cDACA\u201d legalization program, he has made it impossible for Congress to craft a compromise bill when he\u2019s made it clear that he will not compromise.<\/p>\n
So all that\u2019s left is Congress\u2019s power of the purse \u2014 assuming that Obama can actually be stopped by lacking legal authorization to spend money, and won\u2019t thumb his nose at Congress and spend it anyway. \u00a0And it is simply twisted logic, and a frightening indicator of the political power of journalists, that the conventional wisdom is that, if Congress passes a spending bill which does not fund the processing of these work authorization documents, and Obama vetoes it, then it is the GOP, and not Obama, who bears responsibility for the shut-down. <\/p>\n
Maybe the GOP could take to the airwaves, and fund advertisements making their case. <\/p>\n
Or maybe the GOP leadership will be so ineffectual that they will just sigh and say, \u201cwe can\u2019t do anything about it\u201d . . .<\/p>\n
Even my own little pet idea \u2014 a one-for-one compromise (each prospective legal immigrant processed requires one deportation) doesn\u2019t work if it\u2019s simply a given that the president is unwilling to deport. \u00a0And it\u2019s long established that actual interior deportations are way, way down, and even this summer\u2019s swell from Central America are staying. <\/p>\n
Will the GOP be able to pursue its legal and legislative plans? \u00a0I don\u2019t know. \u00a0It certainly seems that Obama has made the country ungovernable due to his bad faith.<\/p>\n
Mostly it just sucks that we have a president that\u2019s just an [fill in the blank], and has set his own political games ahead of the welfare of the country.<\/p>\n
UPDATE:<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a document <\/a>with the summary of the plan. \u00a0Arrival before 1\/1\/2010, child already born, \u201cpay a fee.\u201d \u00a0Any guesses on the size of the fee?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So now he\u2019s done it. \u00a0Legalization for all, as long as you\u2019ve been here five years or longer and have managed to procreate. \u00a0The former will be easily open to fraud \u2014 after all, what sort of standard of proof would you require for someone who\u2019s been living and working with a false identity? \u00a0Presumably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137,46],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-executive-amnesty","tag-immigration"],"yoast_head":"\n
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