Comprehensive Means Comprehensive

First of all, it isn't amnesty.

As reports of the Senate compromise on immigration reform came across the news on Thursday, the usual group of anti-immigrant yodelers hit the airwaves within hours. From Tancredo to Dobbs to the right-wing ranters on AM radio, their one note screamed "AMNESTY!"

It isn't. By definition amnesty means a lack of penalty. There are penalties involved with the new senate bill. There are sacrifices to be made by an undocumented immigrant, and compliance will test and prove the difference between those who wish to commit to an existence in this country, and those with less honorable motives.

A better way to look at it would be to call it a mechanism for a No Contest plea to the charge of jumping the border. There has been a twenty year window where the current immigration system has shown profound flaws. It has not served the needs of this country, and the hard-line tenor of the law as written has served to stifle both assimilation and those who would have qualified under previous immigration laws for legal paths to remain in the United States.

Tough, but just and reasonable, the Senate compromise represents not the impossible- a good solution- but the least bad solution.

If the reader will imagine, as a caller to the Mark Davis radio program in Dallas did recently, the political will and repercussions after the appearance of a cell-phone video of an undocumented woman being removed, and her small child crying for her mommy. This would make Abu Ghraib look like a visit from Mother Teresa. And it would be political death for anyone who had supported the forcible removal of undocumented aliens.

The logistics of removing twelve to twenty million people; convincing the world community of how humane the United States of America is; and replacing that population in the labor force would devastate the nation. It would be suicide.

The manpower required to remove twelve million people would require at least a quarter of a million agents trained in law enforcement and logistics, plus dedicated areas and holding facilities and transportation. Figure upon the American taxpayers taking about a trillion dollar hit.

China and Mexico could call in their markers. The EU nations and Japan would. Without about seven million proven, but undocumented, participants in the labor force, and less than seven million unemployed (and a good portion of them unemployable) in the United States, productivity would fall. The economic engine of the United States would be stalled in mid-air.

With a broken economy and political instability, we could anticipate challenges to our sovereignty and our military from sources such as Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, and their satellites. What would remain to be seen is if we had any good will remaining from our traditional allies such as Israel, Canada, and Australia.

Kids, don't try this at home. Because the last trained professionals who tried to (and succeded at) removing twelve million people deemed undesirable are not around to talk about it, jawohl?

The last, best option remaining option to save the United States as the country we know and love, is to swallow a population of people, who, aside from not following bureaucratic procedures, have been beneficial to our culture and economy, and haven't really done anything else wrong.

The Senate compromise is not amnesty. It is nothing less than the survival of this nation. These are people with a strong work ethic, deep love of family, and profound Christian faith. We need to be able to identify and embrace people who share our values.

No one is in favor of letting felons run amok on our streets. If someone commits a violent crime, let's get rid of that individual quickly. But if the only crime has been the escape from the desperate conditions that exist in so many of the countries to our south, as your Wandering Gentile's Daddy used to say, that ain't a killin' offense.

As for the impotent, arrogant, anal-retentive yard nazis, who find their very existence threatened by people who have entered without a pedigree, considering the source is the best option. These yard nazis are the same people who pushed a neighborhood covenant in the Atlanta area, and fined a man US$3,500 for the infraction of FLYING THE AMERICAN FLAG!

The tone of these collectivist authoritarians has spread to city councils and county commissions throughout the country, most notably in Farmer's Branch, Texas; Oceanside, California; Cherokee County, Georgia; and Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The most amusing thing is that their rage has been directed on a local level, to a federal issue, in places that are remarkably devoid of anyone but affluent, self-absorbed, English-speaking people of predominantly European descent.

The Senate compromise will have several desirable effects upon the illegal immigration issue in the United States. When employers in Mexico are forced to compete economically for a finite labor resource, the democratization of affluence throughout Mexico will be the result. At the point where the drawbacks of emigrating outweigh the benefits, people will stay home. The streets of Missoula are not crowded with people who snuck in from Alberta, Canada.

Labor safety and health standards will also improve in both countries due to the expectation of our more stringent and effective regulations, and their applicability by people functioning within a normalized environment. Abuses that have been tacitly accepted cannot survive when both parties have a voice.

Finally, the ICE resources that have been dedicated to behaving punitively toward people jumping the border in lieu of a functional immigration process can be turned towards capturing and punishing smugglers and other malicious individuals.

The people who have patiently sought entry to the United States through the current immigration system deserve a nod for their forebearance with a confusing, complicated, and infuriatingly indifferent bureaucracy. They merit nothing less than an expedited processing of their documents and a concession of fees beyond what would be expected of someone who entered extralegally.

Privatization of the vetting process could best achieve the necessary legwork, leaving CIS agents for the approval interview process.

Someone wise, quoted frequently by Dave Ramsey and Dr. Phil McGraw, once said that repeating an ineffective behavior and expecting a different result is insanity. The immigration laws that we have on the books have not worked. The time to scrap the malfunctioning system is now. The immigration laws we have now created this situation. These laws are a total loss, and any attempt to use them would be hazardous to the health of this nation.

And watching the Yard Nazis of America melt down would be priceless.