Amnesty, what’s in a name?

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I have been following the blogging at “The Corner” of National Review Online quite closely since the debate last night.
On of the bloggers there asked a question of another (Andy McCarthy) and it had to do with the characterization of Rudy’s plan as amnesty. Here’s an excerpt from his response which I think we’d all be smart to read. McCarthy prefaces his comments by saying he agrees with Thompson’s view.

…on immigration, I am personally on record (see, e.g., here and here) as favoring enforcement by attrition (the approach Fred Thompson articulated last night) — I haven’t changed my mind. I would consider legalizing the status of some illegal aliens, but only after the government established a record of seriousness on enforcement and current population was significantly reduced from the current 12 to 20 million.

Now on to the meat of his dissertation on Amnesty:

I’ve never thought the term amnesty was very useful in this debate. Commonly understood, amnesty is like a pardon — it’s complete forgiveness. What Mayor Giuliani and Sen. McCain are talking about is not complete forgiveness; there are penalties involved. But we shouldn’t get hung up on the semantics. The real issues are whether (a) we are creating adequate incentives for illegals to leave and would-be illegals not to come, and (b) whether we are being fair to would-be immigrants who play by the rules. An is-not/is-too sandbox scrape over the definition of amnesty misses those points and isn’t helpful.
All that said, while Rudy invoked his prosecutorial experience last night, it’s important to bear in mind that being an alien without lawful status in this country is against the law but it is not a crime. While many people argue that it should be a felony, or at least a misdemeanor, it is not under current law. It is a felony to be illegally in the country if one has previously been deported. But otherwise, illegal alienage is generally an administrative offense — the alien can be detained and deported but not convicted for being an illegal alien.

Certainly the border is a national security issue and needs to be addressed ASAP, but the idea that illegal aliens are criminals simply for being here seems like a cheap tactic that smacks of demagoguery. We can certainly have a debate about the economic impact of illegal aliens because of their incremental cost on our health, education and welfare systems but in order to have that debate honestly you have to also measure the economic impact of the productivity of those same aliens. In short, it’s a complicated issue as Rudy rightly pointed out. And complicated issues don’t lend themselves to soundbyte responses.

16 thoughts on “Amnesty, what’s in a name?”

  3. “I have been following the blogging … quite closely since the debate last night.”
    Jesus, please bring back a good Dolphin’s team next year, for Henry’s sake.
    Fred Thompson has a good short definition of Amnesty. He says Amnesty is when you get something for nothing.

  4. Henry, you’re starting to go squishy on this issue. Rudy & McCain’s plans amount to amnesty, plain and simple. You can just as easily equate the “penalties” that they hem and haw about- fines, learning English, etc. to the costs that all legal immigrants have to incur when they go through the process legally in consulates around the world. They should not be granted citizenship, period- and enforcement through attrition is the policy we should be adopting.

  5. I’m not squishy. My thoughts on the issue have been well documented.
    http://cubanamericanpundits.blogspot.com/2006/11/tancredo-shove-it-up-your-ass.html
    http://cubanamericanpundits.blogspot.com/2006/07/reagan-on-immigration.html
    http://cubanamericanpundits.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-wall-street-journal-favors-open_10.html
    http://cubanamericanpundits.blogspot.com/2006/07/conservative-statement-for-immigration.html
    Yes I stand with McCain and Rudy on immigration, and the president by the way.
    I think there’s at least a dozen issues that are more important (including the porous nature of the borders themselves) than whether or not some guy from Mexico or Guatemala gets a path to citizenship. Starting with taxes and the fact that the other party wants to take the entire healthcare industry and make it into a government monopoly.
    I think the policies advocated by Tancredo and others are nothing more than vicious and bigoted attempts to scapegoat the immigrants for everything reminiscent of 1930s Germany.
    I know a lot our our readers don’t agree with me but I honestly don’t care. I always say what I believe.

  7. And you are 1000% percent entitled to you opinion, but you opinion amounts to Amnesty, and John McCain is amnesty’s strongest proponent.
    There is an enormous distinction that you convienently ignore between legal immigration, which I support fully, and illegal immigration. Why supporters of amnesty do not have the intellectual honesty to say that persons like myself can simultaneously oppose granting citizenship to illegals, yet be supportive of legal immigration, is beyond me. Ive had relatives wait for over a decade to become Americans through consulates in South America, they came here legally. And I can tell you, Henry, that they followed the law and desired nothing more than to become U.S. Citizens, and yet now they witness millions of others come here illegally who have absolutely no regard for the law- and most of those who break the law aren’t really all that concerned with silly notions of “citizenship”. And it simultaneously dismays them and disgusts them to see the law so flouted, and their struggles to come here trivialized.
    As I said, Henry, it’s fine you believe what you do. But it’s regrettable that you
    1. mischaracterize your own position- it is Amnesty, any way you cut it. Just come out and say, “I support amnesty”, and I will respect you more. And
    2. You characterize and slander anyone who supports legal immigration and opposes illegal immigration as bigots. That again is dishonest diatribe.
    If you are really interested in a REAL debate about the issue, stand or fall on the merits of your position, and don’t impugn everyone else’s character in the process.

  8. I will continue like a broken record: first secure the borders and start enforcing the laws – meaning crack down on businesses hiring illegals. Once we have control of the situation then we can figure out what the next steps are.
    However, and I might get hit for what I’m about to say, I’d impose certain penalties on those that are “amnestized”, such as they could never become citizens, only legal residents. They couldn’t “request” any family members from back home.
    Second class residency you say? 100%. I’m pretty sure most of them will take it when deportation is the other option.
    Of course, this will only apply to those who have never committed any illegal activity other than illegal entry. Meaning, if they ever possessed or used or committed identity fraud, all they get is a renewable work permit – but they would never be entitled for residency and would have limited government benefits.

  9. “I will continue like a broken record: first secure the borders and start enforcing the laws – meaning crack down on businesses hiring illegals…”
    amen
    we have all manner of riff-raff (and good people as well) coming through the TX – AZ border with their prayer rugs and Q’rans strewn out along with other leftover trash, on both public AND PRIVATE lands; we don’t know their intent but we can only guess based upon prior track record, can’t we?
    yes, I want LOWER taxes so that I can keep my hard-earned dough, but also give less freebies and entitlements to many of these people filtering through; lower taxes usually mean more revenue for government and more revenue = more border agents patroling the non-fence that stretches thousands of miles; nothing like living in the Southwest to face this problem daily while the rest of the country is out to lunch on the issue

  10. I kind of agree with Rudy on this one. I have friends who are here illegally and other than their presence in this country illegally, and the fact that they are commiting identity theft by using fake SSNs, they are model residents. Note that I said residents, not citizens. My solution would be to seal the border, punish buissiness that hire illegals, cut federal funding to government entities that support illegals (hospitals, schools, etc) then, offer a worker card to those illegals that choose to stay here and work, and have no felonies. The worker card would mean that they can not become citizens and their children would not get citizenship even if born here (children of guest workers do not gain US citizenship either), but would allow them to complay with all other rules that they now bypass (taxes, licenses, etc)
    No citizenship would mean no voting. That is why the democrats would never allow this plan. They are desperate to add new democrats to their voting roles, even if they have to import them.

  11. Lucha,
    The reason I’m not making a distinction between illegal immigration and legal immigration is because WE DON’T have a problem with legal immigration. I never said you are against immigration. But there’s a reality and that reality is that we’ve had an illegal immigration problem for more than 40 years. And the reason we have that problem is because the number of visas that we give annually for legal immigration as a country are woefully inadequate to sustain the number of workers that we need to have to keep the economy rolling in this country. If there were no jobs for these people they would not be wanting to come here.
    Secondly I’ll say it. I’m for a path to citizenship and/or permanent residency for people who entered the country illegally that haven’t committed felonies. If you want to call it amnesty fine. Have at it. I don’t care. Then I’m for amnesty. Why should I be ashamed of it. I’m not. Maybe it’s the fact that I have into contact with literally hundreds if not thousands of these people and for the most part they want the same thing. To live in freedom, have a job, maybe a business and take care of their families.
    The fact is that this immigration issue is going to unnecessarily sink the GOP. Romney is on TV right now defending the “millions of people waiting in line around the world to come” as if they were going to vote for him. Really who is he appealing to? The Tom Tancredo’s of the world who think Miami is a third world country. And you know as well as I do that 85%-95% of the immigrants that live in Miami are 100% legal.

  12. Henry-
    Im glad you admitted you are for amnesty, I respect you for it. Immigration has to done lawfully, irregardless of the number of jobs that we have to be filled. I don’t find your reasoning about Romney appealing for the Tancredo vote very convincing. There are already 79 different visas offered by U.S. immigration, including 20 guest-worker programs. To say we are not bringing in enough workers- and giving them more than sufficient legal means to do so is simply factually inaccurate.
    If you have access to so many illegals, perhaps you should encourage them to come to America legally, since they had so many ways that they could have come here legally, but simply opted to ignore our laws as their first act upon entering our country?

  13. It’s astounding to me how we have redefined our terms so that an illegal immigrant who steals someone else’s identity and works here without any worries from the IRS and gets to send their children to school on my dime and receive health care (at least for the munchkins) without having to give any incriminating INS information to the healthcare worker, is somehow a model non-citizen …. just because they don’t have a police record somewhere.
    By that standard, some of us would be sprouting wings and halos …. but I digress: my hunch is that once all illegals become legal and start paying TAXES and report income, and dish out REGULAR college tuition, and foot their own hospital/food bills, and there’s no more WIC/welfare et al., they may decide that, after all, the grass in the old country was indeed greener than here, and leave.
    Excuse my weariness of watching the welfare state working for those that don’t contribute — whether legal or not.

  14. I don’t find your reasoning about Romney appealing for the Tancredo vote very convincing.
    Oh really. Who did Tancredo endorse when he dropped out of the race? I’ll give you a hint, his name rhymes with Ritt Momney.
    so that an illegal immigrant who steals someone else’s identity and works here without any worries from the IRS and gets to send their children to school on my dime and receive health care (at least for the munchkins) without having to give any incriminating INS information to the healthcare worker, is somehow a model non-citizen …. just because they don’t have a police record somewhere.
    So now all illegal aliens are guilty of identity theft. In actuality a lot of these illegals have falsified S.S. numbers which allow them to work in the above ground economy, paying taxes especially S.S. taxes that they can never tap into when it would be their turn.
    And maybe they wouldn’t have to sneak around if we made them legal. It’s the policies of Tancredo that drive these people underground.
    Again I can only say that this is LOSING ISSUE for the GOP. I don’t get where all this self righteous indignation is coming from. Again I ask how many of you have lost your jobs to a Spanish-only immigrant with an 8th grade education?
    Not only that, the GOP was making huge strides with Hispanics through the 2004 election. And guess what, many legal Hispanics who are American citizens who are otherwise conservative don’t agree with the Tancredos and their policies.
    You know who else is illegal? Every single person that appears on Florida’s coasts that got here on a smuggling vessel. They broke the law! They are illegal! Yet none of you will say they should be sent back. I know, I know Cuba is not Mexico but illegal is illegal.

  15. There are already 79 different visas offered by U.S. immigration, including 20 guest-worker programs. To say we are not bringing in enough workers- and giving them more than sufficient legal means to do so is simply factually inaccurate.
    The number of TYPES of visas is not a reflection on the actual number of people that we allow to migrate to the U.S. How many visas are issued and is it in alignment with the reality of the demographic crisis that we are facing?
    We have 80 million Baby Boomers that will start retiring in 2010. Americans are not replacing themselves. If not for immigration (legal and illegal) we’d have negative population growth. And contrary to the commonly held wisdom, that’s not a good thing economically, especially given the size of the entitlements that seniors get in our country.
    Demographers are predicting that we will soon have 2 workers for every retiree. That’s a scary proposition. Hispanics, which make up the majority of immigrants (legal and illegal) are on average 12 years younger than non-Hispanics. They also tend to have larger households because they have more kids. They are for the most part Christian and maintain traditional family values. More than non-Hispanics they aspire to own their own homes and businesses. In short, they are a tailor-made audience for a conservative GOP message not the nativist populist message these candidates are tripping all over themselves to get out there.

  16. Your number 4 is my number 3. It’s what happens now. But the sheer numbers dictate that It’s like bailing water out of a boat using a colander. Yes you get rid of some but the majority of the water is still going to be aboard. Plug the hole and let water evaporate.

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