Michelle Malkin: Amnesty gang throws law-abiders under the bus

Michelle Malkin has posted her thoughts today on the bipartisan immigration reform. I’ve posted a small portion of her column below but I strongly encourage you to read the entire column to understand more fully her problem with amnesty and her solution to it:

MICHELLEMALKIN.COM – President Obama and the bipartisan Gang of Eight in Washington who want to create a “pathway to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens have sent a message loud and clear to those who follow the rules: You’re chumps!

Have you patiently waited for months and years for the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to slog through your application? You’re chumps!

Have you paid thousands of dollars in travel, legal and medical fees to abide by the thicket of entry, employment, health and processing regulations? You’re chumps!

Have you studied for your naturalization test, taken the oath of allegiance to heart, embraced our time-tested principle of the rule of law, and demonstrated that you will be a financially independent, productive citizen? You’re chumps!

Unrepentant amnesty peddlers on both sides of the aisle admit their plan is all about votes and power. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain continues his craven, futile chase for the Hispanic bloc. Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez is openly salivating at the prospect of millions of new illegal aliens — future Democratic Party dependents of the Nanny State — who could be eligible for Obamacare and a plethora of other government benefits despite clear prohibitions against them.

These cynical pols insist that the rest of law-abiding Americans and law-abiding permanent residents must support Washington’s push to “do something” because “11 million people are living in the shadows.”

To which I say: So? There are 23 million Americans out of work. Why aren’t they Washington’s top priority anymore? Didn’t both parties once pledge that j-o-b-s for unemployed and underemployed Americans was Job No. 1? Why is the very first major legislative push of 2013 another mass amnesty/voter drive/entitlement expansion?

Hopelessly naive (or stubbornly self-deluded) freshman GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida insists that any new recipients of the Gang of Eight’s Grand Pander scheme will have to “go to the back of the line and wait behind everybody who applied before them, the right way.” Rubio emphasizes to conservative talk show hosts that there will be background checks and rigorous vetting.

But as I’ve reported for the past two decades, the background check process has been corrupted under both Democratic and Republican administrations. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration turned immigration policy into a massive Democratic voter recruitment machine through the Citizenship USA program. Naturalization officers simply abandoned background checks wholesale. In 2003, an INS center in Laguna Niguel solved the massive backlog problem by putting tens of thousands of applications through a shredder. And in 2006, I exposed how some high-immigrant regions rewarded adjudication officers with bonuses for rubber-stamping as many applications as possible without regard to security.

You want “comprehensive immigration reform”? Start with reliable adjudications, fully cleared backlogs, consistent interior enforcement, working background checks for the existing caseload, and efficient and effective deportation policies that punish law-breakers and do right by law-abiders.

And please don’t pretend that piling millions of new illegal aliens onto an already overwhelmed system is going to fix a darned thing. Chumps.

READ THE FULL COLUMN


Comment Policy: Please read our comment policy before making a comment. In short, please be respectful of others and do not engage in personal attacks. Otherwise we will revoke your comment privileges.