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Thursday, March 18, 2010

Meet the New Plan, Same as the Old Plan [Mark Krikorian]

I’m traveling and don’t have much time, but I noticed that Senators Schumer and Graham have a piece in the Post laying out their “draft framework” for an immigration bill. Hey, I thought to myself, maybe they’ve resolved some of the disputes among the various pro-amnesty factions that had been delaying the presentation of a bill. Eagerly anticipating some new development or formulation I made the time to read the op-ed all the way through.

Nothing.

No specifics whatsoever. I thought I was reading an op-ed from 2001 (or 2002 or 2003 or 2004 or . . .). It’s just the same grand bargain of amnesty and increased immigration in exchange for promises of future enforcement (their version includes a biometric national ID card), without any details about how legalization would work or how many indentured servants would be provided to cheap-labor employers each year. It’s not clear why the Post even agreed to publish the piece, other than it seemed salient in anticipation of Sunday’s illegal-alien-palooza on the Mall. Until labor agrees to support an indentured labor program for “temporary” workers, business isn’t going to back any bill and nothing’s going to move. Wake me when something happens.