After the utter collapse in the Senate last week of a comprehensive
immigration bill, Washington insiders are blaming everyone and everything.
Supposedly, talk-radio hysteria killed the bill. Or was it the purported
racism of yokels? Or did most of us fail to appreciate the hidden benefits
of open borders so clear only to those in Washington?
In reality, the 1,000-page bill failed because millions of Americans opposed
it, believing, among other things, that it provided virtual amnesty to
illegal aliens. Through the "Z visa," the bill offered illegal aliens legal
worker status - along with a ticket to eventual citizenship - after only a
precursory background check.
More importantly, people were skeptical, to say the least, of hundreds of
pages of more regulations when the last "comprehensive" immigration
legislation, in 1986, either made things worse or was largely unenforced.
That's why various polls reveal that most Americans were against the new
bill, with, according to a June Rasmussen poll, less than 25 percent in
favor of the Senate version.
What causes this grassroots furor, and where will it lead?
The public thinks anti-terrorism efforts are futile when hundreds of miles
on our southern border are, for mysterious reasons, left wide open.
Then there is the American sense of fair play: Thousands of would-be legal
immigrants wait in line from all over the world to come to this country. So
why the special considerations that seem designed to address the concerns of
just one group - especially when Mexico already supplies the largest number
by far of our legal immigrants?
Americans were brought up on lectures about the sanctity of the law. We were
supposed to revere the Social Security system. Yet when the government
discusses millions of phony Social Security numbers used by illegal aliens,
it is usually in the cynical sense of whether that con enriches or bankrupts
the system - not whether such rampant fraud is legally and morally wrong.
Most citizens fret if they leave the house without their driver's license.
They get nervous when their car registration or proof of insurance is lost -
and so grow irate that millions of others on the road don't or can't share
their concern.
Another public irritant was that the present state-sponsored bilingual
documents and ballots along with government interpreters were all never
legislated. According to a Susquehanna Polling & Research poll, in February
2007, nearly 70 percent of Americans supported an ordinance in a town in
Pennsylvania that included making English the sole official language.
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