So this teensy little exception in favor of a particularly choice category of illegal aliens is quite likely to be whooped through Congress next month as an amendment to a military authorization bill, with the moist-eyed approval of all right-thinking people. And behind it, as further amendments to other pieces of virtuous legislation, will come special treatment for all sorts of other favored categories of illegal immigrants: those, say, who have children in the top third of their grade-school class, etc. (And, of course, the wives or husbands and close relatives of these chosen few -- for who would be so cruel as to sunder families?)
And when all the exceptions have been made for all the imaginable categories of particularly deserving illegal immigrants, who would argue against continuing to exclude the rest? The unfortunate who served only 18 months in the military, or whose adorable child is only in the second third of her grade-school class?
Give up, Americans. Durbin can outwait you.