Amnesty
There has not been one immigration proposal that amounts to amnesty.
If you call any of these plans amnesty, you are wrong.
Amnesty is forgiveness and forgetness of an offense. All the proposals call for penalties for illegal immigrants. Therefore, the plans are not amnesty. This is not complicated.
We don't say jaywalkers get amnesty just because we let them go free after paying their fine. We punished them, and it goes on their record, and it is not amnesty. Same too with all of these immigration proposals.
You may disagree that the punishment is severe enough, but that doesn't mean it is amnesty: as long as there is a penalty, then it is not amnesty. You may also disagree that there should be a path to citizenship, but that concept is orthogonal to whether or not there is amnesty.
If we sent you to jail for 10 years for being here illegally, and then upon being released and paying your debt, allowed you to apply for a Green Card like anyone else, and eventually to become a naturalized citizen, would that be "amnesty"? Of course not, because you paid the price for your crime, and it was a severe one, and upon paying that price, you were allowed to do things anyone else was doing. The concepts of amnesty and a path to citizenship are, again, orthogonal.
Update: Also, I was told today that the McCain-Kennedy "amnesty" plan (which is not an amnesty plan) does not limit the number of "guest workers." That's not true. It limits it to 400,000 annually for H-5A visas, and to who has been already here and working for the H-5B visas. So the limit is ( (illegals here and working) + 400,000 ).
If you call any of these plans amnesty, you are wrong.
Amnesty is forgiveness and forgetness of an offense. All the proposals call for penalties for illegal immigrants. Therefore, the plans are not amnesty. This is not complicated.
We don't say jaywalkers get amnesty just because we let them go free after paying their fine. We punished them, and it goes on their record, and it is not amnesty. Same too with all of these immigration proposals.
You may disagree that the punishment is severe enough, but that doesn't mean it is amnesty: as long as there is a penalty, then it is not amnesty. You may also disagree that there should be a path to citizenship, but that concept is orthogonal to whether or not there is amnesty.
If we sent you to jail for 10 years for being here illegally, and then upon being released and paying your debt, allowed you to apply for a Green Card like anyone else, and eventually to become a naturalized citizen, would that be "amnesty"? Of course not, because you paid the price for your crime, and it was a severe one, and upon paying that price, you were allowed to do things anyone else was doing. The concepts of amnesty and a path to citizenship are, again, orthogonal.
Update: Also, I was told today that the McCain-Kennedy "amnesty" plan (which is not an amnesty plan) does not limit the number of "guest workers." That's not true. It limits it to 400,000 annually for H-5A visas, and to who has been already here and working for the H-5B visas. So the limit is ( (illegals here and working) + 400,000 ).
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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