Z Visa and $2,000 fines
There is this on-off switch that seemed to be turned off two years ago where one moment the issue of Immigration was not a Central national issue, and then it was. I don’t quite know how that happens. I think at the end of the day the publics’ opinion on the matter is sufficiently muddled and contradictory that it will simply remain an unresolvable matter.
Now we have an Immigration Bill that is set to pass through the Senate on its way to meet more determined opposition in the House — which is where the Trancredos of the world reside. The bill is a necessarily contradictory item, likely to be unenforced in most parts, and thus likely to be meaningless. So, we want the illegal immigrants to come out of the woodwork to register for a “Z Visa” so that they may pay a $2000 fine (isn’t any money illegal immigrants earn generally sent down to their families down south? Can you spare $2000?) and for the honor of being sent on a “path to citizenship” that doesn’t really exist.  Immigration gladly takes in engineers and the like — your migrant worker is getting short swift, and the rules have it that these new quasi-legal immigrants are going to be judged by skill set and not family situation, which means that the impetus to step forward is… what, exactly?
Really? This is what Ted Kennedy is exchanging back-slaps with George W Bush for having crafted? Whatever. Congratulation politicians!
The beat goes on, and on. I doubt anything can be accomplished until the countries of Mexico, and those to the south of Mexico, become more Democratic and less governed by a sort of feudal aristocracy. Anything beyond making those nations more permenable residencies is an almost pointless exercise. That includes the liberal and Union-related opposition to “Illegal Employees” of driving down wages through increased illegal immigrants.