dc0de wrote:
Instead of a "compromise" bill, why can't your new DHS be responsible for getting the illegal immigrants out of the country? Are you saying that it's "Too Hard" for the United States of America to defend it's borders against any enemies?

The way I see it, you have three options:
1. Better protection against terrorism.
2. Get rid of all the illegal immigrants.
3. Avoid a national ID.

These things are basically mutually exclusive. Option 1 is what they've selected, so lets file it aside for a minute and consider the other options.

Lets say you pick option 2. You are going to throw all 12 million illegal immigrants out of the country by force. Well, you're going to have to find them. You can start by investigating everyone who pays taxes without a social security number. You can scrutinize hiring practices in businesses more carefully. In sum, you need a lot more information then you have about the people who live here, and that is ultimately why 2 and 3 are incompatible.

Once you've found them, you'll have to prove it. As I've mentioned in another thread, this is rather difficult, especially if you can't get international cooperation, because you have to prove, in a court, that someone wasn't born in the country. The fact that you have no record of their birth is not sufficient to do that. You have to prove they were born somewhere else. Mexico is highly unlikely to cooperate with such an effort and give you access to their databases, and few other countries would either. You are talking about rooting 12 million people out of their homes, by force, and dumping most of them on Mexico, with no place to go. Mexico isn't going to help you do that. If you are even moderately successful you'll create the greatest humanitarian crisis this continent has ever scene. A lot of people will die, by resisting arrest, because of rioting, because of competition for resources when they get to the other side... And you won't get everyone. Millions will slip through your fingers. There will be militant groups that respond by attacking you. So you won't get control of the immigration situation and you'll create a new group that wants to kill you. This is why 2 and 1 are incompatible.

If, on the other hand, you allow them to stay, and if they show up at the central reporting station they get an ID card that allows them to deal with government services more easily, you'll document almost all of them. You'll know who they are. Some of them won't show up, perhaps because they're afraid you'll reverse your policy once you've documented everyone, but once you've got most of them on the rolls, Mexico might be willing to help you. You can start doing enforcement without creating a humanitarian crisis and with the evidence you'll need to get people tagged and filled. Ultimately, you'll end up with a better understanding of who is in your country. In theory, this will make it harder for undocumented people to live here, which will help you prevent terrorism, to the degree that identifying people helps you prevent terrorism. This is option 1, which is the option they've selected.

Option three is a different story altogether. The reason one might support option three is that one doesn't want the government running around counting and tracking people. If you aren't running around tracking people, you aren't going to root out illegal immigrants, which is why this option is incompatible with options 1 and 2. This is the anti-authoritarian option. With it, comes some law breaking.

Those in this camp generally beleive that a federal government database that includes everyone's identification is a greater risk to individual liberty than illegal imigration or the anti-terrorism benefit associated with the tracking. There is some reason to this conclusion. A friend of mine was thrown in prison recently, for example, because the middle name on his social security card was different than his drivers license, for entirely innocent reasons, and they cross referenced those databases. The U.S. and other countries have recently started refusing international travel to people convicted of minor crimes such as drug possession decades ago.

I don't really see a way to have your cake and eat it too here...

RE: Senate leaders battle for immigration pact | Reuters