Did anyone else hear the discussion on BBC about how odd it is that Americans call people "aliens"?
Clearly, the immigrant bill, produced and passed by foaming-at-the-mouth House Republicans, reflects the wild-eyed view that we are a country overtaken by an all out "alien invasion," while the more recent Republican effort in the Senate Judiciary Committee would quietly incorporate the people who are illegal immigrants "into American society as citizens."
"[T]he Senate Judiciary Committee this week restored balance to the debate over immigration. . . Its bill, which now goes to the full Senate, has all the elements of a solution that has eluded Congress and divided the nation: tougher border protections, a guest-worker program for new immigrants, sanctions against companies that don't comply and an opportunity -- not a guarantee -- for immigrants already here illegally to seek permanent residency. Close to what Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., have proposed, the bill is not the inverse of the provocative and punitive legislation passed by House Republicans last year: It is a reasoned alternative to it.
Whether reason prevails during the next two weeks of debate in the Senate is another matter. The bill is a long way from becoming law."
Among the multitude of hysteria-driven unreasonable Republican 'solutions' to the "alien invasion" problem is the plan to simply deport eleven million people.
George Will shot that looney idea down earlier this week and, once again, proved that reason and rabid conservativism simply cannot occupy the same space.
And if there is a difference between irrational rabid conservativism and Republicanism, where the hell have all the reasonable Republicans been for the last five years?
George Will:
"It would take more than 200,000 buses, extending in a line 1700 miles from San Diego to Alaska to deport 11 million people, which happens to be the population of Ohio. It's not going to happen. 70% of the illegal immigrants here have been here at least five years. They have roots in the community. Many of them have children born in America who are therefore American citizens. Not ripe for deportation, it seems to me."
Bush Immigration Immigrant Rights
