Apparently the politicians in Washington think that we are all complete idiots or that we are just not paying attention. (Actually, they might be right, to some extent, on the latter). The Bush-Kennedy-Kyl Immigration Bill is an outright sham.

The proponents of the bill would have us believe that we need new laws in order to deal with the illegal immigration problem. This is clearly not true. Obviously we already have laws governing immigration or the immigrants we’re trying to deal with wouldn’t be ‘illegal.’ If the government had been enforcing existing laws there wouldn’t be an immigration problem today. The government hasn’t enforced existing laws, so why should we believe they will enforce new laws?

The proponents claim that it is impossible to round up and deport all the illegal immigrants. They seem to want us to believe that if they can’t deport them all there is no need to try to deport any of them. What if they felt the same way about capturing and punishing murderers?

They want us to believe that while it is impossible to round up and deport all the illegals it is possible to round up and guide all of them through a process that will give them citizenship, even though this process requires that they all go back to their home country for a period of time. So sending them home is both impossible and possible?

They claim that the illegals will voluntarily come forward to enter the citizenship process. But why would they? The process requires that they pay a fine, learn English, start paying taxes, and go back to their home country for a period of time. If they don’t come forward they can stay here indefinitely without having to do any of these things because … it’s impossible to round up and deport them.

They claim that the bill does not grant amnesty to the illegals because it has conditions and imposes a penalty. The only valid argument that the bill doesn’t reward the illegals for ignoring our immigration laws is that the bill’s citizenship process will be unattractive to the illegals and, therefore, ineffective — as I argued in the previous paragraph. In other words, it’s not amnesty only if it doesn’t work. If it is attractive to a large number of the illegals it obviously is amnesty.

The bill is a sham and it at least intends to grant amnesty to the immigration law breakers. That’s why it’s being called the Shamnesty Bill and that’s why it should not be passed.