February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Correction. This week and next week a cluster of committees in the House of Representatives are gripping the border control issue and using it to belt away at reform.
The correction isn’t born of a rocket scientific mind, just check out the loaded labels being attached to the hearings, brought to us by the House Homeland Security, Education and Workforce, Judiciary and International Relations panels. Example: “Does the Reid-Kennedy bill make it more difficult for law enforcement to expedite the removal of illegal aliens from the United States?”
Another hearing is entitled: “What is the role of English in American education and society, and does the Reid-Kennedy bill undermine, rather that encourage, this role?”
Yet another bears the weighty headline: “Will the Reid-Kennedy bill’s amnesty provisions overwhelm the already overburdened U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services? Will 10-20 million new applicants for citizenship make it easier for criminals and terrorists to evade background checks?”
In terms of language and subtlety, or lack thereof, this is the sort of self-affirming nonsense that you might expect the likes of North Korean legislators to come up with for a meeting of the how much we love our dear great leader committee.
Control of the nation’s borders is a fundamental issue, one worthy of the most serious discourse. These House committees would be taken more seriously if they actually waded into such discourse.
Alas, it is quite something else; all dis and no clear course at all.
And what’s this “Reid-Kennedy Bill?” There is no such thing. It would appear to be a clumsy and childish dig at the Senate’s bipartisan reform measure, a bill that, if anything, should bear the name of Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
As stated previously on this page, the issues of security and reform, now effectively separated by the worst kind of election year politicking, should be treated as separate issues.
That would mean both border control and immigration reform as opposed to the current farcical logjam.