All the News That's Fit to be Tied

I have an axe to grind, but unlike the New York Times, I freely admit it.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Real Immigration Reform

This a repost of a column on Immigration from Feb of 2012. The issue is the same and so is the fix.

The Republicans need a more sophisticated way to handle the immigration issue. It seems like the even the dumbest news anchor, pundit or questioner can trip them up into some ridiculous argument or statement that can be used to grind them up into little pieces and render them unelectable. The New Narrative would like to contribute to this effort. It would begin by pointing out that there isn't an immigration strategy than can work unless the current system is reformed. It takes more than 10 years to complete the citizenship process and the backlog is so long that if the current illegal population returned home they would not be processed for at least a decade; probably one of the main reasons many won't return home and prefer to live in the shadows. So we should begin by reforming the Immigration and Naturalization Service into a tight, streamlined organization that can reduce the processing time and clear up the current backlog. Secondly we should control all of the entry points so illegal aliens cannot enter the country without documentation. And third: We should reform the visa and political asylum process so that it can keep track of those here on visas and not be used for trivial immigration cases. Republicans must not let themselves be drawn into arguments about specific nationalities, but focus instead on the INS as a service that is failing the nation. The racial and ethnic hustlers are constantly looking for ways to use the immigration debate to defeat any remedy except open borders. The Republicans must handle the argument better if they want to win.