The Senate Hearings

This is how it starts. There is a webcast of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, held yesterday in Washington. It was put together by Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and was quite a show.

Webcast here. Over three hours long!
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3793

Seven of the eight testimonies were pro-amnesty and selected to present illegals as indispensible to our society and victims of current law.

Kris Kobach was the only one who actually used the word "amnesty" and was ridiculed for it by Schumer.

Kobach's testimony focused on the irrational idea that the people at Citizenship (USCIS) could even handle the workload of processing amnesty requests. The 2007 bill (that fortunately failed) required that all 12 millions be processed within a year and each individual approved within 24 hours.

Kobach did some simple math to show that it would take a department of 10,000+ NEW federal workers to process them, and that 24 hours was not an adequate time frame for a background check.

In the Q & A, Schumer asked Doris Meisnner, Clinton's Immigration chief, about the background checks. Here's what she said: “The worst thing that could be done this time around, based on what we learned during IRCA is a program that is retrospective, in other words a program that asks to look at documents from the past for people to prove that they’ve been in the country. That would be a deal-breaker. This should be a program that is prospective, getting people to register and come forward, a requirement to come forward, and then prospectively earn the adjustment to permanent residence and to citizenship. That’s an entirely different scheme to try and implement, but it matters very much how the legislation is written.”

Excuse me, but that is a clear misunderstanding of the need here. We aren't back in 1986! We need background checks. We very much DO NEED TO KNOW WHERE THESE PEOPLE CAME FROM.

So that's the gist of the nonsense being fed to Congress. These will be the testimonies every congressman will be reading and quoting this year. This is the background from which they will judge.

(This is the reason congressional hearings are such a farce and contrary to the legislative process that was intended by the Constitution.)

Now, had this been a REAL investigation, 2/3 of the testimonies would have been from people with a strong desire for enforcement first. That would reflect the tone of the people.

Instead, we'll have to create our own tone with calls, letters, faxes, and e-mails to congress and the White House.

As it stands, they live in a fantasy of their own creation and listen only to those they agree with.