Amazing: Immigration Bill States That If Border-Security Goals Aren't Met In Five Years, They'll Convene a Bipartisan Commission to Deal With the Problem Then

All along people willing to entertain the prospect of a compromise have insisted on one, and only one, thing: No more. We'll consider a compromise provided that border security is improved. We'll consider an amnesty, so long as this is the last amnesty we ever have to entertain.

But the left will simply not agree to this, under any circumstances.

The current bill establishes goals for border security. What happens if those goals aren't met? Which, by the way, they won't be?

Well then we'll have a "bipartisan commission" to advise DHS on how to straighten it all out.

Allah asks:

If there’s one thing you can count on in Washington, it’s a bipartisan commission succeeding where all else has failed. Question one: If the Gang thinks DHS is so likely to fail at enforcement (which, in fairness, it is) that they’re already providing money for an emergency commission to help rescue it after five years, why not just establish the commission now? Or better yet, why not hold a bunch of hearings right now to pick the brains of “officials from border states and other experts” so that DHS has the expertise it needs before a bill is passed? You know why: The longer the process drags out, the more skittish key constituencies will get about the bill and the greater the risk will be that it’ll fail. (That’s why Pat Leahy and Democrats don’t want more than a single token hearing after the recess in early May.) Installing a commission after five more years of security failures sounds to me like something designed to take political heat off of DHS rather than something that’ll help significantly with border improvements. Without the commission, the public would grow restless after five years and demand explanations from Homeland Security on why they can’t tighten the border even with a bipartisan congressional mandate. The Gang’s anticipating that and, to head off the restlessness, providing a preemptive “solution.” No need to panic if DHS is dragging its feet. There’ll be a commission by 2018 to “help” them out, i.e. buy them another five years of public patience to see if they can make any headway at the border.

There is no compromise at all here -- the left gets what it wants, and agrees to entertain our concerns five years hence. Why would they be more amenable to border security in five years, when they've gotten all they wanted out of us, than they are now, when they haven't yet?

If they were going to agree to these things then, why can't they agree to them now?

Simple answer: They have no intention of agreeing to them five years from now. This is a con.

The Democrats are conning the Republicans, but that's business-as-usual and I can't even call it that objectionable. They're supposed to con Republicans into laws.

But what of the Republican office-holders conning their constituents that genuine border security is provided for in this bill? That is objectionable.

This sort of mechanism -- putting off discussion into the future while proposing some kind of "bipartisan commission" to resolve issues -- may be a useful ploy to paper over minor complaints that are holding up a deal in which all major disagreements have been resolved, but not for putting off discussion of the major disagreements themselves.

But this is an issue we require firm answers on, now. We should not leave it to five years hence to decide if we're going to enforce the border or not. (We won't, by the way.)

The left -- and the political elite generally -- are fond of saying "we have to be willing to discuss issues."

Well, let's discuss the issue of border security, then. And discuss it now, not five years from now in a toothless bipartisan commission empowered to do nothing more than advise.

posted by Ace at 12:19 PM

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