A Beautifully Explained Sentiment

"Immigration reform is not about semantics" says Dan Stein on the Hill's Congress blog.

I think that this says it all.

One of the most annoying things I find from the cheap labor lobby within the GOP is the claim that "We don't support amnesty, because we want them to go to the back of the line and pay a fine," etc.

This ignores several things; for one thing, allowing illegal aliens to stay in this country legally is amnesty; the pathway to citizenship is over and above amnesty - the idea that it is only amnesty if they get citizenship - or only amnesty if they get immediate citizenship, is ridiculous. Going to the back of the line is not about leaving the country; they are not in the back of the line for legal status. It is about going to the back of the line for getting citizenship, which is not the most important thing for most of the illegal alines. Moreover, there is this implication that what restrictionists object to is simply the lack of a penalty. As long as we get a pound of flesh, it's not amnesty. The Boston Herald in a recent editorial (which I cannot find at the moment) claimed that "amnesty" means "an overlooking" and that if illegal aliens were subject to a fine, that certainly would not be an amnesty.

But that misses the point; we don't want them punished, per se, we want them deported. It is not about getting our pound of flesh, it is about protecting our borders.

This particular point is not what he brings up, but it is of a piece with his blog post. Read the post.

That is all.