After spending several days reading the Gang of Eight's immigration bill, I share a number of observations:
Observation 1: The current immigration system is 120 pages long. Reform should not take 844 pages. Amnesty for illegal aliens takes up 91 pages. The other 753 pages of mischief should be of greatest concern to the public.
Observation 2: The grand strategy for the Gang of 8 is to tie the 753 pages of lobbyist goodies to the illegal alien amnesty. The hope is that the American media, in its zeal to see such an amnesty get enacted, will ignore the rest of the bill. Witness the Los Angeles Times praising the bill the day after it was released, when their editors could not possibly have had read it.
Observation 3: The Tea Party must be demoralized. Helping Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to defeat Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) was an empty victory. It took very little time in Washington for Rubio to go native and join the John McCain/Marie Antoinette wing of the Republican Party. What can the Tea Party do now?
Observation 4: The paradox of immigration reform is that it requires the same folks that screwed the immigration system up to fix it. One can imagine eight bright operations analysts working together to come up with a rational immigration system. Fixing immigration is beyond the capabilities of eight senators.
Observation 5: While the American public was kept out of the Gang of Eight process, lobbyists had full access to the bill writing.
The true measure of a rational immigration system is that one would not need a lawyer to make a visa application. The Gang of Eight bill leaves us with an irrational immigration system that will be a boon for lawyers.
Observation 7: The most glaring omission of in the Gang of Eight bill is the lack of a "this time we're serious" clause. If one-time amnesty is necessary to fix the immigration system, there obviously needs to be a provision to ensure that this is the last amnesty. Any serious bill would have a provision that blocks future illegal aliens from any form of legal status. Lacking that, the Gang of Eight bill sets the stage for Amnesty 2020.
Final Observation: The Gang of Eight bill leaves America with the same immigration system we already have; only more convoluted.