Pirate's Cove

Things that make you go “hmmmmmm”. Supposedly, Darrell Issa (R-Ca), will release a plan to deal with illegal immigrants, somewhat offering a pathway to legal status, a “come out of the shadows” plan, which would provide that legal status for 6 years. Let’s skip to the nuts and bolts of the plan

(Politico) Issa’s forthcoming legislation takes elements from similar legislation he introduced in December 2003, the Alien Accountability Act. The six-year period is intended to whittle down the undocumented immigrant population into several categories, such as immigrants with family ties to U.S. citizens or immigrants who want to participate in a guest-worker program.

Bringing undocumented immigrants out “of the shadows” would also help the government identify undocumented immigrants with a criminal background, who would be deported from the United States, Issa said.

“If somebody has a nexus that would reasonably allow them to become permanent residents and American citizen, we should allow them to do that,” Issa said. He added: “Our view is that long before six years, people would be in those categories heading toward some other pathway, in a guest worker program, or of course, have left the country.”

In other words, this is not some sort of massive “comprehensive” piece of legislation, which no one would have read, and would be so complicated and byzantine that no one would be really sure what it does, while also allowing the Executive Branch to make most of the decisions and regulations. In the case of the most recent “comprehensive immigration reform” bill, that would have resulted in effectively amnesty with little to no border security. This is more of a piecemeal type bill. Which Democrats do not want. The Politico story notes that House Dems have signed on to a bill similar to the Gang of 8 bill, minus any border security provisions.