Thomas Sowell has a column in today's Orange County Register concerning the recently introduced immigration bill -- the Kennedy-McCain bill or the Kennedy-Kyle bill or whatever. Much of Sowell's column is about amnesty -- whether what the bill does grants amnesty to the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants already in this country. He says the bill is dishonest because it doesn't call what it does "amnesty." He says the 1986 bill that granted amnesty to 3 million illegals was honest because it used the "amnesty" label but the 2007 bill is dishonest because it doesn't.
But what difference does it make what it's called? Politicians, pundits and the press make a big deal about what things are called. There was a big flap about whether the war in Iraq was or was not a civil war. What difference does it make? Why waste time arguing about a label? What really matters is what the bill does.
Sowell argues that illegal immigrants are law-breakers and that allowing them a path to citizenship is amnesty and therefore unacceptable. He's right, of course, about them being law-breakers. The question is: What penalty is appropriate for this law-breaking? The death penalty? Life imprisonment? A prison term? Probation? Deportation?
The bill's penalty is deferred citizenship and a fee. It's fair to argue that the penalty is not severe enough or that it is too severe. It's fair to argue that deportation is the only appropriate penalty, or that it's not. But to argue about what to call it is silly.
Sowell argues that illegal immigrants who commit crimes should be deported after they have served their sentences, which seems reasonable. And he reports that only 2 miles of the 700-mile fence that Congress authorized last year have been built. If true then that ought to be corrected. Sowell argues that border security is not being enforced. If true, that ought to be corrected.
Amnesty or not? That ought to be forgotten.
