The immigration quandry

It's very American to have this inherent tension between being mostly a nation of immigrants who believe in the opportunities this country affords its citizenry and the desire to close the floodgate to competing newer often undocumented immigrants. Honestly, it's an issue that will never go away. And from this morass of conflicting values, Congress is trying to compromise on some sort of policy going forward. It's one of those pieces of legislation that no one really wants to deal with and absolutely no one is going to be happy with. That seems to be the definition of good legislation these days.

Has there been a huge wave of undocumented workers entering the country? I think the data would show, no more than before. They are still coming and coming for the same reasons. They don't want to blow up buildings and destroy the American way of life, they want to earn a buck for their families. So what are the reasons this legislation is happening now?

1. Big business needs it because they are having problems retaining qualified high skilled workers.
2. Political posturing. The presidential horse race has started early this time. And pretty much everything Congress does until November 08 will be done to paint someone into a corner on an issue. McCain's name is on this so he really needed this one. Some get to rant about the amnesty issue. Some get to rant about tighter border security. Some get to rant about low wages for American workers.
3. Political distraction. Junior has no domestic policy and his foreign policy scares everyone. At least this will keep DC from talking about all the scandals for about 5 minutes.

And here's the dirty little secret that no one on any side of the issue has really figured out yet. None of this is going to make a difference. There are at least 12 million undocumented aliens here. So obviously, they're getting here and they're earning money. Essentially none of our immigration laws have been enforced against them. So what happens after this law is passed? Nothing. We'll still have a whole bunch of undocumented people earning a living here. There is no enforcement mechanism and there is no real incentive for anyone but the richest of the bunch to pay $5000 to begin earning their way to citizenship. Except at the new walls they want to put up all the same problems will remain.