Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
CFIF on Twitter CFIF on YouTube
More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 19, 2024 • 08:35 AM

Liberty Update

CFIFs latest news, commentary and alerts delivered to your inbox.
Immigration and Trust: Washington Can’t Be Believed Print
By Troy Senik
Wednesday, June 12 2013
The cynicism is appalling, particularly in contrast to the essential fairness on display by most Americans.

Here’s an ironclad rule for negotiating with someone of dubious trustworthiness: don’t give away something tangible today in exchange for a promise tomorrow. It’s the reason that everything from swapping tax hikes for budget cuts to notions like “land for peace” don’t work out. Take away your leverage over me and I have no incentive to meet your needs in the future.

It’s a simple principle, but it’s one that’s currently being ignored on Capitol Hill in the fight over “comprehensive” immigration reform. The scare quotes are necessary because this supposedly comprehensive plan is notably modest when it comes to securing the nation’s southern border.

Ever since the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform proposal was rolled out in the Senate in April, the bill has been subject to widespread criticism for its slipshod border security measures.

True, the proposal calls for the federal government to certify that certain standards of security are met at the Mexican border, but it does so through a series of imaginary metrics (you can’t accurately tally the percentage of illegal immigrants being prevented from entering the country if you don’t know how many you’re missing).

It also gives ultimate authority in declaring those targets met to the Secretary of Homeland Security, creating the prospect that political calculation rather than actual measurements of security will be the controlling factor in deeming the border secured.

Worst of all, perhaps, is the fact that the plan, as currently constructed, would grant provisional legal status to illegal immigrants immediately – even prior to the implementation of border security measures.

Republican resistance to this aspect of the plan – particularly recent rumblings from Senator Marco Rubio that he might abandon the bill if security measures aren’t stepped up – had led to some hope that this glaring defect might be remedied before the bill comes up for a vote. Rubio, however, told Univision host Maria Elena Salinas last weekend that, “First comes the legalization. Then comes the measures to secure the border.” Translation: We’ll get what we want and then see if there are any crumbs left for the rest of you suckers.

If the current debate in Washington were truly focused on sorting out the problems with both legal and illegal immigration, this would not be a point of contention. What could be more intuitive – particularly after the 1986 amnesty legalized nearly three million illegal immigrants while failing to follow through on promises of border security – than stemming the tide of illegal immigrants into the country before granting legal status to those who are here already?

Liberal proponents of amnesty, of course, intend to use this as a cudgel against those who believe that actually being able to control the flow of people in and out of the country is a prerequisite of national sovereignty. The fact that Congressional Democrats are widely expected to abandon the bill if border security becomes a precondition for reform proves that the left sees only two viable options ahead: Get a soft-on-enforcement law passed or tar Republicans as bigots when their insistence on security measures causes the bill to eventually fail.

The cynicism is appalling, particularly in contrast to the essential fairness on display by most Americans. Even many of those who are offended by the notion of illegal immigration – who believe that breaking the law is an inauspicious way to begin one’s residency in a new country – don’t typically display contempt for those who have come here illegally. Many understand that the logistical difficulties of rounding up the illegal population – and the humanitarian considerations that attend that prospect – are prohibitive.

They also know that the status quo of a hemorrhaging border is just as unsustainable as the status quo of a huge illegal population. And they’ve already been fooled once. Their demand is simple: If you want us to compromise our principles enough to entertain an amnesty, it has to be the last one. Failure to secure the border will only mean millions more illegal immigrants and more grants of citizenship in the year to come. Convince us that you’ve done your duty to protect national sovereignty and we’ll talk about what to do with those who are already here.

It’s an utterly reasonable demand. And it’s one that the current proposal seems incapable of addressing. As long as that continues to be the case, the latest round of “comprehensive” immigration reform will deserve to be dead on arrival.

Notable Quote   
 
Happy Easter!…[more]
 
 
— From All of Us at CFIF
 
Liberty Poll   

Do you believe the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately reject the new Biden administration automobile emissions rule as beyond the scope of administrative agency authority?