Senate Coalition Makes Immigration Play

Members of the Senate released their plan for immigration "reform" and a "normalization" (legalization) of illegal immigrants.  The four key principles of this measure:

Four Basic Legislative Pillars:
1. Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required;
2. Reform our legal immigration system to better recognize the importance of characteristics that will help build the American economy and strengthen American families;
3. Create an effective employment verification system that will prevent identity theft and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers; and,

4. Establish an improved process for admitting future workers to serve our nation's workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers. 

 Once you dig underneath this vague language, though, the actual details of the legislation might be more problematic.

David Frum argues that a massive legalization could undermine conservative policy goals while not helping Republicans electorally, a point Ross Douthat echoes.  Mark Krikorian notes that promises of enforcement of immigration law are rarely delivered on.  Mickey Kaus has 6 major questions regarding normalization.

The National Journal games out the legislative path for a legalization.  The House could stop this measure easily, but reportedly a secret committee of Republicans and Democrats have been meeting to try push some legalization through.