Again, people who know nothing about immigration should be allowed to comment, much less opine on the facts behind immigration policy. This is proved once again by Andrew McCarthy's endorsement of the Gingrich Amnesty, very much the same as the current Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty.
National Review Online November 23, 2011
All he said was, “Let’s be humane in enforcing the law.” That was my reaction last night when Newt Gingrich argued that the federal government should refrain from deporting illegal immigrants who had been in the U.S. for many years if the effect would be the break up of a family.
I did not take him to be proposing a new law conferring amnesty. To do what the former Speaker proposed would require no change in U.S. law. All you’d need is the sensible application of prosecutorial discretion.
A successful immigration enforcement policy, easily implemented under current law, would secure the borders; use the capability we have to track aliens who enter on visas to ensure that they don’t overstay; and target our finite law enforcement resources at (a) illegal immigrants who violate federal or state criminal laws (i.e., other than the laws against illegal entry), and (b) employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and therefore provide the incentive that induces them to come. (An even better policy would deny illegal immigrants various social welfare benefits, but some of that would involve changes in the law so I put it to the side for present purposes.)
On the face of it, this is nothing more than the Obama Amnesty. Like Gingrich and McCarthy, the Obama Regime amnesty consists of a sole emphasis on criminal aliens and a half-hearted employer sanctions policy, and like the Obama amnesty, a concentration on the employer, allowing the illegally employed alien to remain. There is certainly nothing in this that will attrit the population of illegal aliens, since the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens don't have criminal convictions, but they do commit many crimes, such as identity theft, which Mssrs. Gingrich and McCarthy studiously ignore.
But enough of the McCarthy-Gingrich Administrative Amnesty, on to the amazing ignorance of McCarthy. Like many current and former Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs), McCarthy thinks he is brilliant and all-knowing.
However, he seems to think that the Department of Justice prosecutes illegal aliens. Well, they do when they are charged with criminal offenses, but illegal aliens are generally "prosecuted" by the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Office of Counsel in each district office. No illegal aliens are ordered removed or deported by AUSAs or the Department of Justice. Generally, the DOJ's sole responsibility in immigration enforcement is the representation of DHS before Federal courts when aliens appeal decisions by ICE, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). While the BIA and EOIR are DOJ agencies, they do not "prosecute" aliens, they are the administrative appeal system for aliens. ICE remains the "prosecuting" agency representing the government. The only involvement of the DOJ in "prosecuting" aliens, is the decision making to prosecute for criminal offenses, such as Re-entry After Deportation or Identity Theft. The number of those prosecutions is in the few thousand, compared to the hundreds of thousands of aliens in removal proceedings "prosecuted" by ICE.
McCarthy appears not to understand that. He thinks the Attorney General and the DOJ should be more generous to illegal aliens:
Obviously, if an alien has been here illegally for a number of years but has been essentially law-abiding (again, ignoring the fact that it is illegal for him to reside and work in the U.S.), and if his deportation would have the effect of ripping apart an intact, law-abding family, you don’t bring that case. Such a case is not worth the Justice Department’s time when there are plenty of more serious criminals, including more serious immigration offenders, to pursue.
This is not a radical concept. The Obama administration currently exercises its discretion by not only refraining from any meaningful enforcement of the immigration laws but also preventing states (e.g., Arizona) from enforcing the laws. In stark contrast, the Speaker indicated that a Gingrich administration would enforce the law against illegal aliens — it would arrest and deport many of them. I’m betting that he’d also direct his Attorney General to drop the Obama Justice Department suit against Arizona. And Newt was quick to point out last night that he was talking about a humane enforcement policy. He was not proposing that the illegal aliens who were not prosecuted be given citizenship. They just wouldn’t get prosecuted as long as they didn’t make a nuisance of themselves.
McCarthy also needs to be reminded that it is DHS, and its Secretary, that removes illegal aliens, not the Attorney General. Any direction for leniency would be directed from there. He also contradicts himself, stating that Gingrich would not "prosecute," e.g. deport any illegal alien who "didn't make a nuisance of themselves." But then claims that Gingrich would be deporting many more illegal aliens than Obama. Hardly likely as most illegal aliens "don't make nuisances of themselves." Well, other than being illegal, driving down wages, taking jobs from the poorest of Americans, etc. Few are involved in major crime, except tax evasion and identity theft. But murder, rape, robbery, and burglary are not mere "nuisances," they are serious crimes. Use of "nuisances" to describe criminal aliens tells us that neither Gingrich or McCarthy are serious about immigration law enforcement. Of course the criminal class of aliens needs the larger community of illegal aliens to hide among, like the guerrilla who swims in the sea of a sympathetic population. Unless the general population of illegal aliens are removed, the "nuisances" will be able to remain.
But it tells us that even "smart guys" like McCarthy can't even get important facts concerning who removes aliens, the DOJ or DHS, correct. Which explains his endorsement of the Gingrich Amnesty, the same as the Obama Amnesty.
Also of interest is that McCarthy and Gingrich implicitly accept the Obama Regime claim that 400,000 is the maximum number of illegal aliens that can be removed annually. That is incorrect, even under the current DHS budget, they could easily expand that number by 400,000. But without E-Verify, which Gingrich and McCarthy studiously ignore, there will be no end of the jobs magnet. Half-hearted civil suits against employers like Chipotle are ineffective without the arrest of the illegal alien employees. There certainly is nothing in Gingrich's or McCarthy's "humane" enforcement that includes work-site raids, especially since if that is their only crime, they get a free pass. Even more of interest, the illegals get to remain under the Gingrich Amnesty, so what is the point of any enforcement action against employers? No explanation from McCarthy or Gingrich.
