Legalization first may doom immigration bill

Conn Carroll:

Senate passage of the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill is looking like far less of a sure thing after Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Senate Democrats voted down an amendment yesterday that would have secured the border first before granting illegal immigrants citizenship.

For those paying attention to the immigration debate, the legalization-first-border-security-later structure of the Schumer-Rubio bill has never been in question. Just last Sunday, Rubio told Univision, “Let’s be clear. Nobody is talking about preventing the legalization. The legalization is going to happen. … First comes the legalization. Then come the measures to secure the border.”

But many conservative defenders of Rubio were under the impression the order was the other way around. Yesterday’s security-first amendment, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, exposed that fiction. Rubio was then forced to make-up a brand new argument for why legalization must come first, telling radio host Andrea Tantaros that the federal government needed the fines from amnestied immigrants in order to pay for border security.

“If we don’t get that fine money from the people that have violated our immigration laws, then the American taxpayer is going to have to pay for border security,” Rubio said. Rubio failed to explain if American taxpayers would therefore also require new waves of illegal immigrants to pay for border security in the future.
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The Grassley amendment got 43 votes which suggest that Rubio-Schumer is three votes shy of getting past a filibuster.  Rubio's rationalization sounds just like a rationalization and not a reason.  Because it exposed the fiction of border security first that had been pushed by proponents, it will probably result in even greater pushback from the conservative base.

While I think border security is an important issue, my main concern is the lack of a deterrent to future illegal immigration.  That requires more than border security.  It requires an internal immigration policy that provides negative consequences for those who come here illegally.  That would usually imply deportation.  But under the Obama administration that is out of the question unless an illegal is caught committing a felony.  Not even a DUI is enough under the bill.