A story in USA Today on state immigration proposals helpfully shows why “comprehensive immigration reform” is impossible, by definition. The point of all such proposals is a trade-off of amnesty and huge increases in immigration in exchange for promises of strict future enforcement to prevent another 11 million illegals demanding amnesty in the future. But as the news story makes clear, the ACLU will launch scorched-earth legal fights against any and all enforcement efforts — the story is about the state level, but they’ve already done this at the federal level, too, and would dial it up to 11 with the passage of any “comprehensive” bill. The ACLU is guaranteed to sue to stop even efforts designed to limit fraud in the amnesty program, because they reject limits on immigration, period.

So until the enforcement measures which amnesty supporters claim to back clear all court challenges and are actually in place and working, even talking about amnesty is out of bounds. In other words, the very concept of “comprehensive immigration reform” is false, and anyone promoting it is either lying to himself or lying to the public.