John: Come on, this is defeatism. Amnesty a “bargaining chip”? How did we even get to the point where we are thinking in such terms? “We’ll co-operate with you in scoffing at our own laws, if you will give us some trifling concessions on quotas from Lithuania”? And remember, please, that amnesty has already been tried, in 1986. It made the situation far worse! Repeat after me: “Amnesty is a spur to illegal immigration and an insult to legal immigrants.”
But you are speaking of legislative horse-trading. Yes, that’s part of the solution; but MOST of what desperately needs doing is executive action. We need to enforce the laws, close the borders, and propagandize on behalf of LEGAL immigration. Not one line of legislation is required to do those things, only political will on the part of the executive. That, as you say, is what’s missing; but it won’t be missing for long if GWB understands that there is rising nation-wide public anger over this, as I believe there is–regardless of the state of the economy, which is irrelevant here. What better way to bring that to his attention than by chest-thumping? (Well, there is one MUCH better way than pundit chest-thumping; but it requires the emergence of a public-spirited billionaire to scare the pants off our ruling classes and break the spell of Political Correctness that has turned them all into Pod People on the immigration issue.)