My Capitol Hill source e-mails in response to this White House response:

1. It is interesting that the Administration does not appear to be interested in actually fixing the immigration system. They readily bestow the most cherished thing our country could offer – U.S. citizenship – to 13 million people who have come here illegally… but in exchange, we do not get the immigration system fixed. We simply get a “better” system (take their word for it). What would it take actually to fix the system?
2. I am not sure this is an answer. They are not out there looking for any random illegal immigrant. ICE stressed that it would focus on absconders. There are 600,000 absconders. Pew estimates 850,000 illegal immigrants entering per year from 2000-2005. If that number is holding true, half of that number will have arrived here since the beginning of 2007 (the cut-off date for the bill). If ICE cannot find 600,000 absconders, how are they going to be able to find that 600,000 plus the almost half a million who are ineligible under the Senate bill because they have arrived here after Jan 1?…
3. This is a very comforting response. The Administration’s bill allows illegal aliens to come forward and get a probationary Z card if the background check cannot be completed in one day. Since the sign up period is one year and there are at least 12 million people here illegally who would have to be processed within that one day period, this averages out to between 40,000 and 50,000 applications per day. The WH is ok with the one day default timeline because after they give someone who has been here illegally a card that allows them unlimited travel and legal status in the country, the WH is confident that if “something pops up” they can then track them down and deport them. This is very reassuring after Andrew Speaker’s episode (re-entering with Tuberculosis).
4. The Heritage Foundation circulated an editorial recently discussing the inability of the federal government to timely issue passports this year to American citizens because of requirements mandated years ago. Indeed, the federal government had years to prepare for this expected increase in demand for passports, yet US citizens across the country are having their travel plans delayed because the federal government cannot get the system for US citizens working well. Although the track record suggests otherwise, I am sure the representation that the system is “expected” to work well in processing millions of legalized aliens plus millions of US citizens is as comforting to your readers as it is to us.
4/5. I am not sure this answers the question. The federal government has the authority to mitigate, significantly, fines under current law (and has made good use of it) and now continues that authority in this bill. I am not sure this has anything to do with private rights of action. But talking about extended judicial review or the arguments that it will be limited, I wonder what AILA thinks of those “big” barriers to litigating this thing to death?