Steyn Takes On Illegal Immigration

Quite the piece by Mark Steyn yesterday, on the 'amnesty' just proposed by the Bush administration:

America takes in roughly a million legal immigrants and half-a-million illegals each year. Even routine visa and green card application take years to process: two, five, 10 years. Not because the feds are spending two, five or 10 years doing unusually thorough background checks, but just because that's how long it takes to shuffle the paperwork. Imagine a branch of ''60-Minute Photo'' that takes 60 minutes to develop the photos but three months to move them from the front counter to the lab at the back and another eight months to move them from the lab back to the counter. Right now, the system has a backlog just shy of 5 million. Drop another few million from the Undocumented American community in their laps, and lawful immigrants can add another half-decade and a couple more circles of hell to their own applications.

I don't know anywhere near enough about the situation (and at the moment, can't take the time to educate myself) to make any comment one way or the other about Bush's plan, but I can point out that the folks at National Review's Corner aren't exactly pleased. I would be remiss, however, if I failed to mention that their opinions are not the only ones.
-- posted by Austin @ 5:11 PM (PermaLink/Comment) ¶