You got a real hankerin’ for some absolutes, adaher. Sith happens.
OK, criminal records. You mean like a Russian dissident who was convicted by a Putin court of dissing the Othodox Church? That’s a criminal record, isn’t it? But, hey, no exemptions!
Do you imagine, for instance, that the criminal court system in Central American countries tends to be a bit less ideal than our own? Would it surprise you that a drug-dealing gang banger in Nicaragua can bribe his way out, but a shoplifter will get a criminal record? Not all of them even aspire to the ideals of justice and equality that you find in, say, Sheriff Arapaio.
And English required? How many people in Canada speak only French? Their needs have been accommodated, has Canada collapsed in ruin? How many people in America speak only Spanish? And does it matter that they live in communities where their friends and neighbors are eager to help them. Hell, if my Spanish were halfway decent, I’d be happy to myself. As it is, I think most of them already know how to ask where the train station is, so my assistance is not required.
You want benchmarks, requirements? How about courage? How about the courage to risk death in the Godforsaken Desert for a chance to support your family? Does that count? How about loyalty and patriotism for someone willing to serve in our armed forces with only the promise of maybe becoming a citizen?
If you are going to insist on some absolute requirements, is it too much to ask that they make some sense? Actually, yes it is, because such absolute standards don’t make much sense.
The Bill of Rights does, but the 2nd amendment is different in that it reserves the right to bear arms to the militia, which includes all adult citizens in the modern context.
Regardless, the courts have upheld laws governing guns, and if immigrants disobeyed those laws, they should not be eligible for legalization.
Geez, you guys are acting as if everything should just be left up to the executive branch, as if Congress isn’t capable of doing its constitutional duty.
Constitution 101: Congress makes the laws, the executive enforces the laws. It’s not Congress passes some guidelines and the executive then does whatever he wants.
The law is designed to be used to exempt large swathes of otherwise ineligible people and I think its supporters almost universally know that.
You can get a criminal record in Russia by saying that Putin is a KGB apparatchik who rises at night to feed on the blood of the living. Which is probably an exaggeration. You can get a perfectly clean record all over the world simply by bribing a few people.
English? OK, define it. Exactly how do you propose to objectively measure someone’s competence in English? Will it be written tests, measuring ability to read English, and speaking it doesn’t count? Or vice versa? Or both?
You want rigid and precise definitions of who’s acceptable? Well, OK, do you have them? Does Mr. Rubio have them, but is keeping them under wraps? Let’s simplify it, cut you a break. The English requirement, what test will they have to pass? By what percentages?
Rigid parameters demand defined standards. Well, where are they?
I’ve always wondered about that. What militia do I belong to? Who is my commanding officer? Where is the mustering point? How do I get my orders? Does someone gallop through town with a burning arrow and cry, “Meet thee at the Old Forest Oak!”
“Well regulated” my hind leg!
Also, I’d really like to see the Federal Court System review your logic. Maybe some day we’ll have a case where an undocumented immigrant has all his guns seized. It will be amusing to watch the NRA try to cope.
The answer to the felony concerns is legal reform, not to leave it up to administration judgement to decide which felonies are okay and which are not.
THe same administrative state that decides that people should go to jail for messing with odometers is the same administrative state that can decide its okay for gang members to gain legalization.
This does not mention the numbers of waivers expected, the law clearly says that the administration “may” waive the ban or deportation of a gang member, but only under specific circumstances, and it is clear that it refers to not being associated to a gang anymore nor accused of a crime.
Uh, that is fear mongering again, but I guess you do have a weird dictionary.
But the importing thing is that there is no cite regarding what would be the unacceptable levels of the use of waivers, or compare it to what. Point being that what you are saying looks like just making FUD.
So you want to implement this based solely on vague promises of “we’ll fix that later”. I personally think that without specific benchmarks for legal reform and demonstrated progress, we just can’t trust that it will happen properly. So, reform first.*
Hint: Change “legal reform” to “enforcement”. Sound familiar?
Except that immigration is and should be a FEDERAL issue. Why? Because as soon as that “administrative state” legalizes that gang member, he can then move to an “administrative state” that wouldn’t have legalized him.
Florida will be overrun by turtle killers who used Georgia’s weak punishment system to escape justice. Won’t somebody please think of the marine sea turtles?
Really curious about this. Why do you think the administration, this or any other one, would let in gang members and criminals? How does that help them? What elected official counts gang members and felons as their constituency and for what reason?