Sarah Palin and Immigration

From Univision:

As governor, how do you deal with them? Do you think they all should be deported?

There is no way that in the US we would roundup every illegal immigrant -there are about 12 million of the illegal immigrants- not only economically is that just an impossibility but that’s not a humane way anyway to deal with the issue that we face with illegal immigration.

Do you then favor an amnesty for the 12 or 13 million undocumented immigrants?

No, I do not. I do not. Not total amnesty. You know, people have got to follow the rules. They’ve got to follow the bar, and we have got to make sure that there is equal opportunity and those who are here legally should be first in line for services being provided and those opportunities that this great country provides.

To clarify, so you support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants?

I do because I understand why people would want to be in America. To seek the safety and prosperity, the opportunities, the health that is here. It is so important that yes, people follow the rules so that people can be treated equally and fairly in this country.

The McAmnesty words are there, but notice the wiggle room. It's all in terms of people who are here legally versus those who aren't.

She actually doesn't answer the first question. "Should they all be deported?" becomes "We can't round them all up."

She says she doesn't favor amnesty, which is fine, except she qualifies it by not favoring total amnesty. The rest of her answer seems like a platitude, but notice that she says those here legally should be first in line for "services".

Why not say that the problem is caused by having a government that offers "services" in the first place? Government's first job is defending us from external enemies, and offering "services" to non-citizens appears to be in conflict with that goal.

But I wish she'd said: "I want to know that when I walk down the street or see a protest march that all of the people there are citizens like me, with the same, undivided loyalty to this country that my own immigrant ancestors had."

That's why I'm so disgusted with the Guest Worker Program idea. It creates an official underclass of people whose loyalty I have to question, with no effective way to tell immigrant citizen and guest worker apart. That will inevitably lead to prejudice and conflict.

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