If Congress adopts the Bush plan and gives amnesty to illegal aliens, Senate Republicans will be asking President Cheney for a pardon.

Bush wants to grant illegal aliens amnesty while sounding like he’s really cracking down on them. It tells you where Americans stand on illegal immigration that Bush has to pull the Democrat trick of lying about his position.

Bush and the Senate are trying to pawn off a “path to citizenship” by swearing that illegals will have to pay huge fines and back taxes. But then we find out “huge” is defined as $2,000 fine and “taxes” is defined as three of the last five years.

We’re told illegal immigrants are dying to pay taxes if only they can become citizens. Oh by the way, they also will have lots of government benefits available to them if they become citizens — in fact, even if they get green cards. They’re probably unaware of this and are just dying to send half their paychecks to the government just like us shiftless, lazy Americans who won’t do the jobs being done by illegals.

Inasmuch as most of these low-skilled immigrant workers are in the 0 percent tax bracket, this should be a real boon for the U.S. Treasury. More likely, the government will end up paying the illegals money: “Let’s see, Julio. According to our records, you owe us 0 percent for the past three years, and because you qualify for the earned-income tax credit, we actually owe you! Are 20s OK?”

The Senate bill also forgives illegal aliens who have committed identity theft by stealing American Social Security numbers to get jobs.

So in addition to the Two-Years-Tax-Free deal, illegals get one free felony. Also, the vast majority of illegal immigrants are from Mexico, so they’ll qualify for affirmative action at U.S. colleges, allowing them to get in with lower grades and scores than Americans.

What’s the process for losing your citizenship and becoming an illegal alien?

However hardworking illegal immigrants are when they get here, the moment they become citizens, they will be demagogued by Democrats into viewing welfare as a universal human right (just as they now view living in America).

Of course illegal immigrants will “work for less.” They don’t have to pay taxes!

Not only that, but illegal aliens can’t rat out their employers for violations of OSHA regulations, overtime and minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, disability laws, the Family and Medical Leave Act and 4 million other rules the government has dreamed up that make it extremely expensive to hire Americans.

Instead of allowing a class of workers to escape these government “protectons,” how about relieving all of us — even us shiftless Americans — from the cost of government?

I thought all these trade agreements the free-trade fetishists have pushed on us over the years already allowed corporations to take advantage of cheap labor in other countries — countries that don’t have agencies like OSHA. Doesn’t NAFTA already allow us to buy inexpensive goods made by Mexicans in Mexico?

In addition to discriminating against Americans in favor of illegal immigrants, Bush wants to continue our immigration policy of discriminating against immigrants who don’t live within walking distance. America’s immigration laws apply only to immigrants who are separated from the U.S. by an ocean. If they can run across the border, they’re in.

Even if one accepts Bush’s theory that we need more immigrants to do the jobs that lazy Americans won’t do, isn’t it possible that Danish immigrants, Italian immigrants or British immigrants would work hard, too? But they can’t run across the border to America, so they’re out of luck. (Unless you are spokesmen for the Taliban, in which case there’s a seat waiting for you at Yale.)

Since when did conservatives reward walking? Are we all Al Gore now?

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