Ag and construction industry groups are quietly furious about this bill and it's barely being covered. Worth a whole separate article on its own.
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My neighbors are terrified to send their kids to school this week. Whatever you think the policy should be, that's the actual effect this bill is having on actual families right now.
Enforcing existing law shouldn't require a sympathy framing to be legitimate. There's a legal process for this and the distinction between "came here legally" and "didn't" matters.
You can support enforcement of the law and still be uncomfortable with due-process shortcuts in how it's carried out — those are separate questions. This bill is mostly about the second one.
Covered the run-up to IRCA in '86. Enforcement-only bills without an accompanying legalization pathway have failed to actually reduce unauthorized immigration every single time we've tried it since. History on this one is pretty clear.
Respectfully, the '86 amnesty is a big part of why we're back here arguing about this again. "Do it once more but bigger" isn't obviously the lesson to take from that.
Whatever this bill says on paper, the agencies enforcing it have shown zero appetite for nuance in the past. That track record is what I'd judge it on, not the text.
Can't believe this made it out of committee this fast. Feels rushed for something this consequential.
For what it's worth this has actually been sitting in committee for about 8 months — the floor vote just happened fast, not the process leading up to it.
Neither party has passed comprehensive reform in almost 40 years because it's more useful to both sides as a campaign issue than as a solved problem. This bill changes none of that.