Immigration Doublespeak

[Geee]

American Spectator:

Immigration Doublespeak
By W. James Antle, III on 9.21.10 @ 6:10AM

In public, the Obama administration boasts of being tough on illegal immigration. "We're trying to put our money where our mouth is," Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director John Morton told the Washington Post in a story claiming that deportations are rising. "You've got to have aggressive enforcement against criminal offenders. You have to have a secure border. You have to have some integrity in the system."

Yet in private, the discussion among Obama appointees often turns to ways they can use their administrative powers to give illegal immigrants work permits and an interim legal status, even if Congress does not go through the formality of passing "comprehensive immigration reform." In fact, getting around the democratically elected legislative branch's intransigence seems to be the point.

This first became apparent when Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) released a draft memo prepared for the director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) outlining ways the existing law could be interpreted to provide "alternatives to comprehensive immigration reform." The immigration bureaucrats pondered "administrative relief options" to "reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without authorization" -- that is, to implement an amnesty for illegal immigrants without Congress actually enacting one.