Some amnesty's OK

The main criticism of the immigration bill seems to be that it is too good a deal for those who are currently here illegally. It's been labelled the "amnesty" bill or other things.

I can somewhat understand this perspective -- these people are in violation of the law, and lawbreaking should not be rewarded. It sends the message that if you want to come here, get here by any means neccesary, and wait for the next amnesty.

But in looking at the current situation, it seems like the illegal aliens are not the primary immoral agents. That would be the employers, who were aware of the law, and broke it anyway. They did not patriotically sacrifice in order to honor are laws. No, they gladly employed these people, paid them below standard wages, didn't pay their part of social security, and pulled in the profits.

And they're getting amnesty, too, though nobody seems too outraged about that. There's not going to be any effort to punish those who have happily been benefitting from the curcurrent system. They're not going to have to pay back social security payments.

No, our outrage is reserved for those who risked their lives to get here in the hopes of establishing a better life for themselves and their children, and have been working shitty jobs for sub-standard pay for opportunistic employers, and us as consumers so we can pay a price for goods that is much less than their cost. They must pay. They must be punished. Those who exploited them, well, what are we gonna do about that now? In fact, let's set up a "guest worker" program so they can continue the practice.

Oh, but the immigrants sometimes wave the wrong flags at their rallies. And they don't arrive speaking our language. That's why they should pay, yeah. It doesn't have anything to do with their skin color.