See previous: Amnesty, shamnesty. Delayed in the Senate (Bumped)

Below the fold (newest items at the top):

• Capitulation, from A------ to Z 
• Compromise Has Little Public Support
• A Tale Of Two Amendments
• Practical Compromise
• Senate votes to cut guest worker program
• Kyl Hits Immigration Head Wind
• The comprehensive open-borders goodie bag
• Boehner: The amnesty bill is a “piece of sh*t”; Update: Public opposes bill, 48-26
• Senate retains guest-worker program in 'bargain'

*** *** *** Fold (but please don't spindle or mutilate) *** *** ***

Capitulation, from A------ to Z
Mark Steyn (H/T: R J Del Vecchio)

Are you a fine upstanding member of the Undocumented-American community? That's to say, are you (if you'll forgive the expression) an illegal immigrant?

Great news! Being illegal is now perfectly legal! Just for being one of the circa 12 million people who shouldn't be here, you can now be here indefinitely! If you were living and working in America illegally before Jan. 1, 2007, you're now entitled to one of the new Z-1 "probationary" visas. And your parents and spouses are entitled to one of the new Z-2 visas, and your children to the new Z-3 visas.

Don't worry: It's not an "amnesty." Every politician in America is opposed to amnesty -- if not the concept, then at least the word. That's why the visa starts with the letter that's furthest away from the one "amnesty" begins with. "Z" stands for zellout . . . no, hang on, zurrender or Zapatista, or some other word way up the other end of the alphabet from "amnesty." But the point is, at a stroke there will be no more illegal immigrants. Because being illegal means you're now legal.

Unless, of course, you came to America after Jan. 1, 2007, and thus aren't covered by the zamnesty. But in that case why not apply for the Z-1 anyway? After all, you're here illegally so how would U.S. Immigration know when you arrived?

Compromise Has Little Public Support
Ed Morrissey

If the architects of the comprehensive immigration reform plan expected to reap political favor for their ability to reach a bipartisan compromise, they will find themselves disappointed. A Rasmussen study shows that a near-majority oppose the plan altogether, with the rest split between acceptance and uncertainty:

Initial public reaction to the immigration proposal being debated in the Senate is decidedly negative.

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted Monday and Tuesday night shows that just 26% of American voters favor passage of the legislation. Forty-eight percent (48%) are opposed while 26% are not sure. The bi-partisan agreement among influential Senators and the White House has been met with bi-partisan opposition among the public. The measure is opposed by 47% of Republicans, 51% of Democrats, and 46% of those not affiliated with either major party.

The next part of the report shows that Congress as a whole may have missed the pulse of the nation. Instead of focusing on normalization, they could improve their standing immensely -- in both parties -- by addressing border security as a primary and separate initiative: ...

A Tale Of Two Amendments
Ed Morrissey

The senior Senator from Minnesota, Norm Coleman, will offer an amendment to end the practice of "sanctuary cities" and demand compliance with immigration laws. Coleman wants to close the loophole various cities opened in the 1996 immigration bill that allows them to ignore the illegal status of people arrested by their law enforcement agencies:

In an effort to strengthen national security, Senator Norm Coleman yesterday introduced an amendment to the Immigration bill to make sure local law enforcement officials are able to communicate with federal law enforcement agencies regarding suspected immigration violations. Currently, a number of cities throughout the nation are using a loophole to get around Sec. 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 by instituting ordinances forbidding local law enforcement to even ask the question as to whether a person is in the U.S. lawfully, thereby evading their legal responsibility to report their suspicions to the federal government.

“In a post 9-11 world, it is simply unacceptable for communities to ignore federal laws requiring them to share this type of information with federal authorities. This is not a matter of making state and local governments enforce federal immigration laws, it is simply a matter of closing this loophole that certain cities have created,” said Coleman. ...

Coleman says that the impetus for this amendment comes from the capture of the Fort Dix Six. They had numerous contacts with law enforcement, and yet no one notified federal authorities of their illegal status. Not until a sharp-thinking clerk alerted the FBI about their jihadi videos did anyone realize the threat that had metastasized in New Jersey. ...

It's time to end the "sanctuary city" phenomenon, especially since this compromise purports to clamp down on illegal immigration -- a claim that its details don't support very well at all. If the compromise fails, Coleman should introduce this as a free-standing bill in this session of Congress to demand that cities quit hiding criminals from the ICE. ...

John Cornyn has proposed an even more critical amendment, one that appears to have Democrats a bit flummoxed:

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the immigration bill to close a gaping loophole in the bill that will ensure the following individuals are either permanently barred from the United States or prohibited from getting any immigration benefit: members of terrorist-related organizations, known gang members, sex offenders, alien smugglers who use firearms and felony drunk drivers. ...

Sen. Cornyn’s amendment also closes the loophole in the pending bill that allows legalization of those illegal immigrants who have violated court ordered deportations, or absconders.

This will address two key points on the Heritage Foundation's list of issues about the immigration proposal. It also creates an almost unbearable political situation. Who will go on record as endorsing the entry/normalization of gang members, coyotes, sex offenders, and other undesirables? Whoever votes against the Cornyn amendment will have to deal with election advertisements that say, "Senator X voted to allow known sex offenders and drunk drivers in your community."

Good luck rebutting those.

It also addresses the issue of absconders. ...

Practical Compromise
Don’t just do something, stand there.
By Seth Leibsohn

Believe it or not, we can get somewhere helpful on immigration here in Washington.

Yes, the rhetoric against conservatives is increasingly hotter from the Left and the pro-path-to-citizenship Republicans — we want nothing short of deportation. So, we're told, let’s stop the madness and “comprehensively” compromise.

Here’s a better plan, which Andy McCarthy alluded to yesterday: Do nothing with the 12-20 million illegals here now. That’s right, no Z-Visa, no mass deportation, no path to citizenship, no rounding up — nothing.

As Andy wrote, we’ve lived with the illegal population for quite some time now. Whence comes the exigency to do something now?

What we can and should do is encourage their attrition.

Few are against securing the border (or so they say). So secure it. Build the full fence and show some seriousness about protecting our country. And let’s stop the silly sound-bite that if you build a ten-foot fence the illegals will find an eleven-foot ladder. With enough border patrol, the ladders become irrelevant. ...

Senate votes to cut guest worker program
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer (H/T: MM)

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Wednesday to slash the number of foreign workers who could come to the U.S. on temporary visas as part of a broad bipartisan immigration bill.

A new guest worker program would be capped at 200,000 a year under the proposal, which passed 74-24 over strong opposition by the Bush administration.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the change, proposed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., would interfere with a "central component" of the White House-backed immigration measure. That plan provided for 400,000 worker visas annually, plus an option to increase that number to 600,000 if market conditions demand it.

"The Bingaman amendment would eliminate this critical flexibility and cut the size of the temporary worker program in half," Gutierrez said in a statement.

His comments came as the administration urged the Senate to approve the immigration legislation despite fresh criticism from presidential hopefuls and lawmakers in both parties. ...

Kyl Hits Immigration Head Wind 
Senator's Support of Compromise Divides Republican Base
By Sarah Lueck (H/T: Don Surber)

WASHINGTON -- Last year, in the midst of a heated re-election campaign, Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl hurled at his opponent a damaging accusation in the border state: He ran TV ads saying the Democrat supported "amnesty" for illegal immigrants.

Now, as Mr. Kyl backs a bipartisan Senate immigration bill, he is hearing the same charge leveled at him by other Republicans in his state and on conservative blogs and radio shows.

The debate between the conservative Mr. Kyl and his base is one of the most important battles determining the fate of the landmark immigration overhaul. Mr. Kyl hopes his endorsement will help win over other immigration hard-liners, a constituency where he has credibility, particularly after opposing last year's Senate-passed bill as too weak. That's the main reason the Bush administration pinpointed Mr. Kyl early on as a focal point of its legislative strategy.

Mr. Kyl yesterday won a victory in the Senate's first day considering amendments, as fellow lawmakers overwhelmingly defeated an attempt by some Democrats to strip out a temporary "guest worker" program that he backs.

But so far at least, Mr. Kyl appears to be having a hard time drawing the support of his fellow conservatives. ...

Read the whole thing, then don't miss Don's comments here.

The comprehensive open-borders goodie bag
Michelle Malkin

John Boehner called the Bush-Kennedy immigration bill a "piece of s**t" last night. Yeah, after sifting through it the past couple of days, I need a shower.

Debate resumed in the Senate this morning. Yesterday, an amendment sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would have deleted the bill's guestworker provisions was voted down.

Update: Sen. DeMint calls out the Dems' move to limit amendments from critics of the bill.

While they debate, here are 7 things buried inside the Bush-Kennedy amnesty goodie bag you should know about--plus more questions raised about the phony triggers and point system (all links referring to the bill provisions take you directly to the section in the 317-page draft bill released Friday night and published in online/linkable form by N.Z. Bear):

1) It includes Ted Kennedy's DREAM Act (Title VI, Section 611, Subtitle B)--a key goodie demanded by illegal alien lobbyists. The DREAM Act gives illegal alien students in-state college tuition breaks not available to out-of-state American students and legal immigrant students. The Dream Act would repeal a clearly worded provision in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) that states: ...

2) It creates a new "UNITED STATES-MEXICO BORDER ENFORCEMENT
REVIEW COMMISSION" (Title I, Section 138) that appears to be a Trojan Horse for more proxy meddling by Mexican consular officials hell-bent on undermining border enforcement and interior enforcement. Members from the law enforcement community will be balanced out by members from "academia, religious leaders, civic leaders or community leaders" (read: the open-borders lobby). Their purpose: ...

3) ...

Boehner: The amnesty bill is a “piece of sh*t”;
Update: Public opposes bill, 48-26
Allahpundit

What’s the opposite of heart-ache?

House Minority Leader John Boehner, speaking to a private gathering of Republican activists last night, called the Senate’s immigration compromise bill a “piece of shit” but said that he had promised President Bush earlier in the day that he would let his teeth be a barrier to such thoughts in public.

Boehner spoke last night at a small reception for the Republican Rapid Responders on Capitol Hill.

“I promised the President today that I wouldn’t say anything bad about … this piece of shit bill,” he said, according to two attendees.

He’d better start saying it because they had a filibuster-proof 64 votes yesterday to defeat an amendment that would have stripped the guest worker program from the bill. The Times takes that as a sign that there’s a solid majority willing to support the bill in its entirety; if they had lost on the guest worker program, the whole thing might have crumbled. WashTimes notes that most Republicans were among the 64, too, the lure of cheap labor apparently too sweet to resist.

But that doesn’t mean they’re the chief problem. I’ll leave you with this tidbit from Hotline. Your president:

A senior Republican official said yesterday that while the chances of the bill, which opens pathways to citizenship for most of the U.S.’s 12 million illegal immigrants, are “50/50″ in the House and that the White House would spend its time lobbying Democrats, rather than Republicans, to achieve a majority.

Update: Fox says they’ve confirmed Hotline’s report. He said it.

Update: The first poll is in.

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Senate retains guest-worker program in 'bargain'
By Stephen Dinan

The Senate yesterday voted to preserve a guest-worker program as part of the immigration "grand bargain," in the first test of the bipartisan coalition that is backing the bill.

The vote went straight to the heart of the debate over jobs and competition between immigrants and American workers.

"How about paying a decent wage? You'll find plenty of people to take these jobs," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat. He spearheaded an amendment to eliminate the guest-worker program, which would allow 400,000 temporary workers in the first year and could, Mr. Dorgan said, allow 3.6 million workers in by the 10th year.

He said the program bore "the handprint of those who want to bring in additional cheap labor" and keep wages low.

But Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, said 50 percent of home-construction jobs in his state used to be filled by illegal aliens because of the housing boom. He said the guest-worker program will cut down on illegal immigration because it "will help relieve the magnet" of those jobs. ...

The guest-worker program isn't safe yet.

Today, the Senate is expected to debate an amendment slashing the number of participants in the guest-worker program in half. Last year, a similar amendment passed, though workers in that version would have had a direct path to citizenship, unlike the temporary workers in the current bill. ...

Guest workers would be allowed to apply for a two-years-in, one-year-out program, renewable three times. But they would not have a clear path to citizenship.

At some point during the debate, senators will have a vote on what critics are calling amnesty.

Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, said he has introduced an amendment to cut out the "Z visa" program, which is the bill's interim step on the path to citizenship for illegal aliens.

"Z visas are amnesty -- pure and simple," Mr. Vitter said.  ...