Perks are for perps with the right pigmentation

ILANA MERCER finds that US immigration policies seem to favour the least deserving

If you’re a criminal alien with “family relationships” in the U.S., are studying on the American taxpayer’s dime, are the recipient of the “attention of [pro-amnesty] advocacy groups,” and have “been here a long time”; if you are the focus of “political considerations”, were in the midst of applying for legal status when you stumbled into crime, have made a career of traffic offences or have violated state law the Obama administration does not want enforced (identity theft and fraud are examples); if charges are pending against you, but you have yet to be convicted—KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. You’re more than qualified for leniency, or for what the Obama administration has termed “prosecutorial discretion“. Deportation is no threat to you. Congratulations! You’re on schedule for joining what the American Founding Fathers had hoped would be a commonwealth of virtue.

As for the youthful criminal alien who still has that certain, impish je ne sais quoi — why, he’ll qualify right away for this administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme. DACA is not quite the proposed DREAM Act, but it’ll get the offender all the benefits he can dream of—education, food stamps, health care, a shot at a job—and a reprieve from deportation.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the Obama administration’s

…prosecutorial discretion criteria are allowing factors such as family relationships, political considerations, or attention from advocacy groups to trump criminal convictions as factors leading to deportation.

In 2013, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) released 68,000 criminal aliens back into the community. Much of their offences were of the drunken-driving variety—among them were no homeschoolers on the lam from Germany, thank God! But, as FoxNews.com reported, the skill-sets in this sample of criminal aliens did include murder and rape.

For a second, I thought of encouraging my sister, stuck in South Africa as she is, to consider becoming an illegal alien in the USA. It’s the easiest path to de facto permanent residency. No need for an education. No need for proficiency in the English language. “Press two for Spanish” is all the conversational eloquence required. Public charges are preferred. Ditto a vice or two.

But who am I kidding? Little sister lacks what it takes. With an ethic of work and self-reliance, she’d be the bane of this country. Besides, white immigrants like us have no “advocacy groups” and aren’t subject to “political considerations,” when faced with deportation. Still, I’d like Soledad O’Brien, of the “Black, Brown and Plain Boring in America” CNN series, to know this: although we lack pigment appeal—white immigrants weep for their far-away families just as brown people do. Except that we cry behind closed doors.

Yes, perks are for perps with the right pigmentation. So clear a point is this that in the last amnesty bill, introduced in 2013 by the Senate, “illegal alien” is a thing of the past. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization_Act achieves legal levelling not by defending our country’s borders, but through the near abolition of the illegal-versus-legal distinction.

In S.744, these new, privileged wards of the state are known as “Registered Provisional Immigrants.” RPIs will enjoy protections unavailable to nationals, or to immigrants who are in the U.S. on merit.

In marked contrast to an RPI, there is not much you, me and Chancellor Merkel can do if Gen. Keith Alexander’s National Security Agency and apparatus sics its spies on us. The same goes for our rights under the successors of Lois Lerner and Sarah Hall Ingram, at the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt division.

But woe betide the NSA or IRS agent who does unto a registered provisional Democrat what he did to a tea-party patriot. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act promises to name and shame this wicked government worker. Caught in the improper use of the personal data of an RPD (Registered Provisional Democrat), the agent will incur a criminal penalty.

The Bill specifies that snooping on beneficiaries of S.744 will be permitted only for the purpose of determining benefits – benefits that happen to be carved out of the hide of taxpaying Americans, immigrants included, who are bereft of equal protections.

To prevent any “errant” law-enforcement officer from daring to quiz a suspicious illegal alien about his status, a “document of special protection while waiting” will be issued to these Democrats-in-Waiting.

Oh, for the privileges of a “Registered Provisional Immigrant,” or a criminal alien, for that matter.

ILANA MERCER is a paleolibertarian writer, based in the United States. She pens WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, “Return to Reason” and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an award-winning, independent, non-profit, free-market economic policy think tank. Ilana’s latest book is Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa. Her website is www.IlanaMercer.com. She blogs at www.BarelyaBlog.com