Amnesty supporters will tell you it can’t be amnesty because illegal immigrants will say there are “tough but fair” penalties for illegal immigrants such as paying a fine of some sort, have to pay back taxes and “go to the back of the line” behind those waiting to come here legally for permanent residency and citizenship.

The last bit is particularly deceitful. The “back of the line” language is designed to make it sound like a real penalty is being imposed on illegals. …

In short…illegals will gain immediate legal status upon enactment of the law with no penalty until some unidentified time far off in the future. How is that not amnesty? Until we see the actual legislation, we don’t even know if illegals will have to apply for a green card or citizenship. It’s very possible whatever category of visa they get upon passage of the scheme will entitle them to stay for as long as they want.

Who is really punished by this system? People waiting to come here legally. The legal immigration system is already a mess but now we’ll be dumping upwards of 11 million new people into the system. They will all have to be processed and have background checks done to claim their new status.