Impossible Goals in Immigration

This is just plain impossible:

Federal authorities would be required to establish vast new border fences and surveillance as part of a bipartisan Senate plan aimed at allowing the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants to earn permanent residency and, potentially, citizenship, aides familiar with the proposal said Wednesday. 

The provisions would call on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to increase surveillance to cover 100 percent of the Southwestern border and to apprehend 90 percent of the people who attempt to enter the United States illegally, said the aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private negotiations.

Requiring 100% of anything cannot work. If this is the required trigger then we'll never see immigration reform unless the numbers just get made up. If this is the case, then it will generate opposition and cynicism pretty quickly.

Advocates also have voiced concerns about tying border security to the path to citizenship, saying they feared that disputes over the effectiveness of the new measures could delay the process for undocumented residents.

Exactly.

Further, it is a dumb idea. We already know very well how poorly the fences have worked up to this point, so this will be an extraordinarily costly measure to achieve very little. But it is the cost of doing business with a nativist Congress.

Let's hope it is just a trial balloon. John McCain sums it up:

Asked if the provisions were strong enough to convince his GOP colleagues to support the bill, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a member of the working group, said Wednesday: “Damned if I know.”