Immigration and National Security

Hugh Hewitt with the key point on the proposed immigration bill:

Fred, Mitt and Rudy have all blasted the bill, but each should produce a specific indictment of McCain-Kennedy 2.0 that centers on the bill's utter refusal to recognize the new world in which we operate. It isn't just a bill to regularize millions of Spanish speaking economic immigrants from Mexico and Central America's poorest regions.

It is also a bill to regularize hundreds of thousands if not millions of visas jumpers and illegal border-crossers who began their trek in countries that nest significant jihadist networks. Focusing Americans on the problem this presents, and doing so in a way that avoids even remote echoes of nativism while preserving the candor that seriousness permits and indeed obliges will establish these candidates are ready to lead in the post-Bush era. The bill completely fails to address huge gaps in our defense at the borders and entry points across the country and threatens to overwhelm an already heavily burdened security system with tens of millions of new obligations without any sort of manpower or funding plus-up.

We need a serious and focused debate that reassures Americans on these national security issues, and a bill that addresses them.

Related posts: No Idea, Part of the Solution

UPDATE: Sun Times:

The father of a Chicago alderman allegedly snapped the photos that were in the middle of a sophisticated fake ID scheme that culminated in a controversial Little Village raid last month.

Federal authorities say Elias Munoz, 62, of Chicago took the photos to help provide fake documents to Chicagoans every year. Munoz, who owns Nuevo Foto Munoz at 3105 W. 26th St., was charged with taking part in a larger scheme that ensnared 22 people last month.

Tribune:

On three consecutive days, the complaint says, undercover agents had photos taken at the shop and got bogus identification.

Among the items allegedly found in the shop were hundreds of blank Illinois and U.S. identification cards, blank laminates and information stamps. As part of the allegedly illegal work at the photo shop, authorities said, Munoz kept a box of blank order forms.