The Colorado Compact: An empty piñata

...Stacked blue ribbon commissions as a form of political manipulation are not unique to our nation’s capital. We see them at the state level, too...

Of course, if you launch a blue ribbon commission, your starting point must be the principle that all “immigrants” must be treated equally, whether legal or illegal. The inconvenient fact that under federal law for over 100 years illegal aliens are not “immigrants” is not allowed to enter the picture...

Out in Colorado, a self-selected group of elite “opinion leaders” got together last month to tell Coloradans to “fix the immigration problem.” Their plan is called the “Colorado Compact,” which is modeled on the Utah Compact of a year ago, which, you will not be surprised to learn, accomplished nothing.

What we have in this “Colorado Compact for Immigration Fairness” is a collection of platitudes, clichés and empty gestures, all aiming to “change the rhetoric” so that a “solution can be found” to the problem of unfairness...

But behind the honeyed language of the Compact is a noticeable arrogance and a political agenda...

What’s missing from the Compact’s barrage of sweet platitudes is a respect for the rule of law. In 2006, a special session of the Colorado General Assembly was called to head off a bipartisan ballot initiative on immigration enforcement, a ballot measure modeled on Arizona’s successful Proposition 200. That ballot measure was dropped by its bipartisan sponsors when the legislature passed a package of bills that both Republican Gov. Owens and Democrat leaders called the “toughest in the nation".

Apparently, those tough laws of 2006 do not meet the new 2013 test [of] “fairness."...

I believe there are reasonable and fair solutions to the problem of massive illegal migration across our borders. But we can find them only through honest debate, not a sugar-coated subterfuge offered by blue ribbon commissions.

We could take border security seriously, as the 9/11 Commission recommended 10 years ago, and then tackle the problem of the 12-to-20 million illegal aliens already here.

We could enact a federal mandatory E-Verify law to simplify workplace enforcement as recommended by a 2009 Denver University special report...

What we surely don’t need is another blue ribbon committee blowing smoke in our eyes...