They’ll gladly pay us Tuesday for amnesty today.

Senate Democrats revealed a 26-page plan for immigration reform yesterday. I haven’t read the plan itself (yet), but from the WaPo description, it’s long on amnesty, short on enforcement, and oddly reminiscent of Arizona’s new law.

Seeking to woo Republicans, the 26-page framework, which has not yet been written into a formal bill, emphasizes first taking steps to limit illegal immigration before offering new rights for those here illegally.

Well, that’s good, although it depends on what the “steps” are and, more importantly, how long we can expect those “steps” to remain actively in force.

… the REPAIR (Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform) proposal, as Democrats dubbed it…

Why does every bill have to have an awkward and lengthy name, just so it can fit into an acronym?

…also would create a pathway to legal status for an estimated 10.8 million people who are already in the country illegally, an idea opposed by many conservatives.

“Opposed,” only depending on the context. I’ve long said I’d go along with amnesty if – and only if – we can have constant, eternal, vigilant, zealous enforcement of the borders and of immigration laws to go along with that amnesty.

Problem with that being, you need even more than the Arizona law to do that, and I think we’ve seen what half our political spectrum thinks about that. So: no eternal vigilance, then, in which case, no amnesty.

We’re going to trade amnesty for something that we may never – in fact, probably will never – get in return.

Under the proposal, illegal immigrants currently in the United States would be eligible for legal status in eight years, as long as they learned English…

Racist!

Or, when you say “learned English,” do you mean:

Give those guys amnesty!

The federal government would increase funding for border security…

How much? For how long? Spent how? Do they have money set aside for police presence at all the pro-illegal-immigration protests they’re going to get?

Oh, right, this is a Democrat proposal. Forget the protests.

…and require all American workers get a new version of their Social Security card that would include a biometric identifier to protect against the creation of counterfeits.

I’ve got the usual libertarian objections to that – and, yes, Real I.D. gave me the willies, too. In this day and age, maybe it’s not such a big deal anymore. Dunno.

The real question is: so what? So citizens will get a fancy new I.D. card. At what point will we have to show that card? Under what circumstances is a police officer allowed to ask for it? And what happens if somebody doesn’t have one?

How, precisely, will that differ from what Arizona is doing?

But most importantly, why should I believe that the promise of enforcement and border control now will become real live reality later? Ten years from now? Five? Why should I believe that this won’t simply be a repeat of the amnesty we granted in the 1980s?

More at Memeorandum and at HotAir, where Allahpundit says:

Speaking of The One and immigration, here’s a direct quote from what he said to reporters yesterday about Arizona’s law: “What I think is a mistake is when we start having local law enforcement officials given the power to stop people on the suspicions that they may be undocumented workers.”

So Obama will oppose this Senate Democrat plan, too? Or will they simply not enforce the ID requirement?