The authors of the failed 1986 illegal alien amnesty, former Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-KY) and former Senator Alan K. Simpson (R-WY), offer "Enacting Immigration Reform, Again". Their article is little more than a bad and pathetic joke:

Since illegal immigration continues nearly unabated today, legitimate questions can be raised about the effectiveness of [1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act - IRCA, or the Simpson-Mazzoli bill]. Although we do have pride of authorship, we also believe that the shortcomings of the act are not due to design failure but rather to the failure of both Democratic and Republican administrations since 1986 to execute the law properly.

Why haven't they done that?

One answer is that there are never enough federal budget resources. Another is that administrations of both stripes are loathe to disrupt economic activities - i.e. labor supply in factories, farms and businesses.

There are, of course, other possibilities that they don't mention. For instance, political corruption: lots of companies make lots of money off "economic activities" generated by illegal aliens, and those companies then donate to politicians who simply do what those companies want. And, there are more sinister possibilities, such as replacing Americans with more pliable immigrants to the move to create the North American Union.

Then, perhaps because they vainly think they would be vindicated or perhaps for other reasons, they say:

We believe that our three-legged-stool approach is still relevant and workable if carried out vigorously.... We earnestly hope that before this Congress adjourns, the House and Senate will compromise, wring out the raw partisanship, and find a way to send President Bush - who has staked so much on enactment of solid immigration reform - a measure structured along the lines of our original bill. There is still time.

There's always that "if", isn't there? Unfortunately, nowhere in their piece do they even discuss whether the new amnesty would be enforced any more than their amnesty was. They provide no assurances that it would be enforced; they provide no proposals to make sure it would be enforced.

What would actually happen is that those same corrupt forces that prevent enforcement now would prevent it later. Passing "reform" isn't going to make corrupt corporations, corrupt foreign governments, and racial power groups go away. In fact, "reform" would be a capitulation to their demands and would make them even stronger than they are now.

I don't know why these two are promoting "reform", but if they wanted to make partial amends for what they were involved in before they would spell out all the possible reasons why their "reforms" weren't enforced and offer real solutions.