By Michelle Malkin

Published: Sunday, February 3, 2013, 9:00 p.m.
Updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2013

President Obama and the bipartisan Gang of Eight in Washington who want to create a “pathway to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens have sent a message loud and clear to those who follow the rules: You're chumps!

Amnesty peddlers on both sides of the aisle admit their plan is all about votes and power. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain continues his futile chase for the Hispanic bloc. Illinois Democrat Rep. Luis Gutierrez is openly salivating at the prospect of millions of new illegal aliens — future Democratic Party dependents of the Nanny State — who could be eligible for ObamaCare and a plethora of other government benefits despite clear prohibitions against them.

These cynical pols insist that the rest of law-abiding Americans must support Washington's push to “do something” because “11 million people are living in the shadows.”

To which I say: So?

There are 23 million Americans out of work. Why aren't they Washington's top priority anymore? Didn't both parties pledge that jobs for unemployed and underemployed Americans was Job No. 1?

If Washington is really concerned about people “living in the shadows,” how about prioritizing the jaw-dropping backlog of 500,000-plus fugitive deportee cases? Over the past dozen years, only about 100,000 out of 600,000-plus fugitive illegal aliens have been found. If border security and immigration enforcement truly are priorities, why must these two basic government responsibilities be tethered to benefits for line-jumping illegal aliens?

You know who else deserves more attention and compassion than “11 million people living in the shadows”? The 4.6 million individuals around the world who legally applied for sponsored green cards and followed the established legal immigration process. They've been shunted aside while the Obama administration ushers illegal alien “DREAM” waiver winners to the front of the line.

There have been nearly a dozen major amnesty laws, affecting at least 5 million illegal aliens, passed since the Reagan 1986 amnesty. These beneficiaries and their families have crowded out legal immigrants and increased their application waiting times in untold ways.

Want a reality check? Not one of the past federal amnesties was associated with a decline in illegal immigration. Instead, the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has tripled since 1986.

Freshman GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida insists that any new recipients of the Gang of Eight's Grand Pander scheme will have to “go to the back of the line and wait behind everybody who applied before them, the right way.” But as I've reported for the past two decades, the background-check process has been corrupted under both Democrat and Republican administrations.

In 2006, I exposed how some high-immigrant regions rewarded adjudication officers with bonuses for rubber-stamping as many applications as possible without regard to security.

You want “comprehensive immigration reform”? Start with reliable adjudications, fully cleared backlogs, consistent interior enforcement, working background checks for the existing caseload, and efficient and effective deportation policies that punish lawbreakers and do right by law-abiders.

And please don't pretend that piling millions of new illegal aliens onto an already overwhelmed system is going to fix a darned thing.

Michelle Malkin is the author of “Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies” (Regnery 2009).

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