Governor Paterson's "Pardon Panel" for Crime Committing Legal Immigrants

At first glance one may think that this pardon panel may be a good idea, however - like all liberal initiatives - a second look is necessary. It creates two classes of people whereby immigrants are being pardoned just for being immigrants while Americans are not afforded the same "rights."

I can empathise (in certain exceptional cases) with a legal immigrant that committed a low level crime not be deported. However, an American that would have committed the same crime under similar circumstances would not be pardoned. Is this justice applied equally?

A pardon doesn't just avoid their deportation, it gets them a clean slate and all the rights and privileges accompanying it. This means that they would now be eligible for certain employment opportunities. For instance, a fraudster could become a CPA or financial investment counselor. I'm afraid that this is also a stealth attempt by liberal Democrats to garner thousands of new voters due to the fact that this clean record will allow immigrants to pass the "good moral character" test required to become an American citizen.

It's also no coincidence that this pardon panel comes at the same time as liberals are once again trying to get comprehensive illegal immigration reform through Congress. So once the federal government has legalized illegals, Governor Paterson's panel could give these now legal immigrants (with criminal records) a fresh new start in America. Isn't that wonderful! This basically sends the message to non crime committing legal immigrants in this country - and those waiting to come into this country - that they are a bunch of saps. They could have entered this country illegally (crime 1), stolen an American's identity (crime 2) and broken other laws (crime 3, 4 etc.) and get rewarded with a path to citizenship. This is definitely the land of opportunity ... for some.

It's also interesting to note that liberals continually bend over backwards to accommodate illegal immigrants and "legal" crime committing immigrants while they consistently push for more and more restrictions on the rights of Americans. i.e. First Amendment, Second Amendment, Tenth Amendment ... and so on. It's almost like the Democrat party has figured out that they can no longer attract enough votes from law abiding and productive tax paying citizens (to win elections) so they must creatively grow their voting block.

So in principle and in practice I would oppose this pardon panel. The governor can continue to review exceptional cases as he does now. If they don't like the federal law, they should pressure Congress to amend it rather than subvert the intention of the law ... which is to rid the U.S. of likely criminal re-offenders.