Back of The Line

There was an article in the local paper yesterday about immigration, which started by stating that consensus seems to have been reached that any reform must include a stipulation that, “If unauthorized immigrants in the United States are allowed to stay, they must go to the back of the line.”

I recall hearing Obama say that repeatedly, that those who came here illegally must pay a fine and “go to the back of the line” and thinking at the time, as I did when reading this article, “What does that really mean?”

The article goes into great detail about what it takes to enter the line and the length of time that persons from various countries must spend there, but what neither the article or Obama mentions or seems to comprehend is that the line forms outside of this country. To put it another way, people in the line are outside waiting to get in so how do people already here, illegally, go to the back of that line without leaving the country?

That’s sort of like telling a line of people outside a movie theater waiting to buy tickets see a movie that a group of people walking past them are going to be allowed to wait in line to buy tickets while in the theater watching the movie because they were caught stealing money. “Commit a crime and you, too, can watch the movie while waiting to buy movie tickets.” There may be some planet where that is logical, but…

I would name the local paper, by the way, but it doesn’t seem to know what its own name is. It used to be the Union-Tribune, but the only thing it goes by now is U-T, which is a logo, not a name. I’m not calling an entity by its stupid logo.