Parenting & Family Quote by Virgil Goode

"Amnesty is the magnet" is the kind of language that pretends to be physics while doing politics. Goode borrows a clean, mechanical metaphor - magnets attract, case closed - to make immigration feel like an impersonal force problem instead of a human one. That move is the intent: shift the debate from rights, labor markets, and foreign policy into a simplified story of incentives and pull factors, where the moral question conveniently disappears.

Then he stacks "other magnets" into a grab-bag: "anchor babies", public benefits, tax deductions for employers. Each phrase is a loaded shortcut. "Anchor babies" is not a neutral descriptor; it frames children as tools, births as strategy, and citizenship as a loophole. "Benefits" floats without specifics, inviting the listener to fill in the blank with resentment. The employer deduction point is cleverer: it feints at punishing business but actually reinforces the idea that undocumented people are a cost and a scam, not workers embedded in an economy that depends on them.

The subtext is coalition-building. By naming Mr. King (Steve King, a hardline immigration hawk), Goode signals alignment with a restrictionist wing while sounding policy-minded rather than purely nativist. Context matters: mid-2000s immigration fights, when "amnesty" became a rhetorical tripwire used to torpedo comprehensive reform by rebranding legalization as a reward for lawbreaking. The magnet metaphor offers a satisfying villain - the law itself - and a simple fix: remove the attraction, and the people stop coming. That simplicity is the point.