Immigrating Prosperity: Part 1, The Battle Lines

So here we are. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The rhetoric surrounding the debate is deafening and it seems most of the volume comes from one of two points of view. In the blue corner you have “amnesty” and in the red corner you have “round’em up and throw them out”. Well what if neither of these options provides any realistic or long term solution to the issue faced by having so many people here illegally?

“Amnesty” might be one of the most divisive terms out there right now, but what’s wrong with it? For starters we tried it already, in 1986, when we had about 3 million illegal immigrants. Now we have 11 million illegals. It didn’t work. At best all amnesty does is kick the can down the road until the illegal population builds back up to intolerable levels. We were at the breaking point in the mid eighties and we’re back at the breaking point again. Only now with a lot higher numbers. This policy also creates an atmosphere of disregard for the rule of law, continues to promote entering America through the “backdoor”, and does nothing to deal with the border security issue. And of course it never addresses the economic, social or political impacts of transitioning so many unassimilated people from the shadows to the citizenry.

The “round em up” crowd is just generally mad at an array of things. They think those who came here illegally cut in line, steal their jobs and destroy American culture. They see an incompetent Federal Government that rubs salt in the wound with baskets of welfare goodies passed out indiscriminately.

The main problem with the “round em uppers” is the total implausibility of extracting and deporting 11 million people.

We would have to add an untold amount of law enforcement agents to attempt this plan, and on top of that, talk about shredding the Constitution and the idea of America! You would have to give those new agents almost unfettered power to violate every right we have. How else are you to filter the illegals out? Mandated national ID cards and registration, biometric readings, check points, warrantless searches, racial profiling, etc. Beyond that, the wet dream of building an impenetrable concrete wall around the entire perimeter of the United States to keep them out is both impractical and not who we are. Who walls themselves off from others? Not freedom loving nations. The walls I know are generally located in places like China, North Korea and pre-’89 Berlin. Not the places we aspire to be.

In Part 2 of this article we’ll go to a quiet place, where the noise of the rhetoric is not allowed, and have a real discussion.