Some Thoughts on Immigration

Monday was the big day when immigrants, legal and illegal, protested across the state...and nation for that matter. Except for what I saw on TV and in the newspapers, I didn't notice anything different that day.

I'm troubled that things seem to be getting more polarized rather than calm and rational. It seems to me that dogmatists are making things harder, rather than easier, to come up with a solution. Dogmatists include those who say round all 11 million up and deport them immediately - and illegals who hold mass demonstrations waving Mexican flags - and multi-culturalists who seem bound and determined to permanently rupture this nation in the name of tolerance.

One of my brothers married a Peruvian national two years ago. She is a woman in her late 20's with an 11-year-old daughter. They're still filling out forms and hoping she will be able to get here some day. They are determined to do it right, but wondering why. So do I. Isn't it bizarre that if you try to do it right you get a mountain of paperwork and years of waiting; but if you just slip over the border, nothing happens? One of the most basic laws of economics is that what you punish, you get less of and what you reward, you get more of. How does it make any sense to punish people who try to follow the law while rewarding those who break it? And in the process, how many honorable people are we turning into scofflaws?

Meanwhile, my youngest brother is a police sergeant in a community with a substantial Hispanic population. He has to deal with the frontline problems of illegal immigration every day. Do you know who the most frequent victims of identity theft are? Try legal American citizens with Hispanic surnames. It makes sense when you think about it: if Juan Gonzalez slips over the border, it won't be plausible for him to steal the ID of, say, Jack Carter.

We did an amnesty in the 80's that was supposed to clear the decks for getting the situation under control. Instead it just triggered a new wave of massive illegal immigration. Thus, suspicions about anything that even resembles another form of amnesty are justified. Yet, we cannot hope to get the situation under control until the estimated 11 million illegals living in the shadows are dealt with. It simply is not realistic to believe that we are going to deport 11 million people, and I doubt it would have good results anyway.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle is Americans' reasonable lack of trust in the political will and intent of the governing class. If we put a one-time path to citizenship for those already here, it would have to be reasonable enough that illegals would come out of the shadows to exercise it. But it would also have to be coupled with a genuine and ongoing crackdown on any more illegal entries. Automatic deportation. And it would have to be further coupled with a significant streamlining of the procedures for legal immigration. If we did all of these things, we could get this under control, without going nativist. I believe in America as a beacon of hope to the world. But I also believe we have not only the right, but the obligation, to control our borders.

Right now the closet nativists who just dislike all things foreign can use the situation to vent their spleens. Meantime, the anything goes crowd forces more reasonable people to side with the nativists because they want immigrants to have all the benefits of citizenship, with few of the obligations. Meantime, they insist on atomizing a common culture.

I think former President Teddy Roosevelt had it right: when pressured by nativists to cut off immigration he insisted he would retain liberal policies on the matter. But he had two inflexible rules: all Americans would have one flag and one language. That recognized the uniqueness of American culture. America is not so much a matter of geography as a state of mind. To be an American one only has to embrace certain core principles. By making that leap, we were able to create a great stew, in which every group brought their own flavor, but we held together as one nation with one common destiny. I suspect that what the rabid multi-culturalists are succeeding in doing is replicating the tensions that wracked the old world in the new. And we had a means that had successfully integrated so many diverse peoples together.

One more observation that I find interesting. One would think the border with Mexico would be the easier one for Middle Eastern terrorists to get through. After all, many middle easterners could pass for Hispanic fairly easily. Yet most terrorist infiltrators who have tried to enter illegally have tried to come through Canada. I have asked some Hispanic groups why they think that is. They have all told me the same thing: that illegals know if a terrorist gets through, there would surely be a serious crackdown. So Hispanics at the border are careful to get the word to authorities when anyone in their ranks does not speak Spanish. That makes sense to me.

I know this is meandering, but I hope we can create policies that both protect and control our borders - and recognize the humanity of those who want to come here to build better lives for themselves and their families. It makes me mad to see protesters waving Mexican flags. It makes me mad to hear people describe others who are working three dead-end jobs to give their children an opportunity as parasites, too.

E pluribus unum. It's a good motto. If we live it, we can solve this thing with genuine justice for all.