George Will Right And Wrong On Illegal Immigration
Here is an interesting George Will column about the illegal immigration problem.
First, my favorite part:
Absolutely. There is no excuse for not securing our borders. Whatever we do with the illegal immigrants already in this country, we should all agree that stopping the influx of illegals at the border is a must.
However, that question of what to do with the illegals already here is where my opinion diverges from Will's:
This is the part of the argument for guest worker programs that really irks me. Any time we talk about deportation the guest worker crowd pretends like we're going to try and round the illegal immigrants up in the course of a week and ship them en masse across the border. If that were an easy thing to do we should absolutely do it, but as Will points out believe we could do it is foolish. At this point people like Will conclude that a guest worker program is the only viable alternative to mass deportation, but in this he's wrong mostly because the "mass deportation" argument is a straw-man. Nobody is arguing for mass deportation. What is being argued for is making illegal immigration a more serious crime. If we are going to increase enforcement the border it only makes sense that we should increase enforcement here at home.
This is not a call for loading up illegals on buses and taking them back across the border and those suggesting that it is are fools. Even after we increase the penalty for being here illegally it will likely take decades before all of the illegals are captured and deported. Thus the exodus of illegals will be gradual, not immediate.
I agree with Will that new, more open legal immigration processes need to be established. In fact, I am convinced that increased border security and increased enforcement of immigration laws will not work without it. But I will never, ever be in favor of a guest worker program or any other sort of amnesty for those who have already broken our laws by coming here.
First, my favorite part:
[Border] control belongs at the top of the agenda, for four reasons. First, control of borders is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Second, conditions along the border mock the rule of law. Third, large rallies by immigrants, many of them here illegally, protesting more stringent control of immigration reveal that many immigrants have, alas, assimilated: They have acquired the entitlement mentality created by America's welfare state, asserting an entitlement to exemption from the laws of the society they invited themselves into. Fourth, giving Americans a sense that borders are controlled is a prerequisite for calm consideration of what policy that control should serve.
Absolutely. There is no excuse for not securing our borders. Whatever we do with the illegal immigrants already in this country, we should all agree that stopping the influx of illegals at the border is a must.
However, that question of what to do with the illegals already here is where my opinion diverges from Will's:
Of the nation's illegal immigrants — estimated to be at least 11 million, a cohort larger than the combined populations of 12 states — 60 percent have been here at least five years. Most have roots in their communities. Their children born here are U.S. citizens. We are not going to take the draconian police measures necessary to deport 11 million people. They would fill 200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska — where, by the way, 26,000 Latinos live. And there are no plausible incentives to get the 11 million to board the buses. . . .
Facts, a conservative (John Adams) said, are stubborn things, and regarding immigration, true conservatives take their bearings from facts such as those in the preceding paragraph. Conservatives should want, as the president proposes, a guest worker program to supply what the U.S. economy demands — immigrant labor for entry-level jobs. Conservatives should favor a policy of encouraging unlimited immigration by educated people with math, engineering, technology or science skills that America's education system is not sufficiently supplying.
This is the part of the argument for guest worker programs that really irks me. Any time we talk about deportation the guest worker crowd pretends like we're going to try and round the illegal immigrants up in the course of a week and ship them en masse across the border. If that were an easy thing to do we should absolutely do it, but as Will points out believe we could do it is foolish. At this point people like Will conclude that a guest worker program is the only viable alternative to mass deportation, but in this he's wrong mostly because the "mass deportation" argument is a straw-man. Nobody is arguing for mass deportation. What is being argued for is making illegal immigration a more serious crime. If we are going to increase enforcement the border it only makes sense that we should increase enforcement here at home.
This is not a call for loading up illegals on buses and taking them back across the border and those suggesting that it is are fools. Even after we increase the penalty for being here illegally it will likely take decades before all of the illegals are captured and deported. Thus the exodus of illegals will be gradual, not immediate.
I agree with Will that new, more open legal immigration processes need to be established. In fact, I am convinced that increased border security and increased enforcement of immigration laws will not work without it. But I will never, ever be in favor of a guest worker program or any other sort of amnesty for those who have already broken our laws by coming here.
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