People Flows...

Ever wonder how many people immigrate into, or emigrate out of, any particular country?  Here's a cool web site that lets you investigate exactly these questions.  For example, here's emigration from Mexico – and there were some surprises on this for me...

One in Eight...

One in eight children born in the U.S. are the progeny of illegal immigrants...

Boycott Arizona-stan!

Mark Steyn at his finest, on the topic of immigration policy – don't miss it!

Learning from Mexico...

Reader Doug S. passes along a discussion of Mexico's immigration policies – which, as many have noted, expose the hypocrisy of those Mexican officials now railing against Arizona's decision to start enforcing the border at the state level, since the feds won't do it.

Why is this hypocritical?  Well, here's the short version: Mexico's immigration policies are far stricter than either the U.S. Federal restrictions in practice, or the Arizona law just passed.  But some Mexican officials are hollering loudly about the “inhumanity” and “unfairness” of our laws...

Peggy Noonan Spanks the Feds...

...over the Arizona immigration law.  Good stuff...

Potential Net Migration Survey...

Here's a fascinating Gallup poll of over a quarter million people worldwide.  The survey asked people “If you could live in any country you wanted to, which country would that be?”

The results from this poll lead to several interesting results, such as “What's the most popular country people want to move to?” (the U.S.) and “What countries do people most want to leave?” (basically anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa).  But it also leads to some interesting results on net immigration.  By summing up all the people who want to move into a country, then subtracting from that all the people who want to leave that same country, then dividing that result by the number of people currently in the country, you get net migration figures.  The larger the positive net migration, the more people (on a percentage basis) want to move there.

These numbers get distorted a bit by the current population.  For example, tops on this metric is little Singapore, at 260%.  This means that if everyone who wanted to move into or out of Singapore could magically do so, Singapore's population would almost quadruple.  Now Singapore's population is less than 2% of the U.S. population, so this means that roughly 10 million more people would like to move into Singapore than out of it.

The U.S. is 12th from the top on this metric, at 60%.  Because the U.S. population is so much larger, that means that about 180 million more people would like to move into the U.S. than out of it.  Yikes!  That's a lot of people!!

Also very telling are the country-to-country net immigration numbers, where the U.S. is set against other developed countries.  It turns out that in every case, more people want to move to the U.S. from another developed country (the U.K., France, Sweden, Norway, Canada, etc.) than vice versa.

It would be very interesting to see these data trended plotted over the years, to see the trends...

Lamm's Plan...

Richard D. Lamm has a plan:

I have a secret plan to destroy America. ... Here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country. ...

2. I would then invent “multiculturalism” and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. ...

3. We can make the United States a “Hispanic Quebec” without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. ...

4. Having done all this, I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated. ...

5. I would then get the big foundations and big business to give these efforts lots of money. ...

6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. ...

7. Then I would place all these subjects off-limits–make it taboo to talk about. ...

8. Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson’s book “Mexifornia” –this book is dangerous; it exposes my plan to destroy America. ...

Go read the whole thing.

Update: Gunfire in Jamul

A few days ago, I reported on the gunfire that led to the closure of 94 for about an hour. Last night I received the following email from a woman who notes that she is Scott Amerman's mother:

Regarding Jamul man jailed for allegedly shooting in Transient Camp. You might be interested in some background: 2003 My son came to nurse me for 8 months after doctors gave me 2 mos to live. Deplorable state of vagrant camp behind my (not his) mobile home upset him. Once he was hit over the head in the grove, robbed and left for dead. Scott moved on when my health was restored. My Mobile Home Park was overrun with rats. 2006 I launched campaign to clean up the olive grove. Responses: Fire Dept, "call if you smell smoke." Immigration -"got green cards." Sheriff -"no crime. " DEA-"can't find anything." Vector Control gave me traps. County Health- "Yes, bacteria count in creek's high." It's gone on for years! Sent DVD's of campsites to everyone. Duncan Hunter directed me to a Santee meeting. Heather Lucas (Ch 8 News) did a spot on me. People began to listen. Was directed to Code Enforcement. They fined the owner. He cleaned up acreage. Hurrah! Rats gone! Short lived victory. Visiting me, Scott found they're back, lighting campfires in that tender box environment. My daughter lost her home and narrowly escaped with her life in 2003 Alpine fire. Campfires 40' from my home aren't acceptable to Scott. Criminal element of drug runners is intolerable. He felt he had to protect me since no authority does. Took his life in his hands to single handedly go tell them to leave. Incredible -about 30 patrol cars rushed here! Couldn't get them here after real criminals until after they'd gone. Scott surrendered peacefully. All charges were dropped. I don't know if the illegals & vagrants are still there. I'll ask a Sheriff to go with me so I can take photos and start the process again - if I don't get burned out first. Question: What do you do when the system is broken and no longer functions to protect you? Sheriff said get a petition signed by park residents and send it to the owner saying we hold him responsible. So….doesn’t that still put it back in our lap…and if the owner doesn’t cooperate, it’s another useless paper like the ones the Sheriffs give the transients.

Scott's Mom

Transients and illegals lighting campfires is one of our nightmares out here in the chaparral. The Horse Fire last year, and the Pine Fire (97% contained as of 6 PM last night) were both started by such campfires. Assuming the account by Scott's mom is accurate, the asymmetry of the law enforcement response to the prior complaints versus the gunfire is appalling – and infuriating to anyone who cares about the lives or property of residents here. It's easy for me to understand how Scott could be very angry and frustrated in that situation. If I saw a campfire on my property (or on a neighbor's) in our current dry fuel conditions, I'm not at all certain that my reaction would be civil, level-headed, or within the bounds of the law…

Poop on the Porch

Mike D. passed this story along:

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. Within a week, we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tiles, the chairs, the table...everywhere. Then some of the birds turned mean: They would dive-bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud: They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore. I took down the bird feeder and, in three days, the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be...quiet, serene and no one demanding thei r rights to a free meal.

Now let's see...our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen. Then the illegal's came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor: you child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English; Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to press "one" to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than "Old Glory" are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

This is the first immigration-related email in quite a while that I agree with. It analogizes nicely a couple of the points I keep making about our current immigration policy: the welfare programs are wrong-headed, and "immigrants" who are really just transient workers with no intention of becoming Americans are undesirable. Removing the welfare programs -- and enforcing immigration law in the workplace -- would indeed "clean up our porch".

But I'm pessimistic about this happening. More likely, I think, is the direction things seem to be headed in Congress: some token (and utterly useless) "border security" efforts, some token internal enforcement, and a huge broadening of immigrant welfare programs and an amnesty for those already here.

All of which makes me start thinking about the unthinkable: where else, other than America, might I want to live? Because if we continue down this path, I don't think my country is going to remain the kind of place I want to live in...

30 Years

On June 30, 2005 there was a horrific crash that killed five people and injured five more. Two of the dead were children; one was a pregnant woman. The car was full of illegal aliens being smuggled into the U.S., but nobody was chasing the car -- the driver, probably nervous and frightened, passed on a blind corner and crashed head-on into a large pickup.

The driver of that car was Fidel Wilfredo Gonzales, who is 20 years old now -- and has just been sentenced to 30 years in prison on multiple counts of gross vehicular manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon.

Gonzales is directly responsible for the horrors of that day. His actions, taken of his own free will, caused those deaths, injuries, and much consequent misery. He deserves that sentence, and arguably more.

But while he bears responsibility for his own actions, I believe our immigration policies bear responsibility, too -- not for his actions, but for creating the incentives for those actions. Gonzales was essentially in this game for the money, and the money was only there because these aliens could only immigrate here illegally. I don't know whether the aliens Gonzales was carrying wanted to come here to become Americans, or simply to take advantage of jobs or handouts available here for them. In either case, I believe our current policies are loony.

People who want to come here to become good Americans -- we should welcome them, plain and simple.

People who want to come here to take advantage of our generosity -- we should remove their incentive for doing so. Not by the utterly hopeless notion of "closing the border", but instead by being tough on employers who illegally hire them, and by stopping the government handouts and policies (such as free hospital care) that attract them.

Instead, we have our hopelessly ill-designed system of unachievable goals, conflicting incentives, and guaranteed human misery. The miserable story of Gonzales and his passengers is but one tiny piece, destined to be repeated over and over until and unless we chuck our current system out the window. Let's chuck it!

Immigration Reform

One of my readers wrote to ask why I haven't posted about the immigration reform. Fair question, but I'll warn you: it's complicated.

First of all, I have very little real understanding of what the immigration bill actually says -- and the contents are still very much in flux. Worse, I suspect that none of our Senators and Representatives really understand it either. The thing is hundreds of pages long (you can see it here on N.Z. Bear's wonderful site dedicated to this bill).

What little I do understand about the immigration reform bill, I don't like -- but probably not for the reasons you might guess. What I don't like is that it's basically more of the same stuff we're doing now, which I object to. My underlying thoughts:

• I believe, on principle, than anyone with a desire to become an American should be allowed to come to America to pursue that dream. Many people don't know it, but America had no restrictions at all on immigration until the late 1800s -- and significant restrictions were first put in place in the 1930s. I believe we've lost something important by pursuing the route of immigration control.
  
  
• I believe that immigrants who fail to become good Americans should be deported. By "become a good American", I mean assimilation and permanent residence, learning our common language (English, as some seem not to know), and in general, good behavior. All of these are necessarily subjective assessments, and I believe we should not shrink from making them. In other words, rather than "defend the border", I believe we should cull our prospective citizens to get rid of the bad apples.
  
  
• I believe that immigrants should make it on their own steam, or with the help of their sponsors -- not with government assistance. I believe this is an essential filter mechanism to ensure that America attracts good, productive new citizens -- not welfare recipients.
  
  
• I believe that the notion of "defending the borders" is absurd on first principles. Particularly deceptive is the idea that we must defend the borders to defend against terrorism. The very idea that any conceivable border defense (whether practical or not) would inhibit terrorist attacks on the U.S. is laughable on its face -- the only way we could accomplish that is if we walled ourselves off from the world, and allowed no travelers in or out. Putting up a fence on the Mexican border will simply cause the people who so desperately want to come to the U.S. to come in through some other means -- and there will always be some other means.
  

So there's my slightly radical viewpoint. It seems clear that the immigration reform bill makes no move in this direction, so I do not support it.

Assimilation

Starchild had this interesting comment on my earlier immigration post “Wretched Refuse":

Good comments, I largely agree. I also favor open borders, as well as ending the welfare state. But you also say you want to increase the societal pressures on immigrants to assimilate, and here I’m not so sure what you have in mind. Cutting off benefits would not guarantee cultural assimilation. You say you personally know a family that you say exemplifies the kind of non-assimilation you find objectionable. Do you have anything particular in mind besides not speaking English? If you mean his political views, have you asked him *why* he wants California to become part of Mexico again? Perhaps it’s simply because if it were part of Mexico, he wouldn’t have to worry about being branded as “illegal” and deported! Obviously, repealing the dumb immigration laws would solve this problem. But if you want people in the U.S. pressured to speak English or assimilate in other ways, you as an acquaintance of this family and someone who is apparently bilingual, seem to be in an ideal position to exert the kind of pressure you speak of. Have you done anything to exert this pressure? If it’s not going to come from people like you, who do you expect to do the job? Personally I don’t see any great need for everyone in America to speak English, but if you want them to, what are you doing about it in the case where you could make a direct impact? I’d love to hear more about this family and your interactions with them.

Starchild raises several interesting questions in here, but especially this one: exactly what is “assimilation” as I meant it in the earlier post?

I had to put the ponder to work on this one for a while, to find a way to express what seems so clear in my own mind. Fundamentally, what I come down to is this: “assimilation” is what happens as a consequence of an immigrant wanting to become an American, to live here permanently — as opposed to wanting to exploit America. Often, those in the latter group have no intention of staying in America — they expect, someday, to return “home", and “home", for them, is not America. In other words, assimilation (in the sense that I mean it) isn’t some defined process an immigrant goes through; there’s no 12-step plan leading to the perfectly assimilated immigrant. “Assimilated” is how you might describe an immigrant who wants to be an American, and who works hard at achieving that.

I can also observe that immigrants learning English often falls into the same category: those immigrants who want to become Americans tend to want to learn English. It isn’t that I see learning English as some sort of requirement for immigrants, it’s that I observe a strong correlation between the desire to learn English and those immigrants who want to become Americans, not exploit America. That correlation isn’t a perfect one, and I have myself noted some exceptions — most especially amongst older immigrants, where, most likely, learning a new language is a more difficult challenge.

With regard to increasing societal pressures: here I mostly mean changing our country’s programs, policies, and attitudes about immigrants and what we expect of them. One form of pressure is the requirement to work, to contribute, and to pay your share of the cost of running America (taxes). The programs and policies we have in place now — and the attitudes you can infer directly from them — directly contradict this ideal. Today we tell immigrants (to be blunt): please come here and mooch from us. We will, however stupidly and senselessly, make it possible for to come here and exploit us — and we’ll make sure you’re safe, comfortable, and well-fed while you’re doing it. Oh, and we’ll pay for your medical care, and educate your kids, too. And if you happen to accidentally commit some crime (say, murder), you can just go back to Mexico, where you’ll be safe from our police. These are examples of the opposite kind of societal pressures I’d like to see put in place. So, for example, I’d like to see the elimination of the vast array of free support programs that are in place today: for food, shelter, medical care, education, and so on. This is not because I don’t want to support immigrants, it’s because those programs, as currently constituted, act as lures for those immigrants would would exploit America. If a way could be found to help only those immigrants who actually want to become Americans, without incurring all the problems of the welfare state, I would be all for it. In my view this is very similar to the welfare program issues that led to welfare reform in the '90s; similar solutions would be solutions that I’d support.

Have I done my bit? With the family I previously mentioned — the unassimilated immigrants who live in our valley — I have made it clear to the father that I do not approve of his behavior and his attitude. I’ve also made it clear to him that he will get no work (he’s a “handyman” always looking for the odd job to do) from me so long as he and his family are so clearly not on a path to becoming American citizens. But I am not confident that he actually understood anything beyond the fact that I had no work for him, and that I was unhappy about something; his English is very rudimentary, and my Spanish is non-existant. However, this much is crystal clear to me, from several conversations with him: he is here (in America, I mean) because of all the freebies we hand out to him and his family, none of which are available to him in Mexico (his home country). He is completely open about his plan, which is to save the money he makes on odd jobs, while surviving on welfare and having his childred educated for free. When he has enough saved to retire, he’s heading back to Mexico with his family. He’s an expert on all the various benefit programs we have, and on how to bend (or break) the rules when a rule would otherwise impede his sucking at the teat, and how to avoid fees and taxes. I’ve learned more about the welfare programs available from him than from many years of reading the lamestream media…

On the question of why my immigrant neighbor wants California to become part of Mexico — I have asked him this. As best I understand his answer, it is simply that he believes the transfer of wealth from California to Mexico would benefit Mexicans, and therefore he and his family. He seems to believe that Mexico is intrinsically poor, that there’s nothing Mexico could do itself to change its sad economic state. Consistent with the foregoing, he seems to believe that California is intrinsically wealthy, and that transferring California to Mexico would automatically make Mexico wealthy, even with the Mexican government running it. Another element in his attitude seemed clear as well: he didn’t have any firmly held beliefs about the “rightness” of transferring California to Mexico — it’s simply that he’s Mexican, and transferring California to Mexico would be good for Mexico, so therefore he supports it. It seems to really be that simple-minded an “analysis” for him. This is basically the exact opposite of someone who is assimilating into America.

The Wretched Refuse

On a bronze plaque inside the base of the Statue of Liberty, this poem by Emma Lazarus is graven:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

For me, and I think for many other Americans, this poem (especially the last stanza) captures the ideal of America’s acceptance — and welcoming — of immigrants. For the world’s most impoverished, most abused, most exploited…America is very profoundly the land of hope; the land where even the poor people are fat, and where anybody’s child can grow up to be president.

But for many people whose lives are described by Emma Lazarus' poem, the reality is much different. For reasons completely outside their control, their immigration into the U.S. is illegal. “The wretched refuse of your teeming shore” describes most of the Hispanic illegal aliens I’ve ever seen or met, but they are certainly not made welcome in today’s America — they can only get to the land of hope by sneaking in. Illegally.

Until 1875, there was no such thing as illegal immigration into the United States — anyone who showed up was welcome. How is it that we have illegal immigration today?

The beginning of it all was the “Chinese Exclusion Act” of 1882, which was aimed at preventing Chinese “coolies” and female prostitutes from entering the country. These people were lured by the huge numbers of jobs available for railroad construction, and the then-primarily Caucasian residents were unhappy (for various reasons both justified and unjustified) to have tens of thousands of very alien Chinese in their midst. That’s where it all started.

After that, a series of immigration acts more-or-less continuously increased the kinds of restrictions we put on immigration. Incrementally we have moved away from the spirit of Emma Lazarus' sonnet, to the point now where I doubt she’d feel motivated to write it. Today, if you’re a Cuban desperate to escape Casto’s hellhole, you can risk your life crossing the Carribean in a small boat — and if the U.S. Coast Guard happens to see you and pick you up 5 feet from shore, we’ll just send you right back to Cuba — you are not welcome here, bud, however wretched you might be, and however you yearn to breathe free. Today, if a high-tech employer in the United States wants to hire you and bring you to California from (say) Slovenia, chances are that you will be turned down. You’re not welcome, bud, no matter how much your education and skills would contribute to America, because the quota for the year was filled in March. There’s nothing about quotas or limits on our Statue of Liberty. The spirit that Emma so eloquently expressed has been lost somehow.

How did this happen? What’s different today than for the first hundred years of this country, when all immigrants were welcomed with open arms, and when there was no such thing as illegal immigration?

The answer to that is very complicated, and has many components. One of the major contributors to this, I believe, is modern liberalism and its desire to relieve the misery of the poor and down-trodden. Expressed as I just did, these goals sound wholly admirable and self-evidently good. But the long-term effect of the liberal programs and policies has done much to contribute to the situation today. Consider:

— In the first hundred years (and more, actually) of this country’s history, when someone immigrated to the United States, the only help they could count on was from relatives, employers, and the very few “safety net” kinds of charities. In the big cities there were some organized charities; in the countryside the help came from neighbors and churches. There was nothing even remotely like today’s network of assistance ("hand-outs") for everything from food to medical services. Generally (but not always) the children of immigrants were afforded an education equivalent to that of the citizens, but for just about everything else there was intense societal pressure on the new immigrants to work and to assimilate into the American way of life. They were expected to learn English, to work, and to earn their own way.

— Today, when someone immigrates into the United States (legally or illegally!), they have a vast array of assistance available to them. While it is certainly true that most immigrants still find work, they don’t actually have to do so. They can get medical care without cost; they can get free food; they have entitlements to education and job skills training. Their children are guaranteed access to free public education, and even special training programs. These are the programs and policies of modern liberalism — but look what the consequence has been: no longer do our immigrants feel pressure to assimilate; our society accepts their importation of language and culture. In parts of San Diego County today, you can easily imagine that you have somehow been transported to Mexico: all the signs are in Spanish, and the trashiness of Tijuana surrounds you. The people who live in these areas see no reason to become American — and in fact, many of these people would like to see California and Arizona returned to Mexico. And some of our institutions, including universities, support these notions!

It’s instructive, I think, to look at individual examples. I know many immigrants and some very well; California is quite a melting pot. I can, by and large, make a dichotomy from the immigrants I know: there are those who want to become Americans, and there are those who want to exploit America. Those are two very different mindsets, but in today’s America, both are equally welcomed. This is one of the bitter fruits of liberalism; the good intentions gone rotten. But here are a couple of examples that will serve to illustrate my points:

A couple who are friends of ours are immigrants from Estonia, which was part of the Soviet Union until 1991. They are roughly my age, so they grew up and became adults under the Soviet system. They immigrated into the United States in 2000, with some family members already here to act as a safety net. They were quickly gainfully employed; both have done very well. They have learned English, and continue to improve their English skills. They have — very deliberately — assimilated into American culture. They have not forgotten their own background and culture, and they continue to cherish things Estonian (and Russian, for they are ethnic Russians). Last year, they became U.S. citizens. As a lifelong American, I look at this couple and applaud them — and I am confident their arrival here is a good thing for my country. They are not exploiting America; they are enhancing it.

Another family I know lives in the same valley that we do. They came to the United States illegally, though I do not know what their current immigration status is. They have made almost no attempt to assimilate into American culture. The father speaks only rudimentary and limited English; not even enough to get by in the workplace. The wife speaks only Spanish. Their three children were educated in American public schools; the entire family’s medical care (including one episode of cancer) is paid for entirely by the U.S. taxpayer. The family has been on food stamps for most of their 15 years in this country, again at taxpayer expense. And in my most recent conversation with the husband, I discovered that he is very supportive of the efforts to have California become part of Mexico “again”. As a lifelong American, I look at this family and I am appalled. I am appalled at their miserable life — in America! — and at their lack of initiative to change that fact. And I am appalled that we Americans have created the conditions that allowed such families to be welcomed here. By that last sentence I do not mean that I favor stopping them at the border. Rather, I would like to see the return of the societal pressure to assimilate, and the removal of the modern liberal programs and policies that aid and abet the unassimilated immigrants. Yes, I really mean what I’m saying there, and I’ll say it more bluntly — I want to make life more difficult for immigrants. I want them to work, pay taxes, learn English, and…to have the freedom to fail. I want there to be consequences — economic and psychological — for the failure to assimilate and the failure to contribute.

And I want America to welcome all immigrants — again. I want Emma Lazarus' sonnet to describe my America — but only if the immigrants who yearn to breathe free want to breathe free as Americans. I want to see a return to the day when immigrants come to America, by and large, to become Americans and to enhance America, rather than to exploit America and its generosity. I would like to see a retreat from liberalism on this front, and a return to nasty old social Darwinism. I believe that would be very good for America, and that it would be quintessentially American.

But I don’t think it’s very likely to happen, sadly for me. Today’s liberals are promoting open borders with ever more liberal programs and policies that almost seem designed to entice immigrants away from assimilation and away from become Americans; these programs and policies positively encourage the exploitation of America. Our conservative politicians seem focused on border control and enforcement of our existing (stupid) immgration laws, probably for no better reason in general than political expediency — because many Americans seem to believe that building a fence is going to “solve” the immigration problem.

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

This is a lovely ode to an equally lovely idea. Today it is just words; mere political “spin”. In truth our welcome mat is no longer out. We routinely slam our door to the wretched, even to the point of returning them to regimes that execute them. We say to these people yearning to breathe free “Go away. Die; we don’t care."

As an American, I am deeply ashamed of this.

But I am angry at the exploiters, and angry at us for creating the conditions that encourage the exploiters. And frustrated that the fact of the exploiters — the fact that they exist, I mean — is driving many Americans to try to keep immigrants out. If the vast majority of immigrants were in the first part of my dichotomy — hard-working, contributing people who assimilate into and enhance America — then I believe the vast majority of Americans would welcome them with open arms. The exploiter immigrants — tolerated and even encouraged by us and our liberal policies and programs — are the driver behind the “build a fence” movement. No American that I know of actually wants the exploiters to be here, not even liberals. But our liberal policies and programs are like an irresistable bait — of course the exploiters are going to come here when we treat them as we do.

Can we change? I am, I’m afraid, not confident…

Breaking the Law

Certainly I won’t argue that crossing the U.S. border without permission isn’t illegal. An interesting fraction — the more rabid — of the anti-immigration crowd stops thinking right there: it’s illegal!, they holler. Punish them! Don’t reward them with the right to stay here! End of story.

Personally, I don’t think the story ends there, and I don’t think it’s quite so simple. For starters, our immigration laws are a complete mess — a ludicrous mish-mash of stupidity, racism, failed initiatives with good intentions, failed initiatives with bad intentions, and a general lack of anything constructive, useful, or even moral. I have next to zero respect for our immigration laws, and even less for our lame “enforcement” of them.

Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal touched on something close to this in a column today:

From Bastiat Knows What Frist Doesn’t About Immigration by Daniel Henninger:

Another 19th-century Frenchman close to the hearts of American conservatives is Frederic Bastiat, who had a further thought: “The surest way to have the laws respected is to make them respectable.” Is our immigration law “respectable"? Need you ask?

America is a nation of laws by now so numerous that it provides jobs for more lawyers per capita than any nation on earth. They serve as legal lifeguards, saving mostly honest citizens from the legal system’s capricious undertow. Medical malpractice and asbestos are two areas of law for which “respect” is about zero. A law’s existence requires compliance, but not respect.

Some of the anti-Mexican sentiment likely reflects an embarrassed awareness of our degraded laws, and so it has chosen to draw a line in the legal sand over immigration. That won’t change the fact that U.S. immigration law is a disrespectable morass.

Swaths of American business openly ridicule the immigration law regulating so-called H-1B temporary visas for highly skilled non-citizen engineers and computer scientists. This controversial boom-and-bust employment morass exists because there is no rational system to give permanent, green-card status to these non-citizen workers and their families. Insisting on “respect” for a law that is doing damage to the nation’s economy is cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. That is a bad habit.

The immigration law asking for respect is simply a system of legislated quotas, not much more than a numbers game. The people who play this game — anyone seeking entry to the U.S. for a spouse, sibling, child or worker — make monthly visits to the State Department’s Web-based Visa Bulletin. Have a look; it actually resembles a bingo card.

What he said.

Those of you who live far from a border may not realize just how dumb our “border control” is. I’ve lived within a few miles of the Mexican border for over 30 years, so I’ll claim some personal knowledge of how we deal with our border enforcement. Over that period we’ve changed our laws and our policies considerably — and nearly always in a way that makes them less sensible and less…respectable.

Just to pick on one example: several cities in San Diego County have enacted so-called “sanctuary laws", basically forbidding the police (or any emergency workers) from even asking about a person’s immigration status — much less actually enforcing U.S. law. And the U.S. Border Patrol is forbidden (by policy) from enforcing immigration laws outside the immediate border area. The illegal immigrants know exactly what cities have sanctuary laws, and of course they know that in those cities they are completely safe. Would you — do you — respect such a law and enforcement policy? I don’t.

It reminds me a bit of our laws and enforcement policies on speeding. It’s very clear to any motorist that enforcement of speeding laws is haphazard, and equally clear that in certain circumstances they are completely ignored. Just to pick on one local example: the traffic in the I-5 corridor through Camp Pendleton (which I used to commute on weekly) routinely runs at 80 to 85 MPH, in a 65 MPH zone. I’m not talking about the occasional speeder — I’m talking about virtually every vehicle, traveling 15 to 20 MPH over the speed limit. And yet enforcement is virtually zero; it has been years since I’ve seen someone being ticketed there, despite the CHP cars and motorcycles traveling along with the traffic frequently. That law is not respected, and clearly none of the motorists have any respect for the law. Should we levy heavy fines on those motorists? Imprison the repeat offenders? I don’t see a lot of support for that, for the reasons just given.

Is the immigration situation different in any significant way?

When it is true — and known to be true — that an illegal immigrant can live safely and openly in Chula Vista (a San Diego County city just 5 miles from the border), with the city openly declaring sanctuary and welcome for illegal immigrants, with economic opportunity beckoning (relative to Mexico), can we really say that breaking the immigration laws is entirely the illegal immigrant’s fault?

Myself, I think not. I think we American citizens are also culpable. We need, as Daniel Henninger put it, “respectable laws” — I’ll add sensible and moral laws — and we need to enforce them. Then, and I believe only then, can we hold the illegal immigrants fully responsible for their infractions.

Note that this is not an argument for any particular kind of immigration law — that’s a whole 'nother topic, for a whole 'nother day. All I’m arguing for here is laws that make sense — that are internally consistent, that are possible to enforce, that don’t violate any of the principles that we Americans hold (or should hold) dear. Respectable laws.

Politicians, want my vote? Are you listening?

Faster, please.