The integrity of the borders is likely to be a debated point this election. With 11 million illegal immigrants looking for work, subsidies and health care and an unknown number with bloody murder on their minds it should be. Bachman recently espoused a search-and-export plan for every single illegal, reminiscent of the ancient repatriation movement after the Civil War. Gingrich recently suggested a moratorium on illegals who have been here for 25 years. The suggestions will attract fire but do suggest a more significant question: How can a nation deal with a problem of this magnitude sensibly?
The American Mexican border is 1954 miles long and covers huge deserts, two major rivers, fierce heat and rugged hills. Twenty thousand border agents are spread along the border to enforce the country's immigration policy. Yet it is estimated that about one half million illegal immigrants cross the border every year. So far one suggestion taken seriously has been to build a fence along the border to contain the movement. While this effort has come a cropper the problem is no less serious. How can a border be defended?
There are some precedents. The Berlin Wall encompassed all of West Berlin for a distance of 91 miles and then also separated West Berlin from East Berlin for an additional 27 miles. There are some successful modern borders, North and South Korea, Israel and Everyone Else. These borders, however, have a characteristic in common: The willingness to kill the violator. The image of immigration units trapping and firing on drug dealers is one thing, trapping and killing families of illegals quite another. I do not mean to say that the failure of the nation to defend itself is a failure of will, like the horrid "Camp of the Saints", but there is a human and humane question here that complicates simple efficiency. Think of a military medical officer faced with a wounded enemy.
Illegal immigration is a journey, an illegal one, but a journey. It has a beginning, a trip and a destination. Unlike a vacation, the destination in immigration--legal or illegal--is more than geographic, it entails reward. At the end of the traveler's rainbow there is work, medical care, Walmart. We cannot influence the nature of the country the immigrant leaves and we clearly cannot efficiently interrupt the journey. But we can influence the rewards of coming to the U.S. illegally. First, any employer who hires non-citizens should be fined and jailed. This will be awkward as there is an industry of falsification of documents but we can manage it. Secondly, there should be no benefits for illegal immigrants, no health care and no schools. The notion that we cannot ask for identification because someone saw a bad World War II movie with "Papers, please" in it is absurd. And it is against the law to ask for identification in school applications.
That might be "Camp of the Saints."
The American Mexican border is 1954 miles long and covers huge deserts, two major rivers, fierce heat and rugged hills. Twenty thousand border agents are spread along the border to enforce the country's immigration policy. Yet it is estimated that about one half million illegal immigrants cross the border every year. So far one suggestion taken seriously has been to build a fence along the border to contain the movement. While this effort has come a cropper the problem is no less serious. How can a border be defended?
There are some precedents. The Berlin Wall encompassed all of West Berlin for a distance of 91 miles and then also separated West Berlin from East Berlin for an additional 27 miles. There are some successful modern borders, North and South Korea, Israel and Everyone Else. These borders, however, have a characteristic in common: The willingness to kill the violator. The image of immigration units trapping and firing on drug dealers is one thing, trapping and killing families of illegals quite another. I do not mean to say that the failure of the nation to defend itself is a failure of will, like the horrid "Camp of the Saints", but there is a human and humane question here that complicates simple efficiency. Think of a military medical officer faced with a wounded enemy.
Illegal immigration is a journey, an illegal one, but a journey. It has a beginning, a trip and a destination. Unlike a vacation, the destination in immigration--legal or illegal--is more than geographic, it entails reward. At the end of the traveler's rainbow there is work, medical care, Walmart. We cannot influence the nature of the country the immigrant leaves and we clearly cannot efficiently interrupt the journey. But we can influence the rewards of coming to the U.S. illegally. First, any employer who hires non-citizens should be fined and jailed. This will be awkward as there is an industry of falsification of documents but we can manage it. Secondly, there should be no benefits for illegal immigrants, no health care and no schools. The notion that we cannot ask for identification because someone saw a bad World War II movie with "Papers, please" in it is absurd. And it is against the law to ask for identification in school applications.
That might be "Camp of the Saints."
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