George Will has been stealing my ideas! His views on the rising immigration controversy eerily follow my own. There are two facts that I think are inescapable. First, America must do better at protecting its borders. Will astutely give four reasons why.
But 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.
Second, the presence of 11 million illegal aliens (let's do away with the "undocumented worker" euphemism) cannot be wished away. Attempts to repatriate those illegals back to where they came from (we're talking mostly Mexico here, of course) are not plausible. Too many are now too imbedded into society. So some method of legalization and assimilation is the best policy. George Will calls those who oppose this policy, falsely calling it amnesty, "faux conservatives." This makes some angry, like Mark Krikorian, but Will's point is that Krikorian and his "let's deport all the illegals" crowd ignore reality, choosing to see the world as they wish it would be, rather than how it really is. That is most unconservative.
Our illegal immigrant problem has long passed the stage where an easy solution is in order. I find Will's plan to be the best of various bad alternatives.
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