- Immigration is yet another issue which
we seem unable to discuss rationally -- in part because words have been
twisted beyond recognition in political rhetoric.
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- We can't even call illegal immigrants
"illegal immigrants." The politically correct evasion is "undocumented
workers."
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- Do American citizens go around carrying
documents with them when they work or apply for work? Most Americans are
undocumented workers but they are not illegal immigrants. There is a difference.
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- The Bush administration is pushing a
program to legalize "guest workers." But what is a guest? Someone
you have invited. People who force their way into your home without your
permission are called gate crashers.
-
- If truth-in-packaging laws applied to
politics, the Bush guest worker program would have to be called a "gate-crasher
worker" program. The President's proposal would solve the problem
of illegal immigration by legalizing it after the fact.
-
- We could solve the problem of all illegal
activity anywhere by legalizing it. Why use this approach only with immigration?
Why should any of us pay a speeding ticket if immigration scofflaws are
legalized after the fact for committing a federal crime?
-
- Most of the arguments for not enforcing
our immigration laws are exercises in frivolous rhetoric and slippery
sophistry, rather than serious arguments that will stand up under scrutiny.
-
- How often have we heard that illegal
immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing
in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price.
-
- Americans will not take many jobs at
their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long
as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.
-
- If Mexican journalists were flooding
into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half
the pay being earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in
the media would understand why the argument about "taking jobs that
Americans don't want" is such nonsense.
-
- Another variation on the same theme is
that we "need" the millions of illegal aliens already in the
United States. "Need" is another word that blithely ignores
prices.
-
- If jet planes were on sale for a thousand
dollars each, I would probably "need" a couple of them -- an
extra one to fly when the first one needed repair or maintenance. But
since these planes cost millions of dollars, I don't even "need"
one.
-
- There is no fixed amount of "need,"
independently of prices, whether with planes or workers.
-
- None of the rhetoric and sophistry that
we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians
are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor.
-
- What millions of other Americans want
has been brushed aside, as if they don't count, and they have been soothed
with pious words. But now the voters are getting fed up, which is why
there are immigration bills in Congress.
-
- The old inevitability ploy is often trotted
out in immigration debates: It is not possible to either keep out illegal
immigrants or to expel the ones already here.
-
- If you mean stopping every single illegal
immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal immigrant
who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we
cannot prevent every single murder cause us to stop enforcing the laws
against murder?
-
- Since existing immigration laws are not
being enforced, how can anyone say that it would not do any good to try?
People who get caught illegally crossing the border into the United States
pay no penalty whatever. They are sent back home and can try again.
-
- What if bank robbers who were caught
were simply told to give the money back and not do it again? What if murderers
who were caught were turned loose and warned not to kill again? Would
that be proof that it is futile to take action, when no action was taken?
-
- Let's hope the immigration bills before
Congress can at least get an honest debate, instead of the word games
we have been hearing for too long.
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- Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
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- http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/ guests_or_gate_crashers.html
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