Clare Boothe Luce is given credit for this insight: “In this
world there are optimists and pessimists. The pessimists are better
informed.” If La Luce were with us today and said this, she might
be talking about the current highly political and
way-less-than-useful back and forth about America’s chronic illegal
immigration problem.
Some conservatives are praising Florida Senator Marco Rubio (and
his seven accomplices) for his high-minded “principles,” meant to
morph into legislation that would deal with our immigration mare’s
nest. Another group of conservatives — we’ll find out later which
group is larger — say his approach is little more than amnesty for
those here illegally and, more importantly, an incentive for more
millions more to come here illegally and be a financial burden to
the federal and local governments.
The second group is made up of almost everyone who has spent any
time thinking about how Rubio’s principles would work in practice.
They see that his plan differs hardly a whit from the open borders
dream the left has been putting forward for decades, and which
failed when Ronald Reagan fell for it in the eighties. The first
group is made up of large numbers of people who believe we really
mean it this time about securing the border, and that this time
Lucy will hold the football so Charlie Brown can kick it.
Last Thursday I spoke with Rubio spokesman Alex Conant, who made
a spirited and articulate defense of Rubio’s efforts. I’ve waited
until now to write about defense’s arguments because I hesitate to
criticize Rubio, a sound conservative who is so right about so many
things (including opposing the bumbling Chuck Hagel for SECDEF).
But after analyzing, poring over, re-thinking, sifting, and sorting
the immigration gospel according to Marco, I can draw only one
conclusion. It doesn’t begin to add up, as policy or
politically.
What would add up, and quickly, is the cost of the army of new
federal bureaucrats and document-stampers it would require to jump
more than 11 million citizens of other countries living here
illegally through all the hoops Rubio’s principles call for. We
don’t have the administrative capacity now to keep track of
citizens of other countries here on tourist and students visas —
which is why some estimate 40 percent of illegals here today are
folks who entered the U.S. legally and then over-stayed their
visas.
So, to the nearest 10,000, how many new federal employees would
it require to locate, check criminal backgrounds on, establish
length of stay in this country for, determine how much federal tax
is owed by, assess and administer penalties to, measure English
proficiency of, a number of people that may well approach the total
population of Scandinavia? And how much would flat-broke America
have to borrow from China to finance all this? Conant concedes that
neither he nor Rubio has any idea how many federal drudges these
chores would require, or how much it would cost.
“We don’t know,” Conant said. “It’s a fair question. We’re
working up those details.”
Another fair question is, why now? The current president has
demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction that not only will he do
nothing to staunch the flow of undocumented Democrats across the
country’s southern border, but he will sue anyone who tries to (see
Arizona). The southern border could have and should have been
secured long ago. But it hasn’t been because previous Democratic
and Republican presidents didn’t want to. Rubio says that nothing
in his plan proceeds until the border is secure. So he has at least
until 2017 to wait for that. Longer if a Democrat or a
testosterone-deficient Republican wins the White House in 2016.
Hell, Godot may turn up and the Chicago Cubs may win the World
Series before this happens.
“We’re doing this now because the president won re-election and
made it clear he was going to push for immigration reform,” Conant
said. “So rather than just being against what the president
proposes, we have our own plan.”
Fair enough. But save for the part about securing the border,
and some boilerplate about preferring skilled immigrants over
unskilled, the gang of eight plan sounds suspiciously like the
“reform” bill Americans overwhelmingly rejected in 2007. It
concedes that the 11 million citizens of other countries (or
whatever the real number is) who have broken our laws to be here
will never be obliged to go home. “They’re here to stay,” Conant
conceded.
The “they” Conant is referring to are the millions of
line-cutters who entered the U.S. illegally. Conant and Rubio must
have skipped the first day of Psychology 101, where we learn about
operant conditioning and how it is that we get more of the behavior
we reward. Even criminal behavior.
So if Marco wishes to offer a competing plan, why not one that
recognizes that secure borders and enforceable standards for
citizenship are requirements of sovereignty and not hate crimes?
This approach would be different from that of our current
president, who’s not all that keen on sovereignty, at least not the
American kind.
The country is choking on big, complex laws just now (see
Obamacare). We don’t need more. If we had a political class with
the will to enforce the existing immigration laws we wouldn’t be
talking about this. But we don’t. Democrats want every possible
future voter who can be bought with government boodle, regardless
of how they arrive here. Too many Republicans toss and turn at
night worrying that no one with a Spanish last name will ever vote
for them unless they support bad public policy.
Is there no Republican official with the courage and the clarity
of expression to put to rout the canard that any attempt to secure
our southern border, or to oblige anyone here illegally to return
to his own country, is anti-Hispanic? Democrats repeat this
baseless charge, and the mainstream media act as a megaphone for
it. But it’s nonsense.
Conservatives aren’t opposed to illegal immigrants because so
many have Spanish last names. They’re opposed to them because
they’ve committed a crime to arrive here, they make a mockery of
our legal immigration system and stooges of those waiting in line
to come here legally, and because too many of them are unemployable
and become expensive government wards. Americans, no matter what
their last names, can understand this, demagoguery from the left
notwithstanding.
I’ll answer my own question. No. It doesn’t appear that such
courage and clarity exists in the Republican Party now, on this and
on a host of other issues. One of that party’s best is putting
forth a Rube Goldberg gimmick that would accomplish, at great
expense, the goals of the Democrats and of immigration indignatos,
but would do nothing for walking-around Americans, Spanish last
name or no. Way too many Republicans are clamoring to get aboard
this train to nowhere.
Clearly the party that is supposed to be the loyal opposition is
captive of the notion that if it doesn’t sign off on open borders
and give get-into-and/or-stay-in-America-free cards to anyone the
Democrats direct it to, then their candidates just won’t be cuddly
enough to vote for. If Republicans believe this, what do we need
Democrats for?
Photo: UPI
