"Get In Line Like Everyone Else"

Best thing I've heard in a long while...and something that just needs to be said plainly to those persons violating our immigration laws.

There are literally millions of people who want desperately to come to the United States and be citizens...not all of them are Central American.  So exactly where do these illegals think they earn the right to "cuts" or "jump" the line?  Don't give me the "they do jobs that Americans won't" because thats already been shown to be bunk - in places where illegals are removed or otherwise unavailable, citizens do take "crap jobs."

I will give the example of two Latinos I have the honest pleasure of working with, let's call one "Juan" and the other "Raoul"

Raoul is here illegally, his family is here with him - illegally. He works hard but is always unhappy and always worried about him or his family getting caught...additionally his wife is unhappy with the conditions also.

Juan is here legally and has recently become a citizen. He works hard and is reasonably happy, although he misses his family who have lived in Mexico the entire time he has been undergoing the process (many years) and he has been preparing them for life in America through special classes in Mexico, etc. and getting them citizenship.

I like both of these guys...but I respect Juan 100% more than Raoul because he "Got In Line Like Everyone Else."

There are a whole bevy of people who claim we must confront the reality of the possibly tens of millions of illegals in the United States.  They would claim even if we build a fence and stop the flow that we would still have this huge population to sort through, so its easier to just amnesty them all.  The question of The Wall and The Process has everything to do with reality...the reality is that there is a line, and its not the imaginary one in the middle of the desert that separates two countries.

Illegals jump The Line...both figuratively and literally.

It is not a God Given Right for those south of the border to come here - The Immigrant as Job Applicant

Perhaps another way for people to wrap their heads around this issue would be to make the analogy of Immigrant to that of Job Applicant.

In that analogy being an American is a high paying, high perk kind of job to have.  There are many openings available for qualified applicants and not so qualified applicants.  The qualifications themselves are not even very rigorous anyway, compared to some other places you may choose to work.

Just the same, there is an insane amount of competition to get placed in America.  The level of demand to hold the job far outstrips the rate at which the employer in this case can be comfortable with granting new positions.

In other words - there are not, and will likely never be, enough "positions" to meet the level of competition.

No business in the real world cannot hire everyone who WANTS a job they offer, they can only accept the applicants they are willing to take on.

There are limits, there are boundaries -  It is a geographical accident that allows the poor of Mexico to stampede across to El Norte.

The limits in this case are the level of immigration the accepting country is comfortable with, as defined by their laws.

The boundaries are those lines on the map.

When you have a high demand item and a limited legal supply...the inevitable result is black market.  The black market in this case is the highly evolved border traffic, exemplified by the Coyote, the smuggler of human beings, drugs, and terrorists.

The Wall would be the first step in enforcing our legal boundaries on this black market.  Because a successful wall would severely retard the overland progress of illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and terrorist importation from the south.  Likely the Coyote organizations would shift gears in that case, raising their prices and engaging in more sea-based smuggling like the Chinese utilize. 

Maybe we would be more accepting of a level of illegal influx of Central Americans if they were on par with the level of illegal influx of Chinese.

I suppose if we shared a border with India it would be the same...instead we take the Indian nationals who can get the H1B's...some of them even are returning and improving the lot of India itself now.

If Mexico and the US were not in close proximity then only their people capable of meeting the screening would get access anyway, just like the Indians and EVERYONE ELSE who wants access to the American dream.

Of course there would still be those 10-20 million already here...but granting a blanket amnesty now would be like ignoring the barn door after the horse had come home.

The Process

The Process is the term I would apply to how America deals with those illegals who are here.  The "barn door" of The Wall is a much easier wicket to un-stick because the questions surrounding The Process are like a mine field.

Keep in mind that outside of dealing with the illegals already here that there should be no further question about what to do after they are handled.  "What?" You might say, but the truth is we already have immigration laws and limits, so outside of some possible adjustments to existing codes there should be no further accommodation for illegal immigration activities.

In some ways I am reminded of the movie "Conspiracy" with Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci.  In particular the scenes when they are deciding the legal status of the Jews according to how much "blood" they are suppose to have, the implications for legal and social disruption with the discussed policy of "evacuation."

Another important historical footnote that comes to mind are the debates from the South before the Civil War about their Slave population, particularly the point that even if they could mobilize all the shipping of the United States they would only be able to remove the equivalent of the yearly increase in slave population (One of Calhoun's essays if my always faulty memory is correct.)

No reasonable person wants to see families ripped apart and lives destroyed to satisfy The Process.  Those persons and families who have made themselves productive members of the American society in the finest traditions of our forefathers...these are the immigrants we want to keep.  However, even with our desire to recognize those illegals who we would perhaps term as "desirable" - there needs to be some accounting, some recognition that they "jumped" the line.

We find ourselves facing a social event like the Reconstruction in the South.  An event where it is said "there will be profound changes because what has happened to date is no longer acceptable."  The trick is we must avoid the same mistake of our forefathers and allow the situation that we have expended so much energy to change to lapse back into existence under another guise.