Border Wars -- More

Ok. Ok. I decided to go read Bush's immigration speech since I hadn't actually heard it and since it seems to have made a bit of an impression on my small audience (see comments to this post).

Not a bad speech, but it was a bit like Soviet-era supermarket: something for everyone but not enough for anyone.

He ends the speech by acknowledging that we have to legalize the 13 or so million illegals who are already here. However, he wants to make that tough. They

should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, to pay their taxes, to learn English and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law.

He argues that this is not an "amnesty", but that is splitting hairs. The fact is that the current illegals will be allowed to stay, their children will become citizens automatically -- which is probably why most of them come anyway -- and, if they want, they can try to become citizens. Not muuch different from and amnesty in substance, but what else are we going to do with 13 million people?

The rest of the speech is devoted to trying to articulate a plan for assuring that we do not face this situation again in another 5-10 years. But here he is torn between the poles of his base. In a nod to the law-and-order folks, he spends nearly half of his speech talking about all the steps he is going to take to "secure our borders: double the size of the border patrol, build more fences, install more hi-tech detection devices, interim use of the national guard, etc., etc. But he then, almost plaintively, admits that all of this is probably pointless:

The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across.

The operative word in this last sentence is "sneak". Bush is not talking about reducing the number of immigrants; he is only talking about reducing the number or people who sneak in. He proposes to achieve this by letting them come in legally, as "guest workers." These guests will not be "true" immigrants, becuase Bush expects them to "return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay." But why would they do that? It is exactly at that point that the "guest workers" will have developed the roots in this country that Bush argues should entitle them to a path toward citizenship. And, once they can come in legally, requiring employers to verify that they are legal is simply paperwork.

It seems to me that the key to this issue is to let 'em come. Bush effectively admits, I think, that we can not keep them out and that once they have been here for a few years and have put down roots, they are not going to leave and we are not going to throw them out. Why not, then, just eliminate the whole charade and allow anyone who can prove he has a job waiting for him to enter legally -- and provide all such people with a path to citizenship?