Immigrant Reform

Here in Washington DC...Probably everywhere else...The big topic is Immigration Reform. In this matter, it is abundantly clear that nobody has a handle on reality.

The people who want to put a fence up have obviously never been to the boarder. We New Mexicans know that nothing short of the Trillion dollars that we just spent in Iraq has a prayer of creating an unbreachable boarder between the US and Mexico. The only way to keep illegals out of the nation (even this would only keep most illegals out, not all of them) is to make it impossible for them to make money here and take away their incentive.

The people who just want to get the illegals out of the nation have not studied or considered work force economics. 12 million people have managed to fit themselves into the American economy in one way or another, and it stands to reason that even if they were all taken up in the Rapture...the only way to get them all out quickly...the American economy would take a massive hit. 12 million people is, for instance, about 15 cities the size of Albuquerque. That many people are not just people, they're needed people.

The people who want to make it felony to employ illegals need to think about the problems of #2 above, and a second massive problem, which is that the only way to make sure that everyone employed is legit (either as a legal resident, citizen, or a guest worker in whatever program is devised), is for everyone...that includes you and me and our kids... to have a worker id card with a bar code and a picture and a variety of invasions of our precious privacy. That project would be cheaper than building a fence by a long shot, but it's not a freebe, either monetarily or politically.

How much do we REALLY want to stop immigration? So far, I note, not enough for anyone to propose a solution that would actually work.