I realize that makes me sound xenophobic. But I'm not. I love the Mexican culture.
But, you see, Mexicans that are here illegally are not exactly coming here waving Red, White and Blue flags hopped up on becoming Americans. They came for the easy access to work. That's a different type of immigrant then those in the world that have traditionally come here legally.
I beg to differ. I've talked to any number of cab drivers - most from various countries in Africa - who came here because they could get good work and make a good life for themselves based on their own hard work. They weren't particularly interested in becoming American in so many words - they were waving green, not red white and blue - but they were American in spirit: determined to make a better life for themselves and their families through their own hard work.
Most illegals come here for similar reasons: to earn money they can't earn where they were raised in order to support their families; very few come here with the goal of becoming welfare queens.
But here's the rub: draconian immigration laws don't stop them from coming, they simply drive them into the shadows, where they fall prey to liberals, and, quite honestly, it's not a mere matter of duplicity; in the public perception the alternative to the democrats/liberals and their feigned solicitousness is the republicans and their apparent hatred of hispanics, which - so the perception goes - extends not just to illegals, but to all hispanics generally. Given those choices, whom would you choose to support if you were in their shoes?
So, you can choose the easy, emotionally satisfying path of enacting make-believe "seal the border" immigration laws that will not work, but that will make life a lot more uncomfortable for legal hispanics who happen to become suspected of being illegal, and for employers who are suspected of hiring or harboring illegals, and which most importantly
will continue to drive hispanics, legal as well as illegal, into the waiting arms of democrats/liberals, or you can choose the much harder route of enacting rational immigration reform that - like judo - doesn't attempt to stop the river from flowing, but directs the flow of the river so that we know who's coming in, why, where they're going, what they're doing, and, most importantly, whether they've engaged in criminal activity, on a constantly updated basis. It would also clearly foreclose the possibility of permanent residency and/or naturalization without such an individual applying for immigrant status and going through the entire greencard/naturalization process, just like any other potential immigrant. And yes, since, like Jimi in all along the watchtower, we're no longer speaking falsely, this will be difficult because at least initially these new entrants will favor the democrats/liberals politically because that is where the current political momentum is, which means that we have to accept that we will initially be providing the democrats/liberals with a potentially larger voter base. However, since these folks would now be legal, and could therefore come out of the shadows - and off the democrat/liberal plantation - that is, to actually have the opportunity to become Americans in substance - like the cab drivers I described above - which will result in many of them leaving the false promises of the democrats/liberals.
Are there risks? Of course. But there are risks either way, but keeping illegal immigrants confined to the shadows, and thus to the democrat/liberal plantation carries substantially greater risks than bringing them out of the shadows and streamlining the immigration process so that we will at least know who they are and what they're doing while they're here.
