Since I know all the answers, I will bless y’all with how to fix the “immigration issue.”
Here are some ground rules to kick off the debate:
1) The issue of border security with regard to terrorism is not the same as the issue of border security with regard to migrant workers who illegally enter the country.
2) Policy decisions should never be made based on perceived notions of how people (in this case, illegal migrant workers) behave.
Now that the rules are laid, I offer the following radical proposal with regard to illegal migrant workers: Enforce existing law.
For all you whiners bellyaching about how all those scary illegals are using all of our health care, education, and other services, go stick it. We are a strong, fully industrialized nation with an economy and standard of living that is the envy of most of the rest of the world. We can absorb a few illegals, who, by the way, are usually fairly reticent about consuming services simply for the fact that they fear deportation if exposed by their consumption.
If, as a society, we truly care about the cost of illegals’ use of government services, then we, as a society, need to pay them a living wage and tax them accordingly to pay for those services. But no, we want our cake and eat it too: we want cheap vegetables and gardening and nannies and janitors so that we can go on living our lives with our blinders on. So what’s it going to be? Where are we willing to bear the cost?
Illegal migrant workers are not a threat to national security. Terrorists, on the other hand, are. To keep our borders secure from terrorists requires at least a twofold approach: we need to thwart their ability to gain entry to this country and we need to thwart their ability to carry out terrorist acts once inside. Our borders are far too long and porous to expect that we can seal them with 100% accuracy, so we must balance our resources between these two objectives.