How They Can Pay Their Dues

All the President's Men tell us that it's impossible to deport 12 Million criminals back to their homelands. We can't find them to round them all up and there's no way logistically to ship them out. Some of them have been here as productive members of society working at jobs we won't do ourselves, building our homes, picking our crops, cleaning our hotel rooms and caring for our children.

There was some other thing that happened maybe 150 years back where folks were more or less systematically impelled to leave their homeland and travel under wretched and dangerous conditions to this country to do jobs that white people supposedly wouldn't do for inadequate compensation. They didn't call those folks 'immigrants' at the time. Maybe it's best not to look back and draw this comparison. It's a slippery slope and the last time politicians and rich partisans got involved in the rhetoric, 170,000 men died in less than 4 years searching for the way to strike the proper balance.

We set a side a day every year to reflect on the lives of those 170,000 men who took up arms to, depending on who you listen to, stand up for the immigrants of their time or to defend the bigoted patriarchal anachronism that was southern agrarian society. I think the right side won in that struggle. The vast majority of Americans seem to agree. So we sit back on Memorial day and reflect, have a beer, watch a race, plant a flag and hopefully think about those 170,000 and the 1.3 million or so since who died fighting. And I think most of us are glad and proud that our country raised millions of men over the years to fight, bleed and die for our Way.

So, every 30 or 40 years, we seem to see two trends. A wave of immigrants heads this way from some corner of the world where the grass doesn't seem so green. The wave typically comes over with nothing but hope for a better opportunity for themselves and their children. They come. They go to Ellis Island or some other mass processing center to be registered, examined, processed and given access to the country. They go to work. They save. They send some of the money home to their parents and siblings who were not healthy enough or bright enough or bold enough to make the trip. They build communities and make spicy new dishes with inexpensive ingredients. They learn the language. They start families and then... usually... their children intersect with the other trend that seems to occur on a 30 or 40 year cycle. Their children, who have learned the language and grown up in the ethnic neighborhoods and seen their parents working hard all their lives step up. They lay down their hammers and shovels and they answer the call to fight for their country.

This is the generational progression of the immigrants. They come and labor and educate their children. Their children or grandchildren, raised with a decent work ethic and instilled with the unique pride of second and third generation Americans, enter the military where they demonstrate their commitment and learn politics, make a decent wage, send their children to better colleges. Those children and grandchildren, in turn, form the upper middle and upper class. The business leaders and politicians and movers and shakers.

That's the way it was with the asians, the italians, the poles, the germans, the irish, the palestinians and the jews that came to us in the 19th and 20th centuries. They came to sit at the table and, over generations, they found they could get a bigger slice of the pie and that there was still plenty to go around. That's how it was with my family.

This wave of immigrants is different in some respects. I believe they come for similar reasons, that they work hard, that they want good things for their children, that they send money home to those not adventurous enought to make the trip, that they like it here. But they skipped a step. In skipping the Ellis Island step, they've somehow botched the natural order. They haven't assimilated and been allowed to demonstrate their commitment. How can they? Their existence in this country is unlawful. They stay underground, to a certain extent. They don't melt in, they hide.

So the President's men say they've almost paid their dues, and we can't get rid of them anyway, so we should put them on the fast track. They talk about payment of back taxes and lengths of time in country. They make comparisons to speeding tickets and then they say that paying the back taxes amounts to these folks having paid their dues, their debt to society. Ellis Island and recognition by the government isn't how you become an American family. There's something to becoming part of the fabric of this nation that shouldn't be for sale and certainly shouldn't be determined solely on compliance with the tax code. That's obscene.

I don't want people to purchase a pass to the head of the line by paying $9700 to the IRS. It's not meaningful. But once again, we're in that cycle where politicians and wealthy men are extending the opportunity to the nation's less fortunate to take a risk, demonstrate their commitment and raise themselves up through the ranks. I've even heard anecdotes that one need not be a citizen to enlist and join the fight. I've seen at least one story where a young soldier died during the processing of his citizenship, which was awarded posthumously. That's the type of young hero I'm tempted to welcome into the fold. He was buried at Arlington at his mother's request. I hope there are others like him in our military and that they make it home, safe and sound. They'll bring with them skills and discipline and the ability and desire to make something of themselves. Their children will know where daddy (or mommy) stood and will proceed to follow the pattern.

Maybe this wave of immigrants should have access to a fast track solution. Payment of back taxes doesn't work for me. It doesn't assimilate. It doesn't separate the wheat from the chaffe. It doesn't develop leadership and integrity and commitment to the new home. Legal immigrants pay taxes on time and many still return to their countries of origin when their visas expire. That's not commitment. That's commerce. But, I submit that, if an immigrant wishes to take up arms in defense of this country and this culture, then we can roll into the enlistment process a procedure to make up for ducking the turnstiles at Ellis island. If they finish their hitch having served honorably then legal residency and the opportunity for citizenship should be granted, without question. They'll have completed the process, demonstrated their commitment to our country, and assimilated fully and we can ask no more of any American.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Where exactly? Hard to say. This is all new to me.

At the advice of friends, I'm working out my ideas, spreading good news and venting my frustrations on the web.

This may last a week or a month or 10 years. Let's just take it 1 day at a time.

I'm not a fan of public lewdness. Still, I think the Indiana Statute crosses the line. Hence "discernibly turgid". The legend that this was the extent of Jim Morrison's crimes on the eve of his arrest is untrue, but it gives me pause that the state of excitement of half the population should be regulated by public ordinance. Moreover, I may get pumped up over this or that--and you may not approve. For God's sake, don't legislate against it. If Morrison were with us today, it's likely his only means of being observed in a discernibly turgid state would involve the use of Viagara. It's unlikely he'd be arrested. He might even be invited to shoot an ad with Bob Dole.

I tend to be more conservative philosophically, but I think that makes me a man without a party. Don't get me wrong. I think Reagan was a great President and Kennedy was a great Actor. The revisionists tell us that one was an amiable dunce who very nearly brought us to nuclear armageddon, but the facts differ and there are folks who remember. The Shining Star of Camelot mishandled his role in the cold war and brought nuclear tipped russian missiles to within 30 miles of our shores. Later, we named our largest missile launchpad after him. The dunce made the calls that brought down the Berlin wall. The one thing the press ignore is that both Presidents ushered in periods of unparalleled economic growth and prosperity and did so by adopting remarkably similar fiscal policies. I hope history sorts itself out once Rather and Couric have faded from view. I hope the United States has another Ronald Reagan in her. Principled leaders seem to be in short supply in the beltway these days.

I guess the point is I don't want to offend, but I want even less to sit atop the tightly scripted, politically correct fence of nonoffense. Let me know if you're mad or you're not. It probably won't change my mind, but my views have been known to evolve, slowly--so slowly.

I'm not sure we can deport 12 million illegal, undocumented aliens, but it is the President's and Congress's, and Federal and Local Law Enforcement's duty to try. My previous employer had me take a "Franklin-Covey" time management course where they told us basically to achieve big ideas by building a plan on specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and tangible goals. So, why not set a plan to deport the first million by, say, May 1, 2007.

I've heard that the hispanic press objects to the use of the adjective "illegal" as a noun to describe a person who has illegally crossed the border into my country for whatever reason or who illegally remains in the country. I respect the editorial sentiment and thank those journos for defending proper use of my country's official language. "Illegal" is not a noun. "Criminal" is a noun and properly describes a person who perpetrates an illegal act, such as entering a neighboring country without abiding that country's immigration laws or remaining in that country for whatever reason without following that country's legal process to obtain legal residence or citizenship.

Criminal seems like such a harsh word for parents that just want to make a better life for their children. One wants to empathize with the individuals. "They work hard.", we're told or "They love this country." I suspect it would be easier to take their love on faith if it was the American flag they were wrapping themselves in, instead of the Mexican flag, on May 1 when they hoped to demonstrate their love by shutting down the American economy (or at least a few restaurants).

It is criminal, though, to present a false identity in order to secure employment and social and economic benefits where one has not been invited. Or am I wrong?

I suspect that, as long as the incentive remains, it will be difficult or impossible and extremely costly to deport 12 million "immigrants". Fine the employers (who are also criminals) and enforce the laws. Maybe fewer will come when gainful employment dries up. Maybe Americans won't work to care for our elderly or clean our homes, but I suspect if the price goes up 2 or 3 dollars per hour, our wealthy will find qualified domestic workers. The price of peaches may go up 20 cents a bushel. We'll deal with it.

I suspect the majority of those here will stay even if the legal economy no longer provides as much opportunity. Their children are here. There's not much to go home to. And we provide education, food stamps, subsidized housing and driver's licenses. 12 million people might be driven into criminal enterprise in order to keep a hold on those benefits. They'd fight to stay, I wager, rather than go back to Mexico and demand a responsible government and a decent economic opportunity in their homeland. But if those benefits were to be explicitly reserved for documented, legal immigrants and citizens? If the act of a State paying benefits to nonlegal residents were to be made unlawful? 12 million people might begin to deport themselves or perhaps move north of the border to Canada where they'd no doubt be welcomed and given shelter and work in the great socialist experiment to the north.

The thing is this. Newt's Republicans, Reagan's Republicans, they're all gone. They've been replaced by feckless political science majors, sycophants, panderers, underachievers and criminals, the same as Kennedy's democrats were in the 50's and 60's. They pretend to assemble a tough bill in the house which will be shredded by the omnibus bill in the Senate. All that will remain at the end is the "Guest Worker Program" and the pork and the union handouts. If there were principled men and women in Congress, interested in representing the will of their constituents (not manufacturing 12 million new constituents to replace us) then they would evaluate the proposals individually, giving honest debate, in order, to each of the following 10 corrective measures:

1. a physical barrier along a significant portion of our southern border;
2. enforcement of existing immigration laws;
3. increasing the border patrol with or without troops;
4. increasing INS activity in the interior;
5. Penalize with fines and jail time individuals guilty of hiring illegal residents;
6. Shut down, fine and/or confiscate the property of those businesses that hire illegal residents;
   
7. fining AND deporting all individuals encountered who do not have a documented, legal right to be here;
8. withdraw public assistance and other benefits for undocumented residents;
9. increasing the number of legal immigrant visas from Latin American countries; and
   
10. creating Amnesty or "guest worker" programs

All but the last would tend to decrease the incentive to enter illegally. Most of the first 9, if considered individually would find support of the majority of Americans. If most of the first 9 were passed before #10 -- Amnesty -- was given consideration in congress, then even Amnesty might be pallatable. It might do less damage, in any event. As it stands, there's a race across the the borderline to be the first person arrested after passage so that you can tell one last lie: "I've been here 5 years and 3 months, Mr. Man. Sign me up for benefits!"