Illegal Immigration: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

George Will tries to solve the riddle of illegal immigration in his column today. His analysis begins with control of the existing illegals:

.... control belongs at the top of the agenda, for four reasons. First, control of borders is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Second, conditions along the border mock the rule of law. Third, large rallies by immigrants, many of them here illegally, protesting more stringent control of immigration reveal that many immigrants have, alas, assimilated: They have acquired the entitlement mentality created by America's welfare state, asserting an entitlement to exemption from the laws of the society they invited themselves into. Fourth, giving Americans a sense that borders are controlled is a prerequisite for calm consideration of what policy that control should serve.

Will just hints at the elephant in the living room, the urge for a reconquista by the existing hordes now resident in the States that would give a special status to the areas conquered by the Mexican War. I first came across this sort of "silent integration" in conversations with the famous Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes when he was a writer resident in Princeton in the late seventies. He did not espouse it, but said that such an attitude existed. The late LBJ once warned that if you let a Mexican on your land, he will soon be on your porch, then in your kitchen, etcetera....... But Will recognizes salient facts:

Facts, a conservative (John Adams) said, are stubborn things, and regarding immigration, true conservatives take their bearings from facts such as those in the preceding paragraph. Conservatives should want, as the president proposes, a guest worker program to supply what the U.S. economy demands -- immigrant labor for entry-level jobs. Conservatives should favor a policy of encouraging unlimited immigration by educated people with math, engineering, technology or science skills that America's education system is not sufficiently supplying.

And conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France. The House-passed bill, making it a felony to be in the country illegally, would make 11 million people permanently ineligible for legal status. To what end?

Rather than punish the transgression of jobseekers who skirt the law to achieve a shot at a good life, Will points to:

Investor's Business Daily reports a new study demonstrating that "over the past 30 years rising immigration led to higher wages for U.S.-born workers. Cities that served as migrant magnets did better than others. Why? Hiring one worker creates wealth with which to hire more workers."

Will somewhat speciously points to the need to finance social security for the coming generations, but his point does have merits and he finishes by backing Bush:

Today the president is spending more of his depleted political capital by standing to the left of much of his political base, which favors merely preventative and punitive measures regarding immigration. He is right to take his stand there.