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May 03, 2006
First Things First
From the Encarta dictionary:
sov·er·eign adj1. independent: self-governing and not ruled by any other state
Once again, when discussing the immigration crisis the first question that must be posed is: does a self-governing (i.e. sovereign) country have the right to regulate its own borders?
Control of our borders--by exercising the unchallenged rights granted to every other sovereign state in the world--is the absolute prerequisite to any further steps in solving the immigration problem.
Today, in commenting on the backlash generated by the ANSWER-instigated immigration protests, Ed Morrissey says:
In truth, the only solution to this problem has to blend approaches from both sides. Border security has to come first, if for no other reason than any reform program has to rely on enforcement to attract people to register rather than opt out. After the border gets secured, then we can negotiate the status of those still left.We cannot possibly forcibly deport 12 million people, and they won't leave the US voluntarily unless we make America a worse place in which to live even without a job than Mexico ... and who among us would want to turn our country into that kind of misery? People aren't going to self-deport; even starving in the US beats starving in Mexico. Guest worker programs promise only to create a French solution where a permanent underclass exists with no hope of assimilation or equality. The only real option is normalization for those who have conducted themselves lawfully except for their entry, and a long path to citizenship marked by the payment of back taxes, fluency in English, and a fine for crossing our borders illegally.
Emphasis mine. Ed goes on to state that the backlash against the separatist reconquista groups' protests will make this last option impossible. I'm not so sure. I think that if the border could be secured to a degree of integrity that most Americans could trust, than any number of solutions would be acceptable to the majority of US citizens.
There is a tipping point at which the unified common sense of most Americans--on the liberal and conservative; Democrat, Republican, Liberatarian--kicks in, and the recent protests have nudged a lot of us over that tipping point.
Control the border, then I'll consider anything.
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