Orcinus started my online Sunday with a long assessment of the current situation around illegal immigration. Kevin Drum and Nathan Newman also weigh in (and I haven’t made it through all of my blogroll yet today, so there are probably others as well).
My gut feeling is this: it seems more than a little unfair to slam the door shut on other people when you yourself have benefited from the same avenue to a better life. We are all of us children of immigrants. The only difference is how many generations it has been since we got here.
I also think some of the anti-illegal immigration foes need to get their arguments straight and stop fear-mongering. I don’t like “rewarding lawbreaking” either, and I understand not wanting to be flooded with residents who are a net drain the local tax base. That’s why we need immigration reform. But the answer is not about building a nice high wall and shutting the rest of the world out. We’re people, not ostriches.
There’s a lot that could be done to make it easier for people to come here legally, and to smack down employers who employ (and all too often exploit) illegal immigrants. It would be nice if Congress could come up with some good legislation on that front (getting it past the White House would be a whole other issue, but let’s let that sit for the moment). As Orcinus points out, even the McCain-Kennedy bill isn’t a comprehensive solution to the problem.
I’m less sure that we can do much about the global wage inequalities that are a major driver of immigration to America, although I agree that without some sort of solution to this root cause then the pressure for immigration will continue. I think that’s a problem that the world community as a whole needs to address. We can’t do it alone. Even so, that doesn’t reduce our responsibility to work on the issues we do have control over.
The bottom line is this — why would we not want people who want to come here and contribute in a positive way to this country? Because they don’t look and talk like we do? If that’s the best you can come up with, that’s pathetic.