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To the eternal frustration of conservatives and patriots - but I repeat myself - the national left seems to have long since abandoned any concept of citizenship or nationhood. Whether it be suicidal terrorists currently poshly ensconced at Guantanamo Bay or illiterate peasants slinking across our southern borders, liberals echo Bob Barker's famous announcer from The Price is Right: "Come on down!"
As countless localities have discovered, a crime wave awaits behind the curtain. Never ones to hold criminals accountable for actions they can blame on anyone else, the political left has taken every opportunity to deter, delay, and stonewall all attempts to deport illegal aliens - or, to use their preferred euphemism, "undocumented Americans."
Today comes word of a new technique for killing two birds with one stone: Mr. Obama's Justice Department now offers immunity and work visas to illegal immigrants who testify against the American bosses that hired them illegally. Not only does this allow the illegals to stay in the U.S., it helps to imprison those squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinners so despised by the left, America's company executives. Talkers magazine reports:
Twenty-eight immigrants who were arrested in Bellingham, WA two months ago for working illegally and using false documentation have been released from custody and 24 of the immigrants have been given work permits in exchange for cooperation in the investigation of their former employer. [emphasis added]
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! Here we have two criminals - yes, illegal entry into the United States is a crime, regardless of what Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano might say to the contrary - one seeking to take a job properly belonging to a law-abiding American citizen, and the other an employer who is willing to accommodate this unlawful goal in an illegal way.
Far from showing any degree of gratitude for the entirely undeserved opportunity of their illegal employment, those selfsame illegals now turn against their benefactor in exchange for valid papers. Disgraceful!
Mock as you will. In succumbing to their overpowering hatred for business and businessmen, however, these leftist prosecutors may actually be undermining their own cause.
To understand why, think: What brings these illegals across the border in the first place? Some of them come to deal drugs, of course, and others to join their gang comrades in criminal enterprises. As in any large group of people, however, most of them want nothing more than a better life for themselves and their families. America, first and foremost, offers the one thing they cannot get in Mexico and which is their only ray of hope for the future: a JOB.
And who gives a job? An employer.
There have been many calls on the right for an aggressive program of arrest and deportation of illegal aliens found on American soil. If we are to remain a nation of laws, we certainly need to enforce the laws we have; recent halting attempts by local towns and counties to check and enforce the immigration status of anyone arrested for other reasons are a good first step.
There is, however, one monumental problem with pursuing this goal to its logical end: if, as reported, there are as many as 20 millions illegal immigrants already here, we are simply never going to actively deport them all. Seriously, what are we expecting: trainloads of cattle-cars heading south towards the border, year after year?
Twenty million is a lot of people - it's two and a half times the population of the City of New York. Forcibly remove such a vast number? Ain't gonna happen.
Any other ideas? The left wants a blanket amnesty similar to the amnesty Reagan famously enacted in 1986. Before Reagan, nobody had ever tried to solve an illegal-alien invasion with a blanket amnesty; it was at least a plausible solution whose outcome could not be predicted because it had never been done before.
Today, thanks to Reagan having already tried an amnesty, we know it only makes the problem worse: the previously illegal became legal and stayed, then two more illegals came across for each one already here in preparation for the next amnesty. Unless we are prepared to take on the entire population of South America, which should horrify the greens, another amnesty is a desperately bad idea.
If we can't deport them all, and won't amnesty them either, what does that leave? The "gray economy" where illegals live and work in the shadows is bad for everybody - bad for the American worker who should get the job, bad for businesses that get in the habit of hiring and operating furtively, bad for the illegals who can be abused with no police to turn to, and bad for the rule of law.
To get rid of unwanted pests, it helps to find out at what is attracting them to you. In this case, we already know the answer - jobs.
What's the only thing that will stop an employer from hiring a cheap illegal? A high probability that he might go to prison. Mr. Obama's crew is now providing exactly that.
If the Democrats would rather imprison American businessmen who hire illegals than deport the illegals who are here against the law... well, it's not a perfect solution, but we can live with it.
How many businessmen need to go to jail before nobody will dare have anything to do with illegals? Probably far fewer than you might expect, as long as their cases make the news.
Then, the illegals will deport themselves. They'll have to - no job, no money, nothing to eat. Problem solved!
Who knew that liberal anti-capitalism might possibly solve a real problem, if only by accident?