Immigration, Again

I'm going to take, I think, a little bit of a contrarian position on the whole immigration issue. I just read a post at AmericaBlog in which John Aravosis mentioned all the people coming to the demonstration in DC today to fight for their rights.

My question is, just what are those rights?

I'd obviously be really stupid to take an anti-immigration position -- most of my familiy were immigrants, except the one who (according to family history, at least) wandered into an empty continent a few thousand years ago.

I've just seen a lot of smokescreens and diversions happening on this whole issue, from the "send 'em all home" knee-jerks to the "give-them-all-citizenship-immediately" knee-jerks. Neither end seems very tenable.

I have to say, I may find myself agreeing with the president, at least in the broadest terms: we have to do something about the 11 million or so illegal aliens who are here, so why not put them into a program that will eventually lead to citizenship? Any jobs we might lose are already gone -- they're doing them right now. Why not have them paying their taxes, working their way into our society and maybe making a contribution aside from being cheap and easily exploitable labor? (The unions should be behind something like this 100%. No. I take that back -- they shouldn't be behind it, they should be leading it. Another indication that organized labor has outlived itself.)

And we have to tighten up on enforcement of immigration laws for those who have not crossed our borders. I don't think any country is required to open its doors to all and sundry -- no one else does. Why should we? But we have to have some sort of workable enforcement. Like maybe some draconian penalties for employers of illegals, after an amnesty period for enrollment in a guest worker program. Then, if a shop is employing illegals, nail them.

(Of course, I think there should also be heavy taxes on corporations that send jobs overseas. Massive. To pay for retraining programs, and maybe even public works. Our infrastructure is not in such great shape, after all. I don't see any reason corporate interests should be getting a free ride. Too many of them aren't paying any taxes at all.)

Spare me the fence on the border. I mean, really! Make it as unattractive as possible for those who are going to be employing illegal immigrants, and I think the illegal immigrants will find it not so attractive to be here.

Of course it's a stop-gap. That doesn't make it bad. It just gives us time to think of something better.

And also to get rid of this asshole who has done so much to screw the American worker already.

Something to think about, at least.