Uninvited Guests

Thomas Sowell absolutely demolishes the immigration debate in an article on RealClearPolitics.com:

Immigration is yet another issue which we seem unable to discuss rationally -- in part because words have been twisted beyond recognition in political rhetoric.

We can't even call illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants." The politically correct evasion is "undocumented workers."

Do American citizens go around carrying documents with them when they work or apply for work? Most Americans are undocumented workers but they are not illegal immigrants. There is a difference.

The Bush administration is pushing a program to legalize "guest workers." But what is a guest? Someone you have invited. People who force their way into your home without your permission are called gate crashers.

If truth-in-packaging laws applied to politics, the Bush guest worker program would have to be called a "gate-crasher worker" program. The President's proposal would solve the problem of illegal immigration by legalizing it after the fact.

We could solve the problem of all illegal activity anywhere by legalizing it. Why use this approach only with immigration? Why should any of us pay a speeding ticket if immigration scofflaws are legalized after the fact for committing a federal crime?

Yesterday I watched while hundreds of frijoles-for-brains high schoolers marched down the middle of L.A's biggest freeways waving their Mexican flags and shouting for their "rights". What about the rights of citizens to drive on the freeways without spreading teenagers all over their windshields? Drivers have rights too, and why should we be more concerned about the rights of lawbreakers than the rights of citizens?

What if I decided to walk the short distance to the I-5 and just go for a stroll down the middle of the freeway? Assuming I survived, would I be given a police escort and a ride home as the protesters were yesterday, or would I be arrested?

You know the answer to that, and I think the whole bunch of them yesterday should have been herded up and hauled off to jail.

What's ever more amazing about the L.A. high school protests is the fact that the school district aided and abetted the protest by promising parents that they would provide security for the event, and buses to bring the kids back to school when it was over. Michelle Malkin has the details.

Sowell concludes his piece by reminding us that the immigration laws currently on the books are not being enforced, and in fact are generally ignored:

The old inevitability ploy is often trotted out in immigration debates: It is not possible to either keep out illegal immigrants or to expel the ones already here.

If you mean stopping every single illegal immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal immigrant who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we cannot prevent every single murder cause us to stop enforcing the laws against murder?

Since existing immigration laws are not being enforced, how can anyone say that it would not do any good to try? People who get caught illegally crossing the border into the United States pay no penalty whatever. They are sent back home and can try again.

What if bank robbers who were caught were simply told to give the money back and not do it again? What if murderers who were caught were turned loose and warned not to kill again? Would that be proof that it is futile to take action, when no action was taken?

Let's hope the immigration bills before Congress can at least get an honest debate, instead of the word games we have been hearing for too long.

Read all of Mr. Sowell's excellent piece here.