Common sense at the border

The U.S. House version of an immigration bill is mean-spirited, according to the editors of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, because it makes being in the U.S. illegally a felony. Well, wait until they hear my idea.

I am all for legal immigration, and I frankly like the few Mexican illegals I have met. I like their open, friendly nature and admire their determination, hard work and struggle for a better life. Too bad we can’t make a deal with Mexico to swap a gazillion lazy, entitlement-minded American citizens for Mexicans eager for the opportunity taken for granted in the U.S.

But however much I empathize with these struggling Mexican people, we have a right and a duty to control, by whatever means necessary, who gains entry to our country. We now have in the U.S. over 11 million illegals, roughly the population of Ohio. These illegals cost U.S. untold billions beyond any taxes they pay, in services like schools, universities, medical care and law enforcement.

Dealing with illegals slows down the legal immigration of others who follow the rules, and drains social services meant for legal residents and U.S. citizens. There is also evidence that terrorists are surreptitiously crossing our border along with the regular Mexican traffic.

So why can’t we secure our border? Let’s review the players.

First we have the Democrats in Congress who respond to enforcement actions by squealing “racism,” pandering to the huge and growing Hispanic vote. Not to be outdone, Republicans follow with the very same pandering dressed up in a different frock.

Ethnic advocacy groups interject moral outrage when we enforce immigration laws, amplified by a media hungry for controversy. Business operations hire illegal workers at half the wages they would otherwise have to pay and then claim nobody else wanted these jobs. Business also provides the bribes, er, I mean lobbying, to encourage Democrats and Republicans to keep up the good work on not enforcing border security.

Let’s not forget the apologists who cannot speak the word “illegal” and seem to think “undocumented” crossing of our border is our own fault because we have not adequately helped others build paradise in their home country.

Mexico’s President Vicente Fox is outraged — Outraged! — that the U.S. would consider building a fence or a wall on its border with Mexico. Meanwhile the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations distributes a booklet titled “Guide for the Mexican Migrant” that teaches how to safely and illegally cross the U.S. border, how to claim a list of rights if arrested, and how to live inconspicuously and illegally in the U.S.

Finally, we come to the Homeland Security agents who manage the border. Let’s be fair, we cannot expect them to overcome the failure of all the other players. They have more than doubled Border Patrol agents to over 10,000 and tripled the budget over the past decade, the same time period illegals in the U.S. doubled.

In the last fiscal year our Border Patrol caught 1.1 million people trying to cross illegally, and for each one caught they estimate four others get through. OK, counting on my fingers to do the math — holy smokes! 2004 illegal traffic surged, apparently as illegals scrambled to be here for President Bush’s proposed guest worker program. How many of us could have predicted that?

What do we do with Mexican illegals we apprehend? Most are released back into Mexico at the border. Gee, I wonder if they try to get through again?

A growing number are detained. Well, sort of. There is no place to put them, so if they follow their instructions to falsely claim asylum then they receive a notice to appear in court for a deportation hearing after their asylum claim is considered.

No wonder they smile and wave their hearing notice as they are released, since it gives them free roaming privileges in the U.S. More than 90 percent never appear for their hearing. Who could have guessed?

Homeland Security says about 500,000 have been arrested, released and failed to show for their hearing, including 85,000 who are known criminals. So much for security in the homeland.

One new tactic is to fly apprehended illegals to their hometown in Mexico to make it more difficult for them to return. Each chartered flight of illegals costs the U.S. taxpayer nearly $30,000 but, hey, somebody has to give them a ride home.

I think we’re stuck on stupid.

Kinky Friedman has an idea. Kinky is the self-described Jewish cowboy from Kerrville, Texas, a song-writing, cigar-chomping satirist who wears a black hat, the writer of mystery novels featuring himself as the hero detective, and the current independent candidate for Texas governor who is making the establishment very nervous.

Kinky, a bottom-line kind of guy, would solve Texas-Mexico border problem by dividing that border among five Mexican generals. For each of those five Mexican generals Kinky says we would deposit $1 million in escrow in an offshore account, but for every illegal we catch trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico in that general’s territory we would reduce his escrow by $5,000. Kinky is confident the illegal immigration problem on the Texas-Mexico border would soon evaporate.

Indeed, a little common sense at the border might go a long way. Here’s my version:

1. Remove barriers to immigration enforcement by local law enforcement agencies.

2. Get rid of the law that makes children of illegals born in the U.S. automatic U.S. citizens.

3. Reserve costly services for legal residents and citizens, withholding all but medically urgent services from illegals.

4. Implement a guest worker program but only for those who return to Mexico to apply.

5. Strengthen penalties and enforce laws preventing the hiring of illegals.

6. Build border walls or fences to make illegal crossing more difficult, and do it with chain gang labor.

7. Instead of turning illegals loose at the border to try again, we should sentence them to five years on the chain gang to help build the wall. Even if they build it badly, the disincentive of the detention and forced labor is the real point.

Critics of a wall say it will only drive illegals to enter through our coastline. Maybe not if they knew when caught they would be sentenced to hard labor for five years.

If those ideas make me mean-spirited or worse, I can live with it. But I can’t rest easy while our border leaks like a sieve, our national security is compromised, our social safety net is near collapse from serving illegals and our government is asleep at the switch.

I guess to feel comfortable under those conditions I would need to be a member of the U.S. Congress.

Too bad I can’t vote in Texas.