Decius wrote:
Now I'll be the first to agree with the general statement that "we have a problem with illegal immigration in this country." There simply should not be 12 million people living here illegally. It does not follow directly from that observation that the right answer is a "crackdown." There are other options and they need to be evaluated.

No, first we need to start enforcing the damn laws and booting the ones we know about as they make themselves known. Looking for other options is something to be looked into only after we've resumed enforcement.

For example, the speed limit on I-285 in Atlanta is 55 miles per hour, and nearly all of the 5 million or so people who live in this metropolitan area violate that speed limit every time they drive on that road. That is clearly a problem as well. I do not think the correct answer to that problem is a "crackdown."

...and yet the police quite frequently still write tickets to people they catch speeding there, fair and square. Furthermore, with most sections of the interstate system, all it takes is a few nasty wrecks in one area for it to become thought of as a "dangerous" stretch of road, and the police begin setting up regular speedtraps and warning signs to make people slow down and drive more safely.

Illegal immigration is reaching levels where it is putting unnecessary strain on the public resources of areas which are trying to protect actual citizens. To me this qualifies as a clear and present hazard and warrants a crackdown. Emergency services (like the fire department and hospital emergency rooms) and police do not have to worry about illegal aliens who have been deported because they are no longer here.

Whether or not a "crackdown" is warranted with regard to illegal immigration requires a demonstration of more than "its illegal" and "we have a problem with people doing that." It requires an assessment of why we have so many people violating that rule, what the costs of those violations are, what goals we're trying to achieve with the rule, and objectively what the best way of achieving those goals is, if the rule is not working effectively right now. IMHO, the vast majority of the people who are motivated by the "illegal immigration" issue are coming at it from an emotional place and not a sober analysis of the problem and the spectrum of potential solutions.

No, first we resume the process of booting illegal aliens to stop their numbers increasing, and then we look into these other things. I can't be 100% sure, but it seems like you're advocating the same position as the "pro alien" camp--which is that we continue to do nothing, not even the things we should be doing 365 days a year like deporting the illegals as we find them, until such time as we come up with a new "solution" to the problem. We don't need to reassess these things... They were already assessed and were why we have the INS and the immigration process! It seems to me like the main reason we have a huge pile of illegals here now is that a particular president stopped the INS from doing what they were doing. I certainly remember seeing vanloads of illegals being taken away by INS during the last president's term of office.

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