The Economist Does Irving

• Of course businesses want to retain their illegal immigrants on their payrolls - it's the same argument that has been made when children worked in factories during the Industrial Revolution. If you take the children away, our profits will go down, only the children have small fingers that are able to reach into the crevices of our totally unsafe machinery (except in the case of illegal immigrants it's about how only they want to mow our grass or wash our dishes), blah, blah, blah. If employers are ultimately held responsible for the employees they bring on board, I think the entire issue will be greatly diminished.

• I don't think it's hopeless to get the laws changed, or at least prevent it from getting worse. The so-called "immigration reform bill" was stopped cold due to large numbers of people calling, emailing and faxing their elected officials, and incredibly, many of those people (including me) were not redneck, racist, inbred, RepubliBaptist stereotypes. The City of Irving and Irving PD have gotten a huge amount of positive feedback from residents who support them, which probably gives them some courage in dealing with people like Quintanilla who insist on playing the race card and trying to demonize them. As for "only" making illegals who are already here citizens, again, that's totally unfair to people who are applying for citizenship legally. It's also what was done in 1986 by Reagan as a "definitive solution," and we can see how well that amnesty worked 20 years later. People will continue to pour in, thinking that if they can just get in, they'll eventually be granted amnesty. The only way we should even consider that is if we first close down the border, otherwise it will just go on and on...

• RoB, you're quite right. Perhaps I should have prefaced the idea with the caveat: "Close the borders to further illegal immigration". That would need to be a first step to prevent the sorts of problems that you identify. I do want to ask, though, if the conspiracy that you see between business and government does indeed exist, why is there even any debate? If the status quo can't be changed, there's no point in even talking about it. What do we do? What's the answer? Is the problem with the current laws, or simply with their enforcement? If it's enforcement, at what level does that begin? If it's impossible to make changes to the laws due to collusion between business and government, who do we elect and/or impeach to change that? There has to be some middle ground between outright isolationism and wholesale free entry. Where is the line?

• Joe, I should also point out that your proposal, "If someone wants to live in America, make him an American," amounts to <i>no</i> restriction on immigration whatsoever -- is that really what you meant to say? Unlimited immigration, regardless of language skills, education, criminal background, health, etc.? If every AIDS patient in Africa wants to be an American, no problem! Who exactly is going to pay for their health care? I can think of dozens of countries that would immediately pay to send all their criminals, mentally challenged, sick, indigent, etc to the nearest US point of entry for instant citizenship.

• Joe, are you saying that people who entered the country illegally should be given priority in being granted citizenship over the thousands of people who are waiting because they applied legally? Besides the obvious unfairness to people who obey the law, isn't that going to encourage many, many more people to sneak in, rather than apply legally? And if you're in say, Africa, well, it's not as easy to sneak into the US (or Mexico, for that matter) from your country, so hey, sorry but you have to wait in line for legal entry -- Mexican lawbreakers get priority because they can just cross the river! Nice, huh? btw, businesses often don't <i>want</i> their illegals to be made citizens. When they're illegal, the employer can treat them like slave labor, with the dual threats of (a) "watch out, or we'll turn you in" and (b) "if you don't like it here, there are a ton of other illegals willing to work for crap wages and conditions, too." A major reason for the lack of enforcement of immigration laws is that the business community, supported by both parties in Congress, want a flow of cheap, submissive labor, which illegal immigrants provide. That keeps wages depressed to where people can't afford to live on them unless they live in a house with ten of their co-workers, and then businesses and our wonderful President can claim that "Americans won't take those jobs." As far as "we can't fight the flood," that's a red herring. Even a moderate degree of enforcement of existing laws sends the illegals running away -- Irving has demonstrated exactly that, which is why the federal government (and some of the media, <i>cough</i>) are so alarmist about it ("fear spreading through the Hispanic community" etc). All we have to do is deport 1% of them and another 70-80% will deport themselves.

• What if we go the other way? I say every time an illegal immigrant gets rounded up, we give him a social security card, make him a citizen, and start collecting taxes. If someone wants to live in America, make him an American. If local law enforcement wants to be involved in the process, let local agencies be in charge of inspecting businesses to see if they're employing illegals. If they are, force the businesses to pay for the cost of making them citizens, fine the business, make the illegals citizens, and put them back to work. If we can't (or won't) fight the flood, shouldn't we try to make the most of it and benefit everybody?

• Build the wall. Deport them all.

• From the article: <i>Understandably, people who are frustrated by federal inaction on immigration may turn to local initiatives. But no one benefits when these are poorly conceived and arbitrarily applied.</i> At least in the case of Irving, there's no evidence that anything is being "arbitrarily applied." Once again, it's assumed that because most of those being caught as illegal immigrants are Mexicans, that there's some sort of vendetta against Mexicans. Well, statistically most illegal immigrants in North Texas <i>are</i> Mexicans, so any fairly applied program is going to catch mainly Mexicans. Likewise, Irving is cracking down on code violations and apartment complexes with obvious criminal activity -- if those homes and apartments are disproportionately Hispanic, is that the fault of the city of Irving? No. The latest stats are that <i>one-half</i> of all Hispanics in North Texas are illegal immigrants -- does that mean that all those people are off-limits to law enforcement?

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