And, when the situation persists and you again ask him to help, he simply scratches his head and replies, “You know, it’s just not realistic to remove all these birds from our property; it’s time-consuming, expensive, and uncompassionate to boot. Besides, every time I chase a few away, more come a little while later.” Now, given that he’s not even hinting at the obvious solution, let alone addressing it, would you think he was very serious about remedying the problem?
On illegal migration, our politicians are for the birds. When pressed on it, the best of them will talk about building fences, beefing up the border patrol, and, sometimes even, militarizing our southern border. And these measures are all well and good. But when asked what we should do about the 12 to 25 million illegals already on our shores, the issue suddenly becomes more complex than high-temperature superconductivity. The politicians will scratch their heads and then utter something to the effect of, “Well, we can’t deport 12 million people.” It’s a response that some say is a reason and others call an excuse. But I say that, in certain cases at least, it’s something else: a dodge. How do I know? Because obvious solutions can’t elude everyone.
If I had been at the Republican debate Thursday night and was asked the question about what to do with illegals already in the United States, I would have had a simple answer: We have to deport virtually no one because it’s easy enough to get them to deport themselves. The fact is that we get so distracted talking about how hard and uncompassionate it would be to apply the stick that we forget about simply removing the carrot. After all, what draws illegals here? There are three basic things:
1. Jobs.
2. Benefits.
3. Free schooling.
Thus, take away the jobs by ensuring that employers won’t dare hire illegals and forbid the latter from receiving benefits or from enrolling their children in school, and the problem takes care of itself. As happened in Arizona and Alabama when they cracked down on illegals, the migrants will self-deport. Ensure that their economic prospects look better in their native countries, and that’s exactly where they’ll go.
To enhance this plan further, we could also change the anchor-baby law and forbid illegals from receiving all but catastrophic medical care (no using emergency rooms for the sniffles). But the carrot will have largely been removed either way, and, once this is done, deporting the few remaining illegals would be a simple task.
Of course, to remain true to the Constitution, a couple of the above measures may have to be instituted on the state level. And what if some states won’t play ball and decide to go the sanctuary route? Then they will become the flop houses and soup kitchens for foreigners fleeing the sane states, and how long do you think this can last? As they become inundated with illegals, the fiscal and political pressure to take action will increase. This will prompt some of the only marginally insane states to take action, creating a further exodus and increasing the burden on the few remaining sanctuary states even more. As this process continues, the number of havens for illegals will be whittled away. And what if a few states simply won’t relent? Well, if California thinks it possesses a quality of infinite absorbency, okay, show us how to defy the laws of math. But the fact is that any entity can tolerate only so much pressure before breaking.
Of course, as eminently logical as this plan is, it still requires a certain necessary ingredient: the political will to take action. This brings me to the matter of how you can tell if a candidate is serious about illegal migration. Quite simply, confront him with my proposal. If he knows of it and then goes off and, when asked about Invasion USA, still says, “We can’t deport 12 million people,” you know the politician isn’t for America. He is for the birds.
