Dan

Calabrese

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November 15, 2007

Stop the Romney/Huckabee Cat Fight! Here’s the Fix for Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration is not really a problem in America. It is a symptom of a larger problem – the welfare state. But the political mortar fire these days is still aimed at illegals, so let’s not interrupt the theater with any clear thinking.

And we couldn’t get through the presidential primary season without Republicans trying to one-up each other on the question of who detests illegal immigrants more.

Step right up, Mitt Romney! And prepare to take your shots, Mike Huckabee! It’s Romney you’re trying to hit, but if you knock off a few illegals in the process, so much the better.

This week’s silly immigration cat fight pits Huckabee’s state tuition policies against Romney’s landscaping help. Major presidential issues. Next week, national security and carrot cake recipes.

Romney assails Huckabee for Arkansas policies that supposedly made tuition credits available to the children of illegal immigrants. Huckabee retorts: “I guess Mitt Romney would rather keep people out of college so they can keep working on his lawn.” (Because apparently the company that took care of Romney’s lawn employed four illegal aliens, and you’re really really supposed to care.)

Oh Mike! Oh Mitt! Stop it! You guys are killing me. This is so funny. Maybe tomorrow, Huckabee can say, “Mitt’s hair is so perfect I think I should invest in the company that made it.” And Romney could reply, “Oh yeah? Well Mike used to be so fat, if he were elected they’d have to bring back William Howard Taft’s mombo bath tub!”

Bashing immigrants worked so well for Republicans in 2006, they just have to try it again. If there’s an illegal immigrant under a rock, a Republican who’s trailing in the polls will find him and get really outraged. And if they keep trying, they just might be able to drive their share of the 2008 Hispanic vote down below 20 percent, which would be quite an achievement considering that President Bush got more than 40 percent in 2004.

That’ll beat Hillary.

Immigrant bashing is politically dumb and substantively vacuous. It is the antithesis of the positive conservative vision that Ronald Reagan used to make conservatism the most appealing political philosophy of much of the past quarter-century.

It’s also a sledgehammer taken to a problem better solved with a salve.

Yes, we have people in our country illegally. And yes, they’re accessing public resources – welfare checks, public schools, hospital emergency room services . . . and if Democrats can figure out a way to register them to vote (like maybe while giving them driver’s licenses? tee hee, nice try, Gov. Spitzer), they’ll be doing that too.

And yes, they’re accepting jobs that Americans could theoretically be doing.

They’re not here because America is too willing to hand out goodies to illegals. They’re here because America is too willing to hand out goodies to everyone. And in the course of handing out the goodies, we have no mechanism for distinguishing who should be here from who shouldn’t.

The welfare state has created the illegal immigration “problem,” such that it is. This is even true for those who came here to work, because if not for minimum and prevailing wage laws that artificially inflate the cost of labor, there might not be a market for underground, cheap labor that illegals are only too willing to perform.

This is the real immigration issue. Any Republican candidate worth his salt should say: Illegal immigration is a symptom. The disease is the welfare state that attracts them. Dismantle the welfare state at all levels, and the only people who want to come here will be those we’re happy to have – who want to come in legally, work hard and obey our laws.

Candidates who emphasize merely denying these goodies to illegals not only duck the real problem, but propose a solution they cannot possibly implement with any success. As long as it is possible to glom off the public dole, people will find their way here and will do so. And honestly, are those who sneak across our border to glom off our taxpayers really creating a bigger problem than those who were born here and do the exact same thing?

There is no need to build a border fence, and there is no need to round ‘em up. Just stop rewarding people for sloth, and they’ll leave. Except the ones we’re better off keeping.

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