Thursday, November 21, 2002 :::
Lily at The Kitchen Cabinet quotes a Daniel Griswold from Cato as follows:
Conservative Republicans face a clear choice when it comes to immigration politics. They can follow the lead of President Bush, who has sung the praises of immigrants and sought to create a more welcoming legal path to the United States for those seeking a better life through peaceful work. Or they can follow the likes of Pat Buchanan, Pete Wilson, and Tom Tancredo back into the political wilderness.
I don't know Congressman Tancredo's views that well, but my impression is that his campaign is more one of enforcing the laws than making them more restrictive. And, while I think of myself as more pro-immigrant than anti-immigrant, I agree with enforcing immigration laws. I agree with enforcing pretty much every law, except the ones I want repealed.
The current immigration system isn't too lenient or too strict so much as it is just generally wacky. And while wackiness is a fine quality in a friend or family member, it's not an attribute I like to see emanating from my government. Canada -- whose asylum policy is probably too weak, but whose main immigration policy I rather like -- scores applicants with a point system, to favor educated, employable, linguistically prepared people over those just shopping for a new welfare state. You can add up most of the points yourself (some are a bit subjective -- how "fluent" is fluent?) and figure out whether it's even worth trying.
In the States, on the other hand, we have one of the most sought-after prizes in the world -- American citizenship, or at least permanent residence -- and feel we need to ration it (at this time, I'm not going to argue for or against the rationing itself). We could pick the best, hardest working, most skilled, but instead we pick 'em at random. It's arbitrary -- he can come, she can't, because that's how the dice landed.
I'd go on from there, but I'm supposed to be doing something else. I do want to add one more thing -- even though I support enforcement of immigration laws, I do think we need to reform them, and ensure that we present this position in an appropriate manner. It's easy to interpret proscecution of illegal immigrants as maliciously anti-immigrant, or even anti-hispanic. We need to make it clear that it's a matter of enforcing our laws; we aren't rounding up Mexicans, arbitrarily, because we feel like it, we're doing it because rule-of-law is the American way. And it would be easier to argue that American immigration law isn't arbitrary if American immigration law weren't, in fact, arbitrary.
::: posted by Steven at 5:55 AM
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