Amnesty amnesia part 2

The amnesty bill got voted down in congress again. No fear, they'll put it up again - and again and again until they get it passed. Never mind that the overwhelming majority of Americans, of both parties, want border security and enforcement of existing laws before dealing with the illegals we've already got.

Like any sensible person in a small boat taking water, they want to 1) plug the leak, then 2) bail out the boat - in that order.

Our elites evidently, see it differently. And since We the People of the United States disagree, they are bound and determined to abolish us get a new people, unencumbered by quaint notions of consensual government.

I suppose I'm dating myself, but I remember the last amnesty. This was one of the best examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences I can remember.

At the time I was finishing my first M.A. and living in a rooming house with a number of Iranian girls whose immigration status was in limbo, run by the head of the university Hispanic Student Services. So you could say I was in the thick of it.

The Iranian women were earning, or had earned, advanced college degrees and desperately trying not to get sent back to the mullahocracy their country had become.

Among the people I knew trying to get legalized, was the daughter of an illegal Mexican who worked as a janitor and had if memory serves, ten kids. Sylvia had embraced the American dream, done well in school and was the recipient of several scholarships to college - if she could get legalized.

Another was a 19-year-old Guatemalan girl who had come as an au pair and overstayed her visa. Like a lot of people from Latin American and then-communist Eastern Europe, she often seemed desperate to communicate to clueless Americans that where she came from, you could be killed for speaking out of turn.

When the amnesty was announced, one of the weird and unexpected things that happened was all the undocumented English and Irish that came out of the woodwork to get legal. Most had evidently come on tourist visas and simply stayed. So who ever questions the status of an English-speaking white person?

I thought it was a great idea at the time. These were the kind of people I'd cheerfully trade for any number of the Americans we've already got. But now we've got a minimum of four to five times the number of illegals, and apparently they are, compared with the last lot, less willing to assimilate, more crime-prone and far more likely to brazenly use public assistance.

So what happened?

Well, we didn't fix the border for one. And believe me, I've travelled along that border and when I hear talk about "building a fence" I immediately suspect that the speaker hasn't been there. For much of it's length, the border runs across country so wild that the Border Patrol finds it easier to man checkpoints at choke points on the highways, often as much as a hundred miles or so from the line.

For another, it is now evident that Mexico is "dumping" population on us. The governing oligarchy of Mexico is so corrupt, the economy so stagnant that revolution is always a terrifying possibility. Their economy is hugely dependent on remittances sent by Mexicans in the US, and what stability there is, is partly maintained by encouraging the troublesome to leave for the States.

So what is to be done? More to the point, what can we stand to do when confronted with an invasion of people who have such a claim on our sympathy?

Send them all back? Do you really think our people have the stomach for the sight of mass deportation? Hundreds, maybe thousands of surprise raids with all the attendant damage and inevitable mistakes? I saw the evactuation of the last Russian troops from Eastern Europe heading home in cattle cars - one of the most pitiable sights I've ever seen. Things will have to get a lot worse before most Americans could stand to watch that.

Sealing the border would require the use of military forces empowered to use deadly force. Yeah right, doesn't really work for me either.

Force Mexico to clean up their act and make it a decent place to live for ordinary people? Mexico is heartbreaking, a place that could be paradise if power were not so ruthlessly exploited.

But that's imperialism! Which we all know is always and forever a Bad Thing.

So what's left?

I don't know - but at least we can refrain from making things worse.