There are tides in politics, when taken at the surge can lead to success, and when taken in the trough can be lost to the foam. We are in a political mood swing away from the optimism of a Global Village and towards the xenophobia against the Barbarian Hordes. A decade ago, Califdornia's Prop 187 tried to restrict illegal immigration, but all it did was to hurt the Repubs in Calif. That was a different time, with the dot-com bubble beginning and optimism surging. We are now shifting the other way. The tide has turned.
We are also more at risk, as the influx from one culture is stressing the melting pot and Latinizing many communities, rather than Americanizing the immigrants. Back around the time of Prop 187, Ross Perot warned that NAFTA (free trade with Mexico) would create a great sucking sound of jobs moving south. Instead, the job seekers came north. The law of unintended consequences confounds the best and the brightest, as well as the Ross Perots. NAFTA lowered agriculture tariffs, devastating marginal Mexican farmers. They left the farms and looked to El Norte for hope.
Incoherent policy makes it easy for them. We shoot illegals at the border then give them free reign once they get inside: schooling, healthcare, benefits, amnesty. Their kids become citizens. Legal immigrants have a harder time! Visa complexity, risk of not coming back in after a business trip out.
We need to create a bigger contrast between legals and illegals. Walls need not be built. Illegals need not be criminalized as much as incentivized. Legal immigration should be opened up. Most of all, following the rules and earning citizenship should be worth more.
A simple proposal: offer citizenship to qualified illegals who enlist in our army and fight our wars. The army will Americanize them, and their duty earns them the right to become citizens.
This is not unprecedented. Rome had its auxiliaries. Britannia had its Ghurkas.
This doesn't solve the whole problem, but it is a start.
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