Borderline Immigration Policy

At the end of his immigration speech on May 15, the President shared a Reaganesque anecdote about being present at the naturalization of a Marine Sargeant, Guadulupe Denogean, who had come to the United States from Mexico. He didn’t mention the fact that Denogean was naturalized in April of 2003 nor did he mention the fact that Denogean was one of two military men in Bethesda who were naturalized that day. The other was OJ Santamaria, a native of the Phillipines.

The Denogean story is significant because it reveals some of the very slippery ground in what amounts to our cultural borderline personality disorder. Both the President and the news stories were pointedly vague about what Denogean’s precise immigration status was when his family came to pick crops in Arizona when he was a child. (to be clear, I have no idea what it was) For purposes of the 2006 speech, the President rather slyly implied that Denogean’s family had been illegal at some point. As Balidilocks points out, it would be somewhat odd in a speech on “illegal” immigration to be touting a citizenship ceremony for a “legal” resident.

After all, no credible person has argued that “legal” immigrants pose any sort of problems. Some, however, have pointed out that the all the 9/11 highjackers entered the U.S. legally or at least had papers.

Let’s just say that Denogean’s family happened to be illegal at some point. Certainly, he was far too young when they came here to bear any responsibility for having broken American law as opposed to say the moral law of trying to feed one’s family. If you read the Marine Corps press release from 2003, you’ll see that the Sargeant dropped out of high school at age 17 to join the Marines and served in the Corps for some 26 years before becoming a citizen after having been wounded in his second conflict as a U.S. Marine.

In his words, “It was a better life than continuing to work in the fields like his parents had to.”

In any case, I have no problem at all with granting Denogean citizenship regardless of what turns up about the legality of his family's immigration status. I certainly have less problem with any illegals who might be serving than I do with Jonah Goldberg not serving.

At the same time, what a subtle and brilliant plan on the President’s part! Instead of rounding up thousands of illegal immigrants and arresting them or sending them back to their native countries, why not just draft them? There’ve been some problems with recruitment quotas in the last year. After all, most point out that illegal workers already do jobs that not enough Americans care to do.

I could also see this fascinating scenario unfold on our now better-armed border with Mexico. Given all the stories about National Guard units having to stay in Iraq for unexpectedly long tours, we could have National Guard units of former illegals sent to the border to identify and catch illegals. We slap the uniform on the person, implant a tracking chip, and he/she goes from security threat to security asset just like that. It's much better than "catch and release". This way, you never run out of National Guardsmen to round up illegals- solution by induction at its finest.

Yankee fans, the baseball ones, have already seen this transformation by uniform technique work with Johnny Damon.

I will grant that it might be confusing. One day, you’re comparing illegal immigrants to terrorists and drug dealers, the next day the same individual becomes a shining beacon of all that’s good about America, so much so that the President drags out your story three years later. At the same time, everyone’s happy. The former illegal immigrant now has a job that comes with benefits, training, and a path to U.S. citizenship. Conservatives can continue to support the war without actually risking their own children. In the meantime, no illegals are driving cars without licenses, using our public schools, or filling up our emergency rooms. It’s the ultimate guest worker program.

I can’t remember who said that the mark of genius is to hold two mutually contradictory ideas in one’s mind without going crazy. By combining a proposal for a border army to keep out illegal immigrants while simultaneously and subtly endorsing the notion that an illegal immigrant can be a great American by joining the army, the President has clearly asserted his genius.

I do find it interesting that our culture has become obsessed with both illegal immigration and foreign terrorists at the same time I say “foreign” because the second biggest terrorist action on U.S. soil was the Oklahoma City bombing and no one pre-emptively invaded say Michigan to root out the Michigan Militia.

We took our time catching and convicting Terry Nichols and Timothy Macveigh while still respecting the Constitution. After it turned out that the Atlanta Olympics bomber, Eric Rudolph, was an anti-abortion activist, we didn’t send all anti-abortion activists to Guantanamo. Has anyone ever seen some of the stories about the kinds of weapons some of these groups have been accumulating?

To me, the reason is pretty simple.We’re going through yet another stage where we are more comfortable blaming “others” for our problems. Americans don’t want to look at themselves as the source of their woes.

Illegal immigrants are stealing our low-level jobs, yet we somehow have to keep raising the number of H1 visas to bring in high-tech workers and teachers. Illegal immigrants are taking advantage of our health care and education system which both obviously work perfectly but for the demand they place on those institutions. Foreign terrorists threaten us our every waking moment, yet we shoot each other, poison ourselves with alcohol and cigarettes, or simply run over one another in our SUV’s at a far greater rate than any jihadist plots have managed. Should we do anything to say just regulate those problems? Absolutely not-it limits our precious freedom.

By the way, why is it okay to track all our phone calls but not okay to make someone register a gun? One threatens the creation of a police state, but the other is just about keeping us safe?

In the meantime, I look forward to the technology that our genius President referenced to help us police our borders. Perhaps he can pass a law for NSA to implant a chip inside every American and then turn the border into a fifteen hundred mile long bar code scanner. When someone comes through the gate without the chip, a buzzer goes off. Perhaps the President's dad could come out of retirement to help with this project since he seemed so impressed when he saw such a device at the supermarket so many years ago.

Prior to the Fugitive Slave Act, they had a similar idea called the “slave bracelet”. The Germans also used tattoos to help distinguish real Germans from impostors. Perhaps this is the tamper-proof worker ID that he proposed in his speech. So, these kinds of ideas do have a track record.

In any case, I’d like to be the first to volunteer to help the administration with any or all of these plans. I’m sure they know how to reach me by phone these days.
another immigration post link

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