Well-populated street protests have sprung up across the land to address the issue of illegal immigrants, or, undocumented workers -- the term you select indicates your opinion. In some cities, the Mexican flag was proudly waved, but now it seems the protestors understand the invasive message that displays on the evening news. Now American and Mexican flags are waving as they march. There have been so many protests, I wonder if the protestors think they are in France, which has a protest every month or so, though considerably more violent and foreboding.
The French government recently caved into the latest wave of protests to oppose a government reform to allow companies to fire young employees who perform poorly. Ironically, here in the US the protest is to allow illegal immigrants to stay in this country and work exceedingly hard.
Throughout history immigrants have taken some of the toughest jobs--nowadays landscaping, farming, roofing, construction. Generations of immigrants -- Irish, Italian, German, Jewish -- have raised themselves up from apple cart vendor on the corner of Wall and Broad Street to the corner office of those very skyscrapers. We all want the American Dream to flourish, and it does: hopeful immigrants from all over the world wish to live and work here. We need to make sure that immigrants who obey the law are not put at a disadvantage to those who flout it.
Amidst the striving new immigrants there is an unsavory element, in which the American Dream is truncated into a life in the shadows, or perverted into a life of crime. Is it possible to legalize the honest, hard-working immigrants, and deport the criminals? Will Mexican officials repatriate the criminals and incarcerate them, or simply point them North?
It is not so difficult to build a fence. Israel is constructing a hi-tech fence that reduces infiltrations by 90%; many terrorist attacks have been averted. Some have complained that determined lawbreakers will simply dig under the fence, but there is no perfect solution. Others argue the fence would be unsightly, perhaps even uglier than the wall surrounding the statue of Saint Louis on Art Hill, yet there is a simple solution: hire Christo, the uber-artist who hung the orange shower curtains throughout Central Park last year. Surely he would be able to come up with a reflective wrapper or tensile fabric stretched to physically and aesthetically repel the aliens.
Perhaps the most ridiculous notion of the protest movement is the belief that the Southwest United States somehow belongs to Mexico, or will be re-conquered by Mexicans. These descendants of the long-gone Maya, Inca, Aztec, and Conquistadors need to brush up on their history. We already fought the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), signed the Treaty of Guadalupe, and paid Mexico $15 million (in those days that was real money). The 1853 Gadsden Purchase ($10 million) lays to rest any legal recourse. Sometimes business deals don't turn out exactly as planned (the French are still miffed about the Louisiana Purchase) but hey, a deals a deal, hindsight is 20-20, take a hike.
Finally, a call for cool heads is in order; polemicists who suggest a mass deportation should not be taken seriously. In an age when we have intractable enemies--radical Islamists--who dispatch their minions to disrupt our civilization, we must not bicker about our destitute neighbors to the south, dominated by an aloof and haughty oligarchy. Let's set the rules, build the fence, and go about our business in the productive fashion to which we have grown accustomed. After all, that's what "rule of law" is all about: the laws are made, then obeyed.
