Vin Suprynowicz

Delegates of both parties preparing to cave on amnesty for another 10 to 14 million illegal aliens might want to take a gander at a new Pulse Opinion Research survey of 1,000 likely voters nationwide, available at http://tinyurl.com/axlxkyn.

“A new poll using neutral language — and avoiding the false choice of conditional legalization vs. mass deportations — finds that most Americans want illegal immigrants to return to their home counties, rather than be given legal status,” reports Steven A. Camarota, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an outfit that would appear to agree with that recommendation.

Of likely voters, 52 percent responded that they preferred to see illegal aliens go back to their home countries, compared to just 33 percent who want them given legal status, the late January polling found.

Furthermore, of those who want illegal aliens to head home, 73 percent indicated that they felt “very strongly” about that view, while just 35 percent of those who want illegal immigrants to get legal status said they felt very strongly about it.

Which means amnesty opponents are more likely to let their votes for politicians be guided by this issue.

And “One reason the public may prefer that illegals head home is a strong belief that efforts to enforce immigration laws have been inadequate,” Mr. Camarota notes. “Sixty-four percent said that enforcement of immigration laws has been ‘too little’, while just 10 percent said that it had been too much.”

When asked why there are so many illegals in the country to begin with, voters overwhelming (71 percent) thought it was because Uncle Sam had made no real effort to enforce immigration laws. Only 18 percent said it was because the government isn’t letting enough immigrants enter legally.

Another reason for skepticism about amnesty is that most voters polled (69 percent) agreed with the statement “Giving legal status to illegal immigrants does not solve the problem because rewarding law breaking will only encourage more illegal immigration.” Just 26 percent disagreed.

When asked if they had confidence that immigration laws would be enforced in the event of a new amnesty or “legalization,” just 27 percent expressed confidence there would be enforcement, while 70 percent doubted it.

And enhanced enforcement remains popular. Of likely voters, 53 percent indicated they’re more likely to support a political party that supports enforcing immigration laws vs. 32 percent who said they’re more likely to support a party that supports “legalization.”

(Technically, I’m not sure you can “legalize” criminal conduct retroactively. Bootleggers and members of the Capone mob didn’t necessarily get out of jail as soon as alcohol was re-legalized in 1933. Though if we’re going to set the precedent, what the heck — let’s repeal all the drug laws, and declare an amnesty for all drug-war prison inmates, while we’re at it.)

The poll’s margin of error is figured at plus or minus 3 percent. Question wording is available at the Web site.

Meantime, a simple exercise should help us determine whether those now calling for “comprehensive immigration reform” are in fact interested primarily in amnesty for illegals.

Hand them a proposal that’s a virtual wish list of potent immigration reforms, omitting only one. Offer them a renewed “bracero” program allowing temporary workers to enter the country in large numbers to do seasonal work (largely agricultural), as long as they leave their families at home. Offer a huge expansion in the number of available “H” visas for immigrants who can show there’s an American job waiting for them that the employer can’t find a qualified American to fill, or that will generate more American jobs than it takes away.

Require American embassies to grant travel papers to any worker for whom an American employer has acquired such proper working papers from the U.S. Department of Labor (rather than treating chefs with jobs waiting for them at Indian restaurants here, for example, as “guilty till proven innocent” of intending to overstay their visas, as is now routine at such diplomatic posts as India and the Philippines.) Hand them a plan that “secures the border” so effectively that minefields can be laid on our side, with no concern that anyone will be blown up, since after all “The border is now secure.”

Offer them all that, omitting only amnesty (they’ll want to call it a “path to citizenship”) for the illegals.

They’ll howl in outrage. They won’t take it.

Now offer them the amnesty, while removing everything else. What do you think they’ll say?

Libertarians traditionally favor open borders. I have my doubts, since statists will often abandon the hellholes created by their own collectivist policies, flocking to the relative prosperity of a free-market enclave, where they quickly form an electoral majority and start demanding the same freedom-destroying bureaucratic confiscation and redistribution policies that led them to flee New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles.

Case in point? How about Las Vegas?

But I suppose if some kind of supermajority really wants open borders and amnesty, I could be talked into it, with one condition.

You want scofflaws to be able to make a mockery of the power of the U.S. Congress to set immigration policy, with the expectation that agents of the executive branch will put their own lives at risk to enforce those laws at gunpoint? Then at least let us hear no more dog drool about “securing the borders.”

The amnesty gang promised to “secure the borders” in 1986, when Ronald Reagan got sold this same bill of goods — an amnesty for a modest 3 million illegals, as I recall — and the product of those “sealed borders” is the additional 10 to 15 million more now marching in the streets with Mexican flags, shouting in Spanish that they want to “reclaim” the half-dozen stolen states of “Aztlan.”

Shall we just save ourselves a repeat of this debate in another 27 years, adding an addendum that declares an amnesty for another 50 million illegals in the year 2040?

But you know what? I’m willing. I’m willing to support an amnesty for every illegal alien currently in this country, on one condition.
Rather than again promising to “secure the borders” — and then doing nothing of the sort — let’s take this to its logical, non-hypocritical conclusion: an amnesty for every illegal alien currently in this country, and an invitation for anyone who wants to come into this country, from anywhere in the world, to do so, no questions asked, now and forever.

Close down the passport offices; they’ll no longer be required. Close down the border checkpoints and customs stations. Repeal the immigration laws. You don’t have to have any “papers” to come here, to work here, to drive a car, anything. If 50 million new immigrants beach their boats on our sands in the next year, let them.

That’s what the pro-amnesty crowd really wants, right? Not new immigration laws — for what difference would pages of new statutes make, if it remains our policy to leave our enforcement agents watching TV in the rubber room while illegals gather with impunity on the street corners looking for work, or line up to mail money home to Mexico?

Mind you, your tax-supported youth internment and propaganda camps (“public schools”) will go bankrupt and collapse under the strain within a year or two. So will your tax-funded public hospitals and emergency rooms.

I guess I could live with that, if you insist. Anyone who wants medical attention or to have their kid tutored will have to pay cash, preferably silver — a system that worked fine for centuries, right up through 1964, in the case of medical care.

Take the huge insurance and government bureaucracies out of the picture, and “cash” prices for basic educational and medical services will drop through the floor, by the way.

Doctors would still be allowed to provide charity care to a certain percentage of their patients, while those with cash would go to the front of the line, a pretty good incentive to work, save, and invest.

(And if you don’t think people save enough for medical care, explain to me why we don’t have unlimited tax-free medical savings accounts.)

Of course, the very people who seek to bring about the speedy collapse of these tax-funded welfare institutions through amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants will squawk that this is a heartless prescription.

But all I was doing was agreeing to their demand, while attempting to remove the hypocrisy.

Instead they’ll go on hassling American citizens with their airport searches and seizures (of cash, drugs, shampoo, whatever), their labor union backers will kill the bracero program again (since they consider it pointless to unionize a worker who’s going home to Mexico in November), and they’ll be right back again to demand another amnesty for the next 50 million trespassers in the year 2040.

Right?