We the people of the United States...

In order to form a more perfect union, have spoken on immigration. That voice DOES NOT include illegal aliens or lawbreaking corporations, by the way. With that I begin my pre-Bush speech immigration rant.

Personally the main thing bothering me is the lawlessness. Laws have to mean something, and gulp, that even includes traffic laws. If I get pulled over for speeding while keeping up with other traffic, I'm still breaking the law.

But kneejerk reactions are not gonna help much, either. Building a border wall or sprinkling National Guard troops along it amounts to putting a band aid on a broken arm. It's not a bad thing, it just won't fix anything. As long as US companies and corporations continue offering clandestine jobs with a wink to the INS and DOJ, the migrants will keep coming. If we fortify the Mexican border they'll just herd them onto boats and enter via Canada somewhere. Where there's an under the table job, there's a way. So yep, any meaningful immigration reform must target the 'Acme Meatpackers' of the world as part of the crack-down.

What about the illegals already here, shall we round them up and deport them? Well, yes, sort of. How about ordering them to report to specified locations all across the country by a certain date/time. We can call it the 'get in line and 'pay the fine' notice. If they miss the deadline they'll be considered in default, and if caught, arrested.

Catching them would include any routine traffic stop, a visit to a hospital, visit to a driver's license bureau, fishing license, random INS visits to worksites, etc. The offenders would be placed on the next van to the border.

For those who register and get squared away, they either apply for guest worker status or citizenship. If it's the latter, they take a number behind those in the legal lane. The guest worker thing would time out after several years, and if they overstay and are caught it's back to border and adios permanently.

Hey, I realize it's a pretty complex issue, but we here on the internet have a solution for everything! Besides, slavery was a similar conundrum--we kept putting it off and putting it off until it finally exploded in our faces, then we eventually solved it. In truth our elected politicians should look on this as their chance to shine. Let's see if any of them do.

FWIW..

Bush managed to hit some good hot buttons such as employer accountability and stopping the catch/release, but as to the former I don't recall any specifics about penalties.

I gave him some points for trying to emphasise respect and good ole fashioned civility in this debate, but he could have also used that same bully pulpit to chastise employers who knowingly hire illegals and perhaps the illegals themselves for breaking our laws. But a baby step is a baby step.

AFTERMATH 5/16/06

A quick (and non scientific) stroll around the blogosphere and MSM shows that Bush's speech was more a pop fly to short center than a home run. There were even a few fissures created in conservative blogland, rather silly, but such is life.

Meanwhile, some of the well-known liberal blogs are not talking about the border speech much at all. Guess they didn't want to remove any screenspace from their nonstop coverage of Rove/Libby/NSA. HuffPo had a lead story about Cheney being worth 100 million, then below has an apologista story from Castro refuting he's worth nearly a billion. They have no clue who really wears the black hat.

As to the MSM, a mixed bag with fairly balanced coverage from the WaPo and Times, with Reuters showing their subtle bias again. Their article was hardly backed up with anything substantive to support the headline, but guess I shouldn't be real surprised.