The National Pretend Crisis

That's my new name for the "Illegal Immigration Crisis." It's made up stuff. Like most of the republican schemes you can turn what ever they say backwards. The stuff they say only makes sense when you view it through the looking glass. Like their "Patriot Act" was mostly we're going to eavesdrop on conversations and keep track of anybody who disagrees with us, or how their "war on drugs" has mostly turned into price supports for cartels and smugglers.

I know that I'm dating myself, but does anybody else out there remember when we had The National Pretend Speed Limit of 55mph on the highways of the country? They posted all kinds of signs, had swarms of officers patrolling the highways to bring down the vast majority of our population who was ignoring the law. They had to ignore the law. When laws are crazy, rational people simply refuse to obey them.

That's where we are with our immigration laws. Batshit crazy. Most of the counter measures are counter productive. Eight miles from where I write this is the city of Mexicali. Over two million people live there. A large part of the economy here depends on citizens from Mexicali coming across the border to do their shopping. That's one of the reasons that the biggest shopping mall around here is a mere four miles from the Port of Entry. On an average Monday morning the wait at the border is an hour and a half. That means that nobody in their right mind will wait there in line for that amount of time, be confronted by arrogant and oftentimes rude Customs Agents when all they wanted to do was come shop at Diamond's Department store. There are a lot of business on both sides of the border who are suffering or closing because there isn't easy access to cross the border.

We used to on a whim, decide "Hey, let's go get some Chinese food." Go into Mexicali and treat ourselves to some of the finest Cantonese and Hunan you'll ever find. Not anymore. Our aggressive and arrogant posture on the border makes that kind of thing impossible. Now, crossing the border means long waits, searches, stupid questions and other things that make it just not worth the bother.

So, who benefits from all this? My suspicion is that the folks who are trumpeting the loudest about the "illegal" question are the people who have the most to gain by keeping hard working immigrants in illegal status, and therefore more easily cheated and exploited. They aren't concerned in the slightest about laws, or the rule of law, or even simple human decency. They want to make sure that their next construction project doesn't have to pay a living wage to the folks who do the framing and pour the concrete.

It's a very simple situation. People from Central America up through Mexico are starving and only want a chance to work their asses off to better their lives and feed their families. They can't do it in the places they were born so they come here. They are not illegal, they are the best, the most courageous, and some of the finest people you will ever meet. They are risking everything for a small chance at being able to live in a decent human way. The laws that have made crossing the border more difficult have not even begun to stem this human tide. They have enriched the coyotes (pronounced COY-oh-tay) who smuggle them. Fees for being guided across have gone up over 300% in the last two years. The first effect of further clamping down border access will be to make these vile and vicious criminals far richer. They will also be certain to spend some of this new found wealth on bribing Customs and Border Patrol Agents. That's what the drug smugglers did, that's what the rum runners did during prohibition. That's what any rational human being will do when confronted with crazy laws. They refuse to obey them.

We didn't quit drinking because of Prohibition. We haven't quit doing dope because Nixon declared war on it. We won't stop illegal immigration by making the laws about it even crazier. We will only encourage more rational folks to disobey this insanity.

When will these people realize that they can't solve a problem using the same thinking that created the problem in the first place? My other suspicion is that the whole "immigration" thing is nothing but bullshit smoke and mirrors so that the Republican candidates won't have to talk about how thoroughly and completely they have fucked up the Middle East.

{/rant}

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