The Murch gets it just right on immigration (except for the one sentence about not being able to deport 11 million people. Sigh. A few well-publicized deportations would encourage people to "self-deport," and discourage people from coming over in the first place.)
when large changes are coming, if there's only so much to be done about it, and if good things as well as bad may come of the changes, let us, for heaven's sake, seek to manage these changes. Immigration to the world's best economy is one of those changes I think we really wish, deep down, not to block. I think we have to manage, not mangle, changes in immigration policy -- not least because the expulsion of 11 million or so illegals just isn't going to happen. We have to create circumstances in which those desirous of coming and staying here will desire to come legally and in broad daylight rather than illegally and in darkness.
But there's another side. It's neither racist nor unreasonable -- as some immigrant action groups appear to think -- for Americans to set the terms of residency and citizenship for residents and citizens.
Meanwhile, blacks are getting angry about Hispanic preferences:
"We've told Haiti that their development strategy cannot be to send people to the United States, and if you put them on a boat we will send them back. But for Mexico it is OK," said William E. Spriggs, chairman of Howard University's School of Economics and a senior fellow with the Economic Policy Institute.
And the American people are very clear about what they want. What is so hard to understand about this? Enforcement first. People want everyone --including immigrants-- to be safe from terrorists; and, while they don't care what their neighbors' skin-color or heritage is, they want their neighbors to be Americans. And then a path to citizenship for those who are on this side of the border once it's controlled (see above).
The poll is heartening, actually: shows the good sense of the American people. Because listening to and reading the pundits, I'm inclined to agree with Murch:
The United States needs a rational immigration system, concerning whose contours good folk may differ -- in Spanish, English or both.
Just now, given hardening attitudes on both sides, prospects for creating such a system are not what you might call -- as we say in the language of the United States of America -- real good.
