Who documents the watchmen?
The problem with illegal immigration, in my mind, is not that people are heading across the US border looking for a better life. Schoolhouse rock taught me that America is a greatmelting pot, and I try to believe everything childhood cartoons told me.
The problem with illegal immigration is that it opens up a whole lot of holes in our border. This is important, because there are people who want to bring things across the US border that aren’t huddled masses yearning to breath free. Rather, it’s terrorists with bad plots, and people carrying cocaine. Future Americans (or their parents) are desirable. The rest, not so much.
To back up a bit: There are people in the world for whom being a slave in America is preferable to whatever hell they’re leaving behind. There are, in fact, a whole lot of people like that. Given this, they will do whatever it takes to improve life for themselves and their children.
They will live the American dream if we want them to or not.
That’s not really the problem. The problem is that in figuring out how to get across our “sealed” border, they’re creating holes through which other people can slip. We need to separate the people we want from the people with nefarious purpose.
The solution seems rather simple, to me. Let’s throw the American borders open. Let’s not just crack them a little bit to students and those with work visas, but everyone. All someone would have to do, in my system, is A) have someone to support them when they get here and B) be able to pass a background check.
It seems to me that this keep the people most motivated to get here from using their skills and ingenuity to break our security. When that happens, it leaves the real bad guys having to do their own thinking. Makes our job a lot easier.
The complication I see is in executing this background check. You can confirm they’re not on any terrorist watchlist easily enough, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a lot. Last I checked, Mexico doesn’t have the sort census data we do. They don’t issue Social Security numbers, or keep track of their citizens in general in any serious or consistent manner. So, what are you going to check?
This problem gets even worse for those people who came from further south than Mexico.