The disaster that is the Immigration and Naturalization Service is well documented (see Is E Pluribus Unum Out Of Style?, October 2002), nowhere in higher relief than in the cases late last year of accused D. C. sniper Malvo and the Haitian refugees in Florida. Michelle Malkin has vividly described the bankrupt status of U. S. immigration policy and enforcement in her articles and new book, Invasion. It is long past time to get very serious about this problem and introduce tough measures to control immigration and our borders, protect Americans from terrorists, and restore the value and integrity of American citizenship. A good start is to deal with the hard truth that the U. S. doesn’t enforce its present immigration laws and that illegal immigration provides a subsidy for a large number of U. S. employers and households at the expense of taxpayers. Our new ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, has some good ideas on reform, including a market-driven guest worker program. Meaningful reform has been overwhelmingly approved by the U. S. House, only to be delayed in the then Democrat-controlled Senate (surprise!). President Bush should put it high on his list of priorities, properly fund the Border Patrol, and forget about amnesty deals with Mexico. One encouraging sign is that Asa Hutchinson, our first undersecretary for border and aviation security in the Department of Homeland Security, is a tough former prosecutor whose appointment has created a stir among liberal immigrant civil rights groups. The big problem is with the INS, however, and unfortunately, there was not a word about any of this in the President’s State of the Union message. Ronald Reagan missed a great window of opportunity during his Presidency to enact the sweeping reforms recommended by a blue-ribbon commission that would have avoided much of the crisis we face today, but he considered the issue a “no-win” politically. Sadly, there are some signs of this sentiment in the current administration.
