One of Our 50 Is Missing

And that's why New Mexicans are all going to have to get passports — thanks to the intransigence of Senate Democrats, and Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez in particular.

New Mexican Passports

Every year the New Mexico tourism department gets a lot of letters from potential visitors asking about passport and visa requirements for visiting New Mexico from the United States. These would-be tourists seem not to understand that New Mexico is one of the 50 states of the United States (as it was one of the 48 states — now referred to as the "lower 48" — before Alaska and Hawaii were admitted in 1959).

I have always felt the response sent to these potential visitors should be that New Mexico does not issue visas to U.S. citizens.

New Mexicans have long joked about how much of the rest of our country doesn't believe we're a state. We have become accustomed to others asking what our currency is or being surprised at how well we speak English. We have joked that we need to carry passports to visit other parts of our own country.

But now there's a new wrinkle — It appears most New Mexicans will require passports to fly to El Paso or Phoenix or even Los Alamos, or to go onto Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque or onto Cannon Air Force Base or the White Sands Missile Range or into any federal courthouse or federal building.

It's all because of the Real ID Act, which requires (among other things) that state IDs and drivers' licenses be used to identify U.S. citizens and legal residents. But New Mexico, and particularly New Mexico drivers' licenses, are noncompliant because a 2005 New Mexico law mandates issuance of New Mexico drivers' licenses to illegal aliens (or, more specifically, to people who cannot demonstrate they are in the U.S. legally).

Up until now, New Mexico and a number of other states have been given deadline extensions allowing them to avoid compliance with the Act's requirements. But now the Homeland Security Department has denied New Mexico an additional extension for deadline compliance. That, of course, has re-energized the debate over attempts to repeal the 2005 law and the role of the Democrat leadership of the New Mexico Senate in blocking those repeal efforts.

In the meantime, New Mexico residents had better obtain or renew their passports. They'll need those passports to travel into the (rest of the) United States — or anywhere else.

Current Concerns

One really big concern — possibly the biggest — has to be "What kind of extra-constitutional (if not flatly unconstitutional) actions will President Obama take after the election and before the new Congress is sworn in?" Highly likely, especially since it has been promised repeatedly, is an executive amnesty to "legalize" the illegal aliens living here.

Of course, we're also now aware that President Obama has delayed the release of information on next year's large Obamacare premium increases till after the election, too. We also learned in the last week or so that the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) diverted appropriations from development contracts for Ebola vaccines to contracts for unrelated things placed with Democrats' political friends. Was that corruption? Maybe, but based on other things we're seeing, it may have been simple incompetence.

Of longer-term concern are recently released figures showing where our government's budget dollars are going. It's notable that almost two-thirds go to income transfers — money taken from taxpayers who produce and given to non-taxpayers who don't. And that's the part of the budget that's exploding. Only about 6% of the budgeted money is spent on actually governing.

And then there's the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). We were told for a decade that no WMDs were found in Iraq. The New York Times and every Lefty in the country endlessly repeated the Democrats' mantra: "Bush Lied, People Died" or sometimes "Bush Lied, Thousands Died". (In making these statements, they all ignored the fact that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government used chemical weapons against Iraqi minorities and in the Iran-Iraq War.) Now, the New York Times has apparently, and belatedly, discovered that lots of WMDs — specifically, chemical weapons — were found all along. And they were found all over the place, not just in one location. Here's the map and notations from the New York Times article.

Perhaps the New York Times decided to make these admissions because some of the bases with stockpiles of chemical weapons have now been taken over by the so-called "Islamic State" in Iraq, as Bashar al-Assad's equivalents have been in Syria. These weapons have been banned by every civilized country on the planet, but ISIS has already been happily using them against their enemies — as did both Saddam Hussein (Iraq) and Hafez al-Assad (Syria) before them, and probably Bashar al-Assad more recently.

So how do we tell the difference between the "moderate muslims" and "peaceful muslims" on the one hand, and the uncivilized barbarians like ISIS on the other? I don't know of a way to make that distinction. Indeed, there may not be a way. I come to that conclusion because it appears the muslims can't determine who is peaceful and who is not, either. In fact, anyone (particularly any imam) who speaks out for moderate positions and against the barbarians is very soon killed. I suspect that's the reason for this:
Because you never know when some muslim barbarian will take offense to something you said or to something you did or to your existence, and decides to do something about it.

Obama's Issues

President Barack Obama is being asked to deal with several issues at the same time lately. Actually, these issues have been there for a long time and just haven't been dealt with effectively.

One such issue is the Veterans Administration and its handling of health care for veterans. President Obama knew about this in his first presidential campaign, and promised to fix the problem. Instead, nothing has been done and the situation has gotten worse during his Administration.

That's bad enough on its own. But the whole country should be concerned about what it means for everyone under the horribly mis-named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Part of the problem is that Obamacare does nothing in the field of health care. It is an insurance bill, not a health care bill. It does not create a single additional doctor or nurse or dentist or other health care provider. But its demands will demand more of those still working in the medical care system.

And that's before you add in all the people coming across the border. You know, the ones the Department of Homeland Security is busing (and flying) to relocation centers all over the country, those who are given a court date and released, etc. They're all going to need free lawyers, we're told, and free health care.

That's also before you add in the fact that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) isn't stable — it isn't finished. It's still being changed, both by the Department of Health and Human Services (formerly Kathleen Sebelius) and the White House (Barack Obama).

Of course, a lot of folks insist the President and his Cabinet departments don't have that kind of authority. They aren't allowed to change the laws passed by Congress and signed by the President, either by adding provisions to those laws or by declining to enforce those laws. If they do, it comes to this.

There also seem to be other differences in views between those inside the Administration cocoon and those outside it. Some of those differences are rather substantial.

Just one more. And this one may be a little snarky. But it gave me a chuckle, so here it is anyway.

Arizona Immigration Law Lawsuit

Last July, I wrote a suggestion for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. It was in response to the decision by Barack Obama and Eric Holder to abuse the federal courts to harrass Arizona for (a) trying to get the federal government to fulfill its responsibilities and enforce federal immigration law or, in the alternative, (b) leave Arizona alone to enforce its own law, written to mirror the federal immigration law.

My suggestion was Countersue! Specifically, I wrote

So here's my suggestion to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer — Countersue! Sue for two things:

1. Specific performance, a court order ordering the federal government to enforce the law. (Of course, the Administration will probably ignore that court order, just as it has ignored others.)
2. Damages to repay the state and its people for the costs of the federal dereliction of duty, probably on the order of $2 trillion.

Just a suggestion.

Now, it has happened. Arizona filed suit against the federal government on Thursday. The Arizona lawsuit reportedly has five primary counts, as taken from press conference notes:

1. Failure to achieve operational control over the Mexico/Arizona border. (I would have said "refusal", not "failure".)
2. Failure to protect Arizona from invasion. And Arizona says invasion is not just limited to other countries' armies but applies to people and secured border. (That means "invasion" isn't just limited to a country's army, but also applies to the drug cartels, and to the coyotes and other criminals.)
3. Failure to enforce federal immigration laws ... and this failure causes national security risks. Part of the charge is that it is a clear abuse of discretion that federal government only enforces the laws Holder and Obama choose to enforce. The Administration must enforce all the laws. (Yes, I agree — this failing is not limited to the current Administration. But the fact that others violated the law, too, doesn't mean they are allowed to violate the law.)
4. Declaratory relief about reimbursement for the federal government’s failure (refusal) to pay for the incarceration of illegal alien prisoners (that are really a federal responsibility).
5. Under the Constitution's 10th amendment, powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states and the people. While control of border is federal responsibility, when it abdicates that responsibility and criminals cross the border illegally and commit crimes, responding to those criminals and crimes is a state responsibility — and the federal government us interfering with the state's duty to fulfill its responsibilities.

It looks like I missed Arizona's count five, but I still feel pretty good (and slightly prescient).

Given what I have said here, and before, all I can add is "It's about damned time!"

Good for you, Governor Brewer — and good for your Attorney General Tom Horne, too!

Arizona Immigration Law Lawsuits

So President Barack Obama, and his crony at the Justice Department Eric Holder, have filed suit against Arizona over SB1070 — Arizona's immigration law. They might as well have titled their lawsuit the United States Government vs. the People of the United States since a majority support the Arizona law and another proportion thinks it doesn't go far enough.

I've already written of what I think about the law itself, and about the duplicity and dishonesty of most of the arguments against it. That includes the ones I heard this morning on Meet the Press.

The Obama Administration and the Holder Justice Department pretend they are just trying to avoid having a patchwork of immigration laws across the country. This is disingenuous in the extreme. As the Los Angeles Times reports, that patchwork exists now — largely because of the federal government's refusal to enforce the current laws, or to even encourage cities (& etc.) simply to avoid flouting the law.

The DOJ lawsuit also claims the Arizona law interferes with federal enforcement of the federal immigration laws it mirrors. But that's a logical impossibility — you can't interfere with something the federal government is not doing and has no intention of doing.

It seems the issue is really that Obama and Holder assert they know better than the Congress and the people. They think they can determine what laws to ignore and what laws (existing or nonexistent) to enforce.

So here's my suggestion to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer — Countersue! Sue for two things:

1. Specific performance, a court order ordering the federal government to enforce the law. (Of course, the Administration will probably ignore that court order, just as it has ignored others.)
2. Damages to repay the state and its people for the costs of the federal dereliction of duty, probably on the order of $2 trillion.

Just a suggestion.

Deliberate Stupidity About the Arizona Immigration Law

There are a lot of people out there saying a lot of things about the new Arizona law on illegal aliens. The milder statements have been that it's clearly invalid (statements by Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, and earlier statements by Barack Obama), and that it was "poorly conceived" (later Obama statement). Many have said it is obviously unconstitutional, requires racial profiling, and violates U.S. treaty obligations. Others have been calling it racist and immoral, and have accused Arizona of being filled with Nazis for having passed it.

Southern Arizona's Congressman Raúl Grijalva has called on President Obama to void the law, and has called for a boycott of his own state for having passed it. It looks like Los Angeles may join that boycott — which Arizona power plants may accommodate by sending to other states the large amount of electricity they currently supply to that city. Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, from southern California, has said white supremacist groups are behind the passage of this law.

Statements calling the Arizona law racist and xenophobic, and a brutal violation of human rights, have come from dictators Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

And on a visit to Washington, D.C., Mexican President Felipe Calderón attacked Arizona and its new law — both in a speech to the Congress (drawing a standing ovation from Congressional Democrats) and in a joint press conference with President Obama at the White House.

There is one common thread among all these views and statements: As best I can determine, not a single one of the people making these statements have actually read the Arizona law.

Here's part of why that's interesting: The Arizona law mirrors the corresponding federal law, though with prohibitions against racial profiling the federal law lacks. By that means, it makes violations of the federal immigration law also violations of state law, enabling the state and local authorities to enforce them.

All of which would be known to all these folks if they would just read the bill. It's not like the Arizona law is a 2700 page monstrosity — the law is just ten pages long. Is it really too much to ask that our most senior officials read the bill before pontificating about it? It might actually keep them from making incredibly ignorant public statements. (On the other hand, maybe they simply don't want to know what's actually in the new law.)

This whole situation has caused me three particular lines of thought:

  — Consider why Arizona has been pushed into passing a law like this. Phoenix has become the kidnapping capital of the world as the drug cartels have been pushing across our far-too-open border. Ranchers have been dealing with increasing amounds of theft and destruction, both of their property and of the region's Sonoran Desert. Attempts to stop the vandals and human traffickers have gotten area ranchers hauled into court or murdered by illegal aliens. Conditions have become intolerable. Something had to be done — has to be done — and the Obama Administration, like its predecessors for at least two decades, has completely abdicated its responsibility for border security.

  — Everything we hear from the press and media, and nearly everything we hear from our nation's political leadership, opposes this new Arizona law. To restate this, everything we hear from the elites opposes this law. Despite this, 70% of Arizonans and a significant majority of all Americans support this law. In fact, even a major portion of American politicians support it. That's why at least 18 other states are now considering passage of similar laws. And that's not counting the states like California who already have laws on the books with similar provisions.

  — Thinking about the people demonstrating against this law (for example here, I keep wondering where they were before. If this law is so onerous, so obviously racist, and so obviously unconstitutional, why weren't they protesting when the U.S. Congress passed (and the president signed) the same provisions? Where were they when California passed their similar law? My conclusion is that the selective outrage of the politicians and media and demonstrators isn't about this law or any of its provisions — it's really about the fact that, unlike other jurisdictions in the past, Arizona will probably actually enforce this law.

Under these circumstances, I guess I should revise my initial statement: There are a lot of people out there spouting really stupid stuff about the new Arizona law on illegal aliens. Their statements reflect either complete ignorance or deliberate stupidity about the law. The only alternative is that they (at least some of them) know what's actually in the law and are being deliberately dishonest about it for political purposes.

All that said, it may still be open for discussion whether this particular law is the best approach to the illegal aliens problems. After all, it doesn't secure the border to stop the illegal entries. (No city or state can accomplish that.) But as an absolute baseline, I like the policy now established in Albuquerque under which every individual processed into the detention center — every individual placed under arrest — is interviewed by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to determine his/her citizenship and residency status. And I don't see any problem with similar immigration inquiries under circumstances when the law enforcement officer has the discretion as to whether to detain the individual or not.

The Department of Justice is reviewing the Arizona law, and considering what action (if any) to recommend to Attorney General Eric Holder. ABC News has reported the draft DOJ conclusion to be that "the Arizona legislature exceeded its authority in crafting a law that could impede federal responsibility for enforcing immigration laws." This conclusion, draft or otherwise, is ludicrous — it is not logically possible to impede the federal government in performance of responsibilities it has conclusively demonstrated it has no intention of performing. This does, however, suggest an approach that might be taken either instead of, or in addition to, passage of a law like Arizona's: The border states, individually and/or collectively, could sue the Administration and the federal government (I would think both for specific performance and a trillion dollars or so in damages) over its dereliction of duty in abrogating its responsibilities in securing the borders and enforcing the immigration statutes. Maybe that would actually get their attention.

In the meantime, we'll all have to keep pressing this issue. Fortunately, we seem to have some good, strong voices with us.

The Terror Attacks in Mumbai

An e-mail written by a friend of a friend — a man closely associated with the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai — provides more details from the terrorist attacks (the Islamist incursion) there. Information from that e-mail is extracted and summarized here (with some additions from other sources):

The e-mail was written at 10:45 last Friday morning, "after almost 37 hrs of sustained flushing out operations by the National Security Guard Black Cat commandos, Army, Navy, Air Force and the Police ...... a combined operation of all security forces." In it, he talked about the attacks, labeled by the media there as "India's 9/11" and considered an invasion of India, and the toll they took on the hotel staff. Battles were continuing, at that point, at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, at the Oberoi Hotel, and at the Nariman House (home of the Chabad House Jewish outreach center). He gives some specifics I haven't seen other places.

At least 17 senior hotel staff died in the terrorists' initial charge into the hotel, including chef Banja and the young chef Boris (son of the Taj's legendary Goan chef Cruz Rego of Divaar). Most of these were shot at point blank range. A number of other hotel staff members apparently also died protecting hotel guests. Seldom was anyone spared. (Even so, the staff apparently kept up their tradition of immaculate service as best they could.)

The terrorists moved to the executive suites on the sixth floor — corner suites 643-649. Escaped colleagues and others could only watch helplessly from near the Gateway of India as the terrorists attacked this section with guns and grenades, setting the suites on fire. The wife and two children of the hotel's general manager Karimbir Kang died in one of these suites while he helped shepherd hotel guests to safety.

The writer summarizes what he knows about the attacks — from observation, escaped staff members, and the news media (the Wall Street Journal has another summary):

A new expose on 'Z news' says that 2 of the terrorists had checked in earlier at the Taj while 2 young men had taken casual jobs 2-3 months back in the banquetting dept. The degree of planning that has gone into this strike amazes. The entire execution of the plan from its start at Karachi in a 'seized' Indian fishing vessel, the landing near Cuffe Parade, the grouping of 10 Pakistani and 2 local terrorists close to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the railway headquarters at Badhwar Park, the diversionary tactics in blowing the gas station, the assault on backpack foreign tourists at the popular Cafe Leopold, the charge thru the weakly manned staff entry gate of the Taj hotel, the commando type movement thru the service galleys of the hotel in the first basement emerging up to the lobby, scattering bullets on all and sundry in the lobby at 10 pm, the swift move spraying bullets on staff and guests in the reception area and restaurants (including the Golden Dragon, Zodiac, Shamiana and Masala Craft) before sprinting up the grand stairway of the old Taj Palace ...... finally settling in the 6th floor .......... all speaks of intense planning. That the hotels were warned 2 months earlier by the Intelligence Bureau is now a standard warning carried out consciously by terror groups to give them time to study the security preparations of targets.^*   This has seldom failed as the psyche of fear and panic in India (or elsewhere) are now well understood by terror groups.

^* It has been noted since that the additional security measures put in place at that time, which were relaxed a few days before the attack, would have had no effect on the attack on the Taj as it occurred.

One of the things made possible by the terrorists' observations of Mumbai's responsive security preparations was the murders of the chief and senior members of the Anti-Terror Squad, and of the police commissioner, in the early phase of the attack.

The writer provides a good summary of what is behind this and similar attacks. He notes the terror outfits (i.e. Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami, Jamiatul Mujaheedin, etc.) are all creations of the Al Qaeda. The ability of these terror outfits to cross India's borders and execute strikes whenever and wherever at will all speaks, he says, of the extreme decay of evil minds among us. He notes that "such minds have no religion, no faith, no colour and no language" — only evil.

Others are noticing their depravity, as well. The Muslim Jama Masjid Trust says the terrorists were not true followers of Islam and refused to allow their burial in the Badakabrastan graveyard they control. A trust spokesman said "People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim. Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime." Several Islamic scholars have backed the Trust's decision. Because of this Trust's influence, none of the seven other Muslim cemeteries is likely to accept the bodies, either, and their final disposition is in question. (Gee, maybe that's a good thing!)

Even with all the terror and destruction, the writer ends on a hopeful note.

Voices hope that this may be a divine blessing (in disguise) to unify all leaders, crossing all political and national barriers, all interests, thus creating one common aim for the good of all mankind.

The fight against terror. The beginning of a new world order.

The prophecy of Nostradamus, that of a new golden era in the World, of a long period of peace, may not be very far.

Terror Attacks in India

India has an illegal alien problem. They're mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh. They come to India because they need to, because there is a LOT more opportunity in India than in their home countries.

But as guests, they stink! They expect Indian society to adapt to them rather than the other way around. They expect in India — as a matter of right — the same sort of deference for their religion and their ways that they would have in their home countries. It offends them that they are expected to respect the rights of others who don't share their religion, their sect. And it offends them that their Indian co-religionists do respect those rights.

And so these illegal alien racial and religious bigots take actions — again — to try to provoke attacks against their co-religionists — again. That's what appears to be behind the series of explosions in Bangalore and Ahmadabad a week ago. The illegal aliens, in other attacks, have identified their intent to "demolish the faith (Hinduism)" of the "infidels of India". And the style of the attacks was similar to that used in Iraq and elsewhere by al Qaeda and associated terrorist groups.

Yes, it's clear bigotry was the basis for the attacks. Both states targeted have elected, by large majorities, governments run by the Hindu nationalist BJP (the Bharatiya Janata Party). They were apparently targeted because the BJP governments can't be pushed around by these bigots the way many of the other state governments can.

The specifics of the attacks? I captured more about the Bangalore attacks (nine explosions, one dead, blogger reports here and here, NDTV reports here, here, and here, the last noting that Bangalore's IT sector now will get a lot more national security support) than about the Ahmadabad attacks (22 explosions, 42 dead). The Bangalore explosions were all, or nearly all, about the size of a pair of hand grenades. The Ahmadabad explosions included the first use of a car bomb in India. Similar attempts were made in Surat, where at least 19 bombs were found and disarmed. The cars used for the car bombs in both Ahmadabad and Surat were stolen where the attacks were apparently planned, in Mumbai. Additional unexploded bombs were found in both Bangalore and Ahmadabad, including on city buses and in/near shopping malls. And, as in Jaipur in May, among the later bombs was at least one at a hospital where victims of the earlier explosions would have been taken.

These people are barbarians. They must be stopped. They must be stopped because, as I have said before,

These extremists are not attacking only the US and its interests, or just the West and its interests — these extremists are attacking anyone and anything that is not Islamist, in their extremist version. The American press needs to recognize this, and report on these terrorist atrocities. And we all need to pay attention because, when these extremists have the ability, they will attack us, too.

Terror Attack in Jaipur, India

A significant terror attack occurred on May 13^th in Jaipur, India. It was the first terror attack in that city. The attack involved at least ten bombs — reports indicate there were nine coordinated detonations and at least one additional bomb was found and defused. Depending on the report you read, there were something like 63 or 80 people killed (most reports say 80), and at least a couple hundred injured. Initial suspicion fell on Pakistan-based terror organizations, who have been responsible for a number of prior attacks, but it now appears the attack was the work of Bangladeshi illegal aliens with an intent to "demolish the faith (Hinduism)" of the "infidels of India".

It appears this terror attack has been totally ignored by the primary media and news organizations in the United States. It was covered in the Indian media, of course, and in parts of the Arab media, where it was noted that Indian Muslims are joining with other Indians calling for measures to deal with Islamist terror. It was also covered in at least two British newspapers. In this country, however, it's apparently only been reported in places like the Infidel Blogger Alliance and Wikipedia.

These extremists are not attacking only the US and its interests, or just the West and its interests — these extremists are attacking anyone and anything that is not Islamist, in their extremist version. The American press needs to recognize this, and report on these terrorist atrocities. And we all need to pay attention because, when these extremists have the ability, they will attack us, too.

The Illegal Aliens Issue

Immigration reform — which some call an issue of illegal immigration — is a hot issue, and I've intended to write about it for some time — preferably at a time when we might be able to discuss it with at least a little rationality. Maybe now is the time to begin.

Let's start with a couple of very basic, very general, key principles:

1. We need to make it a lot harder to come here illegally.
2. We need to make it a lot easier to come here legally.

Number 1 seems to be self-evident. The large number of people who have crossed our borders without documents and the commerce of the drug cartels and coyotes should make it quite plain, even if the Border Patrol hadn't been finding jackets with jihadi patches abandoned near the border.

Number 2 may seem less evident to some. But it is clear that the current immigration quotas are absurdly low. If that were not so, there would be nothing to draw all the undocumented workers. (It can be argued that this is a chicken-and-egg question. Either the workers are drawn here because the quotas are set absurdly low so that job needs cannot be filled, or the quotas have been deliberately set absurdly low in an attempt to compensate for the additional workers here. The result is the same either way.) It is also absolutely unconscionable — if not criminal — that it takes U.S. citizens five to ten years (or more) to bring their legitimately married foreign-born husbands and wives into the U.S. legally.

We really should have done something about the immigration issue long ago. We've known for years that we have (and have had) a growing problem, and have chosen to do nothing about it. That's part of why the problem is so big now. I think most will agree it has now reached the point that we can no longer afford to do nothing.

Just as important is that, however much the more extreme positions on either side may have going for them, they are and will remain non-starters. We simply cannot do "just this" or "only that", and I doubt we ever really could. The immigration issue is multifaceted, and any attempt to solve it must be as well. And that's only part of why some form of comprehensive reform is necessary — but perhaps it is a hint of why the reform's individual elements are of critical importance.

To identify what the proper elements are, we first need to consider what the “immigration issue” is, and what it is not.

What this issue is not is

• an immigration issue

Most of the “illegal immigrants” — more accurately, illegal aliens — do not intend to immigrate. They don't (at least initially) intend to come here to stay. They just want to have jobs here so they can send money back to their homes and families outside the U.S. What pushes some (many?) to stay and become immigrants is the uncertainty of moving back and forth across the border, which brings them to stay put, and put down roots. For many (most?) of these “immigrants”, ties to their homelands would remain dominant if they could be sure they could visit home and return to their jobs in the U.S.

What this issue is is

• a labor issue
• a law enforcement issue
• a security issue

It's a labor issue because many illegal aliens are coming here and getting jobs. That means at least two things:

1. There are jobs available. These aliens wouldn't come here if they couldn't get jobs.
2. There are jobs available. They wouldn't be available for aliens to take if they weren't unfilled by citizens and legal aliens.

That combination means there is an issue here that must be dealt with.

It's a law enforcement issue because there are so many in our prisons who are illegal aliens. And because so many of those are repeat offenders. The latter point, in particular, means that we don't deport illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes in this country and/or we don't keep these individuals from coming back into this country.

It's a security issue because Arab would-be terrorists have been able to enter this country illegally (as well as by misusing the legal entry system) to the point that there are now human smuggling operations (like the one in Chaparral, New Mexico) that focus on bringing Middle Eastern individuals across our borders because they can make a lot more money that way.

One final thing: This is an issue of fairness. It is unfair to those who try to come to the U.S. legally to so completely ignore those who come here illegally. It is unfair to the illegal aliens to make it easy for the unscrupulous, whether employers or criminals, to exploit them. And it is unfair to citizens and legal aliens to let exploited illegal aliens take jobs citizens and legal aliens would otherwise have. Indeed, it is hard to think of anyone the current situation is not unfair to. Except the criminals.

These are the issues that any "immigration reform" needs to address, and that must determine the provisions in any comprehensive immigration reform bill.

(You want to read more? See Jim Addison's take on the issue at Wizbang.)