Why Immigration Reform Will Happen

An acquaintance of SWNID's broke a personal rule a couple of days ago and posted something political on a major social-media site. The experience confirmed for him what prompted his rule: social media is a miserable place for political discussion.

Blogs are for politics.

In keeping with that humane truth, here we recommend a little piece by Mark Salter, once John McCain's chief of staff, who speaks political truth to powerful dumbness in asserting that because all politics is about self-interest, there will be immigration reform pretty soon, so get used to it.

Note well, gentle readers, Salter's point about the miserable coalition that prevents this from happening now: the combination of labor unions and conservatives who believe that xenophobia is a family value. The former are confused on economics; the latter, on morality.

And so we make a point: illegal immigration is illegal simply because we made it so, and in a democratic republic, we can unmake it so if we so choose. SWNID is personally tired about the constant carping about immigrants who want to work hard and make a better life for their families being lawbreakers because they didn't yield to laws that they didn't understand, with which they had little means of complying, and that, most importantly, stand in defiance of the economic law that where there is a demand (in this case, for labor), a supply will appear.

If you eat in America, you are part of an economy that depends on migrant labor that isn't served by immigration laws that are on the threshold of their silver anniversary. Similar things can be said about living or working in buildings.

For confirmation, note well that since the financial crisis of 2008, net immigration of all kinds from Mexico has fallen essentially to zero, making Asians of various nationalities the largest number of immigrants to our Republic, both legal and "illegal" (as in overstaying student visas and such).

The history of humanity is a history of migration. We can handle it thoughtfully or with fear and loathing.