I appreciate your clarification on the boundaries of what you are describing as ridiculous: limiting it to the ideas. Good practice of avoiding ad hominem arguments.

Still, I return to my point, allowing for your limitation of the ridiculousness, it makes little sense to worry about raids or aggressive and invasive enforcement, if “arrest them where you find them” is so effective. It IS NOT effective BECAUSE of the numbers arrested.

It IS effective BECAUSE of the numbers who BEGIN complying with the law to AVOID arrest.

Back in the early 1990′s the newly freed states of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia had huge budgetary problems. They had high tax rates with poor collections. Ultimately it meant that they did not have enough tax revenue.

They found that lower the tax rate, simplifying the tax code, and increasing expectations of payment created a huge rush of compliant tax payments.

Enforcement-first immigration needs to follow the same model. If the immigration status regulations require too many lawyers, make the law simpler, don’t add new forms of visas (e.g., illegal immigrant turned guest worker visas). Make enforcement simpler: arrest them where you find them. Expect compliance.

That will result in a huge surge of newly compliant immigrants. It will actually reduce costs of enforcement and ancillary costs of illegal immigrants.

Complex laws and difficult enforcement are the hallmarks of machine politicians. They do favors to reduce the costs of compliance without changing the law. Adding visa options makes similar compliance problems the unintended consequence.

That is why “comprehensive immigration reform” was a farce. It would sow confusion, compliance nightmares, huge amounts of work for lawyers like me (a/k/a $$), and little resolution of our current plight.

Look at Arizona’s THREAT of real enforcement. The illegals were packing up and leaving. Boy, that was expensive.

President Obama Job Approval

RCP Average

Approve 45.7
Disapprove 49.5
Spread -3.8

This is the first time I’ve seen it in the 45′s.

I saw a clip of Chris Matthews the other night crying about how shrill the issue had gotten and singing the praises of a grand compromise he envisioned as the only way out. I listened for a minute and wanted to grab him by the throat – he was describing the Bush plan as though he had just thought of it himself. I remember how bitterly he criticized it at the time! And now it’s something brilliant and shiny and new. Well that chance is gone, bucko.

I think the border should be secured. I have heard Krauthammer say that if the border is secured then we can have normalization of some of the people here. I think he means that, but I think there are a lot of people out there on the right who would start screaming shamnesty if any such thing were done no matter how secure the border was…and I also think there are people on the left who could care less about border security and the truth is there are plenty of people on both sides of this issue who have shown no inclination at all to compromise.

I agree with you on this issue. I have a feeling that whatever policy these people come up with it will make Bush look downright Bucchaninite in comparison. Bush tried to find common ground and the people on the left thought he was too far right and the people on the right thought he was too far left and now we are stuck with these clowns.

Arizona has the right to make its citizens safe. I don’t think the Democrats really know how frustrated a lot of these people are.

They are just counting on the old divide and conquer policy to keep on working for them.

The truth is this problem was allowed to go on for decades and now the idea that we can get rid of all these people is probably unrealistic. Reagan sure did not want to send them packing and neither did Clinton, so here we are.

While I find the idea of deporting or chasing 20 million illegals out of the country ridiculous, I do not extend that to mean anyone who believes that in this is ridiculous on everything. Just because someone may be wrong on some thing, doesn’t make them a failure overall.

Some people hold naive and ridiculous views on space, science, math, etc. Doesn’t mean they are not upstanding and wonderful people. It just means I may have had the opportunity to learn more or see the matter clearer. BTW, these are just examples, not analogies.

One thing to learn in life is how to be wrong. I have become an expert, which is probably how I was able to learn so much. Once you can be wrong without guilt or embarrassment, then you can move onto to figuring out the right answer almost immediately.

Hanging on to outdated or erroneous concepts truly is a waste of time.

Several years ago, a business client of mine was driving home from work on a Saturday of federal holiday weekend on a US highway which bisected a tony suburb. His Escalade got pulled over and he was arrested on an outstanding warrant.

As a business attorney, I learned a lot about criminal law that weekend. I spent most of the weekend trying to persuade prosecutors in two different counties and the judge issuing the warrant that the underlying charge was not against him. Surprisingly, I succeeded.

When I finally got to see my client, he was mad at the police because he was pulled over for reckless driving and ended up in jail. He swore that he would never get another speeding ticket because he did not ever want to be in lock up again.

A normal traffic stop is that powerful and encourages long-term legal compliance. Deprive the traffic stop of that threat to law breakers? Is that wise?