Today's liberals favor indignation over information, but lawyer Obama must know that since 1952 federal law has said: "Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him."
In today's debate, the threshold question is: Should the nation have immigration laws? Until 1875, there were none. There are strict libertarians who believe there should be none. But the vast majority who do not favor completely open borders believe there should be some laws restricting who can become residents, and presumably they believe such laws should be enforced.
Once Americans are satisfied that the borders are secure, the immigration policies they will favor will reflect their -- and the law enforcement profession's -- healthy aversion to the measures that would be necessary to remove from the nation the nearly 11 million illegal immigrants, 60 percent of whom have been here for more than five years.
For my part, I'd love to see more open legal immigration. Perhaps a green card could be bought for $5000 -- an amount illegal immigrants have demonstrated the willingness and ability to raise to have a coyote ferry them across the border. If you have the money, and you're not wanted for a violent felony, you get the green card.
Paired with that, though -- illegal immigrants -- those who choose not to avail themselves of this system -- get prison time, perhaps outsourced to Turkey, or Mexico for non-Mexican illegals.
But then, this morning I was listening to Senator John Kyl and he mentioned the "Yuma Corridor" which has very strict enforcement. People who are caught sneaking in across the border are jailed. The sentence for a first offense is 14 days. Second offense is 30 days, and it builds to a maximum of, I think, two years. Border crossings through that corridor have dropped by a factor of 500 over five years, so even American prisons deter this particular crime.
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