Coyote Blog

Frequent readers know that I am a strong supporter of immigration**.  Unfortunately our two major political parties have more mixed feelings, at best, about immigration.   Here is your one-sentence guide to the two parties' positions on immigration:

Republicans want immigrants to work but not vote, while Democrats want them to vote but not work.  Latest proof here.

I will add that I don't understand this line from the linked article:

I don't personally care all that much about the level of illegal immigration. The current numbers strike me as reasonable.

I am not sure how anyone can consider the levels of illegal immigration reasonable.  Some Republicans obviously consider these numbers unreasonable because they want the immigrants gone.  But I, even as a strong immigration supporter with many immigrant acquaintances, think the number is unreasonable as well.  If we are going to de facto let these folks stay, why should we make every step of their life, from driving to banking to working, a total hassle?  Why make all these hard working and generally law-abiding people afraid every moment that they may get deported, or make them subject to the harassment whims of some jerk like Joe Arpaio?

There seems to be a large portion of the country that is willing to allow these folks to stay but want to create some kind of lower-tier immigration status for them.  Fine, then let's do that.  Let's create a lower-tier (e.g. reduced access to government services and benefits) of legal presence in this country -- guest worker, whatever -- that is simple to obtain and does not involve waiting on lists for a decade.

** This is something I have probably moved the furthest on in my life.  At sixteen, when I was a traditional Texas Conservative Republican, I supported immigration restrictionism.  Since then, I have found such a position incompatible with my belief in individual rights and free markets, and through my experience in life have come to appreciate the value immigrants bring to this country.