Bordering on the Impossible

WE HAVE an estimated 12 million illegal aliens here, seeking better opportunities than they could find in Mexico. They are pouring across our ill-defended border with Mexico, at some danger to themselves and some detriment to us, having got to our land from some other country, usually South America. At last the US has begun to worry seriously about whether these people are doing jobs "Americans won't do" or actually "taking jobs from Americans." The media is swamped by discussions, pro and con. It is the job of Americans to process the information wisely. There are things to be said on both sides of the issue, as well as both sides of the border, but reasonable discussion and feasible solutions are hampered by fuzzy language and the fuzzy thinking that is inextricably linked with that. For instance, "jobs Americans won't do" is quite a different thing if you complete the phrase and the thought: jobs that Americans won't do for the low wages that are offered for menial and occasionally "back breaking" labor. The fact of the matter is, to use a phrase that is increasingly heard in all American political discussion, as if facing fact is unusual but this once the speaker is willing to boldly go, splitting the infinitive and caring for naught, where others have feared to go, to say that those who sneak across our borders (now often called "porous" and "sacred") are exploited by US business and, indeed, some US businesses could not make the profits they now do if the employers had to pay a living wage. Or do you really mean a decent wage? These people get obviously enables them to live and not die and even reproduce, but whether they live "decently" or not is open to question. So is the matter of morality. Even high church officials are announcing that in good conscience they will break the laws in order to welcome the poor to a land of plenty--and, incidentally, add to their parishioners. Sneaking across our borders from Mexico is flatly illegal. Hiring those who come here like that is also illegal. All of a sudden, for it is an election year, and also the foreign news is not very cheering so maybe concentrating on a domestic problem will be better, immigration (short for illegal immigration) is talked about, written about, demonstrated for in the streets. The problem I focus on is that the discussion is confused because of dishonest, evasive, or simply foolish thought and careless or devious expression. Sure, we are unarguably "a nation of immigrants." But get this, we are not a nation of illegal immigrants. Immigration is not the same thing as illegal immigration. Watch your terms. For some, in the train of the activists who like to speak not of making drugs legal but of the "decriminalization of substances," illegal aliens are undocumented immigrants. We are urged by those who have some sympathy for these people not to criminalize their actions, but if they are in fact illegal aliens they are already criminals. Recently the criminals and their supporters have taken to the streets, and one placard I saw, and you may also have seen on national television, proclaimed, "We are Workers Not Criminals." I am ready to believe that many believe that sincerely. But the law does not. The law likes questions to be decided in the courts, not in the media, by jurists, not mobs. The law finds the desperate here illegally; that is breaking US laws. Working here, without proper papers, which is where the "undocumented" business comes in, may not be a felony, yet, though there has been some talk of making it one. Nonetheless, their presence here is against the law. You may or may not share the view of one of Dickens' characters, that if the law supposes that the law is "a ass, a idiot." But, supposedly an argument clincher: "The law is the law." Yes, laws can be changed; however, culpability depends upon the law in force at the time of the offense. …