Reichley: The buckpassing over immigration

Georgia has a prob­lem. They liked the Arizona immigration law, which was designed to keep illegal immigrants from working or living in that state. So, they passed their own bill, which required employers to use the e-verify system to guarantee that people who were hired were in the country legally.

Much like the hysteria here in Prince William with our “rule of law” resolution, illegals and legal immi­grants alike were told bad things would happen if the bill passed. Georgia farm­ing happens to be heavily dependent on migrant farm workers. And with the fear of deportation, there are reports that some migrant workers, maybe because they were here illegally, have fled the state.

So those who want “com­prehensive immigration reform” are crowing about crops dying in the fields while the state scrambles to find other ways to get workers into the fields. The governor suggested using criminals who are now on probation to do some of the work. The pro-illegal crowd claim farmers won’t hire criminals to work their fields— ignoring that a person here illegally and working is a criminal, and the farmers who hire illegals knowing they are illegal are also criminal.

But it does seem like it’s hard to get Americans to work long hours for little pay for only a month or two. The answer isn’t to stop enforc­ing laws against people in the country illegally — it’s to fix the migrant farmworker program so that people from other countries who want to do this work can come in le­gally and be tracked carefully to make sure they go home at the end of the season. Cana­da does this fabulously, and that is what “comprehensive reform” should target.

Meanwhile, we have regular local reports about immigrants who might be here illegally committing crimes. In one case a man is accused of sexual assault on a minor over a four-month period. He will face criminal charges, and then be turned over to ICE. This doesn’t mean he is here illegally, since legal immigrants can also be deported if they com­mit felonies. That may also be the case in another recent story, where a young citizen of Guatemala was convicted of murdering his infant son.

Again, he is being held on an ICE retainer, which means either he was an illegal, or his conviction will change his immigration status.

Sometimes, those who support illegal immigrants will argue that illegals don’t commit crimes any more often than legal immigrants or citizens, and therefore it is unfair of those wanting to enforce immigration law to point out all the victims. But this argument is based on a false premise, that somehow our choice is a population of illegals or an equal popula­tion of legal residents.

But we aren’t replacing citizens with illegals. Citizens are not leaving the country to make room for people entering the country illegally, or legally for that matter.

Illegal immigrants increase the population, adding to the need for housing, roads and services. So even if you believe that people here il­legally commit fewer crimes than legal residents, the presence of illegals would increase the total number of victims of crime.

And crime is not something that is destined to happen.

Each time an illegal immi­grant commits a crime, it is a crime that would not have happened otherwise. Each victim of a criminal act by an illegal immigrant is a victim that wouldn’t exist if that illegal had been sent home, instead of being allowed to remain in the country.

But to focus on the victims of those here illegally, or to focus on farmers who need illegal workers to pick their crops, or to focus on local governments trying to detain illegals while the ICE lets them free, seems to illustrate how we really need a broader, “comprehensive” approach. If we really need poorly paid migrant farm workers to do work which is too menial for citizens, the federal government needs to put a system together to provide a secure, legal way to get those workers in and out of the country.

And Arizona, Georgia and Prince William shouldn’t be alone trying to get the feds to enforce current law.

Nobody is served when laws are ignored, as the current administration has done. We should encourage legal im­migration by stopping illegal immigration.

If we need immigrants, we should reward those who follow the law, and remove those who don’t — before they commit other crimes.

Legal immigrants are not served by illegals committing crimes, and citizens are not served by rotting food in the fields.