I\’ve participated in the illegal immigration debate for a long time, and the talking points from the open borders crowd tends to be the same. In between cries of \”racism\” and \”bigotry\” comes the usual strawman argument of \”well you can\’t deport them all!\” It\’s always seemed an odd talking point, seeming to gleefully accept the problem is just as bad as border enforcement activists suggest. And it seems a bit disingenuous to claim that two extremes are only way to conduct things, either let everyone in or kick everyone out.
Of course, border enforcement activists like myself have insisted for years that there is lots of middle ground on this. For example, if you force employers to check their new employees for legal status, illegal aliens will self-deport when there are no opportunities for employment. Between that and the attrition of basic law enforcement, the problem pretty much takes care of itself over a few years.
Well as it turns out, that viewpoint was both correct and far too pessimistic on it\’s timeline.
The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix hauling the contents of their homes into the yard this weekend as they rush to sell up and get out before the state law takes effect on Thursday.
The law, the toughest imposed by any U.S. state to curb illegal immigration, seeks to drive more than 400,000 undocumented day laborers, landscapers, house cleaners, chambermaids and other workers out of Arizona, which borders Mexico.
In a sign of a gathering exodus, Mexican businesses from grocers and butcher shops to diners and beauty salons have shut their doors in recent weeks as their owners and clients leave.
On Saturday and Sunday, Reuters counted dozens of impromptu yard sales in Latino neighborhoods in central and west Phoenix
\”They wanted to drive Hispanics out of Arizona and they have succeeded even before the law even comes into effect,\” said Aguilar, 28, a mother of three young children who was also offering a few cherished pictures and a stereo at one of five sales on the same block.
As it turns out it hasn\’t taken a single arrest or even a single status inquiry to accomplish a good portion of the job. All it took is a government willing to stand up and enforce it\’s own laws. These illegal aliens have stayed until now because they recognize the open secret that the Federal Government is a joke. It\’s more likely to pander to what it considers future voters than actually enforce it\’s own laws.
Instead a state government with far less resources but with far more testicular fortitude, just has to threaten to enforce the law and illegal aliens scatter. Nobody is under any illusions that all those illegal aliens are returning to their homes. There are still plenty of other states which haven\’t yet supplanted the Federal Government spinal absenteeism. But don\’t think that the lesson of Arizona is lost on all those states or their citizens, especially in these times of economic hardships and budget deficits, it appears as if La Bush\’s Law may have reached it\’s conclusion.