Border incidents

Fast on the heels of reports that Mexican Army troops had crossed into the US to guard drug shipments, the Mexican Government issued denials. They accused the drug runners of dressing up like soldiers.

Now comes this from the County Sheriff involved in the issue.

With the Mexican Government trying to issue maps to would-be border crossers (which may or may not have been stopped for now after US protests), increased, sophisticated cross-border tunnels and the apparent border violations, it appears that it is time to do something about this problem.

It sounds as if the US Government is starting to send some pretty clear signals to the Mexicans that they better get the situation under control. This kind of clear message from a diplomat is always vetted and approved before it is published.

The conventional wisdom on this issue is that the Democrats want illegals to acquire/keep a voting bloc while the Republicans want cheap labor. I don't think it's that clear at all. The issue has been muddied up in recent years by all sorts of activist agendas. There have been attempts to give illegals voting rights, residency rights (including in-state tuition rates at colleges) help crossing the borders, etc. The argument that the illegals do work nobody else wants is used over and over. Anyone who speaks out against this flood is accused of racism. In other words, it is a mess.

I don't think either political party has a good policy on this, or good reasons for what they are doing. I think both parties want to court the Hispanic vote and want cheap labor, too. Remember Clinton's nominee who had to withdraw after it was learned she had hired an illegal as a nanny?

The flood of illegals is a slap in the face of those people who wait their turn and come into the country legally. The wages for the "jobs nobody wants" are kept low by unscrupulous employers who hire the illegals. If they were prosecuted for their criminal behavior, labor rates would naturally rise to a level where legal citizens would be more than willing to take the jobs. Opposing illegal immigration does not equal racism, either. In fact the opposite argument can be made. Allowing the continued flood keeps wages and living standards depressed for a large segment of the legal minority residents of this country.

We need to stop this before it spirals out of control. Or further out of control....