Warning: Heated Rant Ahead

The immigration bill has once again flopped in the Senate. I am very upset for a number of reasons. Yes, the bill was flawed. Yes, it was probably doomed from the start because it was a Bush agenda item (a point driven home by the NY Times headline: Immigration Bill Dies in Senate; Defeat for Bush). I am upset because we desperately need reform on this issue and we, as a nation, are not going to get this reform because the debate around immigration has spiraled so completely and illogically off path.

This should never be about reward and punishment. The debate should be about economic and social effiency. It should be about creating an effective system to codify and legitimize what the free market has shown us is most economically expedient (namely, immigration of a wide range of laborers including unskilled workers). It should be about acknowledging that our previous laws were fundamentally flawed.

Bear with me for a metaphor. It is as if Congress had set an arbitrary speed limit for a busy highway at 30 mph. Yes, it is safer, but it is inefficient and so everyone speeds. There are a few traffic cops that sometimes ticket people, but for the most part people drive 50 mph so that they can get to work on time. They are technically breaking the law but only because the law was poorly designed. Congress now talks about changing the law. Logically, they would just raise the speed limit (by how much is debatable) and yes, they probably would need a few more traffic cops to ensure that once the speed limit was raised that the new law could be enforced. But the debate instead of being about by how much the speed limit should be changed it is focused on punishing the people who have sped on this highway. First of all, impossible. Second, pointless.

Likewise, it is retrogressive and senseless to talk about punishing people who "broke" immigration laws. It is widely acknowledged by anyone who is more than superficially familiar with the system that current immigration laws have some huge and glaring gaps, that illegal immigration has been effectively filling those gaps for twenty years, and that our economy and the economies of many other nations have benefited from the violation of the current laws.

In conclusion: Not doing anything does not make this problem go away and focusing the debate around this distorted law and order rhetoric hamstrings the progress towards viable solutions.
This is a complicated issue, America, let's put on our capitalist hat, cut the crap, and actually get this done.