Third Way Dispatch

I won’t opine on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of using the National Guard to help secure the U.S./Mexican border. It’s not my area of expertise, and I personally don’t’ get a queasy feeling about “militarizing” our border. Five hundred thousand people illegally cross it each year; another million give it the ol’ college try. Let’s not pretend that there aren’t some serious problems in policing that barrier.

When you believe that government ought to be “small enough to be drowned in a bathtub,” expect some spillage over the side. In this case, the spillage comes from the Mexican border, where more than a half million illegal immigrants enter each year.

Today, Third Way released a report showing that under Bush, enforcement of immigration laws at the Mexican border is down by more than 30% from the Clinton years. That’s right, Mr. Dobbs —down 30% from the Clinton years! It gets worse. Once they make it into the interior of the country, you might as well put out the welcome mat. It would take 228 years to deport all of the illegal immigrants already in the country, under the Bush enforcement rate (coincidentally the year in which the dividend tax break expires).

What’s going on?

Every day, untold thousands of new pornographic websites are created, and every day more kids are lured to them. But, as they say in the cartoons, “meanwhile, back in the Halls of Justice,” the superheros who run Congress sit around in their tights and their capes and do nothing.

Pro-life Democratic Leader Harry Reid and pro-choice Senator Hillary Clinton published an editorial today on their Prevention First Act. It’s a good editorial and a good bill. Why? Because it’s a seminal part of an initiative to reduce the number of abortions in America.

In yesterday’s New York Times’ editorial How to Lose the Brain Race, Steven Clemons and Michael Lind made a critical point about the proper goals of immigration reform. While it must be tough, let’s not forget about being smart.

March 31, 2006

The United States Senate, Washington DC

Dear Senator:

We write to endorse and urge the passage of the bipartisan immigration legislation passed out of the Judiciary Committee by Senators Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy. We believe that this legislation — which is based on the McCain-Kennedy bill — is tough where it needs to be, fair where it ought to be and provides a practical solution that addresses America’s immigration problem.