Mr. Trump — Tear Down That Wall!
Mr. Trump, you have performed a service for all illegal immigrants. Your tirade against Mexican immigrants sparked only meek protest among Republicans, most notably from those not seriously in the running — John McCain (“no hero…”) and Rick Perry (“puts on glasses so people think he’s smart…”)
Face it, compadres, if you are from Latin America and you are not a billionaire, we don’t want you. Mr. Trump, the other Republicans are caving in to your rhetoric — Jeb Bush throwing around the term “anchor baby.” But that’s just hype. The reality is that we have over eleven million illegal immigrants and counting, and Congress doesn’t want them.
Muchas gracias, Sr. Trump. You have your finger on America’s pulse. Even the Hispanic candidates — inclluding the Republican party’s own anchor baby, Marco Rubio — are too timid to rip into your nasty rhetoric.
Your idea of building a wall is intriguing, even if the Mexican government won’t pay for it. Such a massive project would provide shovel-ready work for all eleven million illegals, and then some. Shades of the Great Pyramid!
But watching our neighbor’s Dobermans yapping hysterically suggests that an electronic fence may be the way to go. The cost of the electronic stations along the border will be miniscule, compared to an actual wall, and installation and maintenance will be a snap. The Mexican government can implant chips in its citizens’ necks, in return for most favored nation trade status, so that anyone who enters the no-go zone will receive an electrical shock. We could build the factories to manufacture the chips in Mexico, creating employment for thousands of Mexican citizens, who will no longer need to cross into los Estados Unidos in search of jobs. Truly, a win-win.
But America’s own history suggests an intriguing alternative.
The Framers of the Constitution saw North America’s vast geography as the key to the stability of the republic. A nation with unrestricted borders will attract all manner of groups, and their competing needs and interests will ensure that no faction ever grows sufficiently powerful to dominate the rest.
With our geography used up, we can still promote James Madison’s cherished diversity by welcoming immigrants. The more the better, because any large population will have more law-abiders than criminals. Also, immigrants are quickly subsumed by the majority. Recent studies indicate that illegal immigrants commit substantially fewer crimes than the general population — logical, as they do not want to be caught — while their children, those born here, commit crimes at the same rate as the general population, indicating that they assimilate quickly, while begging the question of who is the worse influence.
Illegal immigrants from poorer economic classes and largely un- or under-educated represent a massive cluster of economic low-hanging fruit. Imagine the economic lift as millions of children move up from the working class to the middle and upper economic classes. Millions of new doctors, engineers, teachers and — yikes! — lawyers and politicians, all raising successful children of their own and boosting GDP as they go. There is no more “shovel-ready” project than the failed political will to create America’s next economic boom.
America was founded by law-breakers. Most of what the colonists demanded was not their due under English law. They wrote “we hold these truths to be self-evident” because they could invoke no authority other than their own moral logic. In plain American: the Founders were America’s original Illegal Immigrants.
Mr. Trump, people are listening to you. They will follow your lead. Washington is awash in cowards and liars protesting loudly that they want immigration reform. Clearly, they don’t want immigration reform. The proof is that, if they wanted immigration reform, we’d have long since had it. You said out loud the words that are on the minds of most of our leaders. This is a Gordian Knot that only Donald Trump can cut.
Want to get elected? Grab the Hispanic vote. You’ll also get everyone who is now thinking Bernie Sanders, plus half of Hilary’s backers. Stranger things have happened.
One last item, Mr. Trump. The one thing we do object to is your campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” America is already great. It always was. And a significant part of that greatness comes from our willingness to embrace new ideas, and from the structural genius of our Constitution, which makes it very hard for really bad ideas to take permanent hold in our society.
Sometimes it takes a movement. Sometimes it takes the Supreme Court. Sometimes it takes just one person with the guts to lead.
Mr. Trump, you can change the world. Wouldn’t that just be the ultimate in reality TV?
- Publius Puer
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