Luis wrote a great post already about illegal immigration.

I had meant to write something that halfway praised King George- I know, shocking, but even a jackass like him can get things right once in a while. You know the saying… “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.” Well, maybe you don’t know the saying!

What I was going to praise Bush on was that he seems to be trying to moderate the tones of the debate a bit, which is a good thing. The nitwits who’re railing against these supposedly awful illegal immigrants entering our nation talk about these people as though they’re the worst scum of the earth, only coming across the border to either immediately go onto welfare and suck money from hard-working Americans, or steal our jobs, or both.

The fact of the matter is that the vast, vast majority of illegals are just looking for work; they’re willing to do crappy jobs that people here don’t seem to want to take; and they’re not out to sponge huge amounts of money from the social services network. In fact, there’s some evidence that illegal immigrants provide a net positive to our economy; they certainly help out the Social Security system, because SS taxes are withheld from their paychecks but as they’re not citizens, they’re not able to later collect from that system.

As Luis points out, the real emphasis needs to be on the employers, not the workers. You could start throwing all the illegals into a giant prison and they’d still be coming across the border, because they want the jobs, they want the money that those jobs pay.

I have a confession to make here, too- I’m guilty. I’ve hired guys that were almost certainly illegal.

When I moved from Uwajimaya Village Apartments to my new condo several months back, I went to the Home Depot on First Avenue and Lander Street. First thing in the morning. I’ve read that Home Depots have become the day labor meeting points all across the nation, which makes sense.

At the Seattle location, there’s usually at least 50 guys down there in the morning, hoping to pick up some work for the day. I saw three guys that looked reasonably fit, flagged them down, and had them come over and jump in my rig. Between my horrendous Spanish and their slightly-better English, I got across the notion that I was moving a lot of stuff and needed them to carry it for me, and I’d pay them $10/hour to do it.

This is roughly the going rate for that; I probably could have gotten guys to do it for less, but didn’t want to hassle with it and to me, it’s a fair wage for *any* worker, not just someone who’s illegal.

We went back and moved my stuff. They worked hard, carrying lots of boxes, furniture, you name it down a bunch of stairs, loading into the truck, and then when we got to the new place (all of 5 blocks away) back into my new pad. They were polite, didn’t give my girlfriend a hard time, and appeared to be willing to work straight through almost without a break, although we did break for lunch and bought lunch for them.

Does this make me a horrible person? No, of course not. There’s Americans who’re looking for and willing to do day labor as well, and some of them hang out at the Home Depot with the rest of the gang, but that’s not who I wound up hiring.

The point to be seen here is that I had zero fear doing this. I know perfectly well that no INS guys are going to be looking to bust me; the workers, on the other hand, often get ripped off by sleazey contractors who know that if they do so, the workers can’t complain or else they’re in the system and liable to get packed back off to Mexico or wherever else they might be from.

Without emphasis on the employers, you cannot even begin to slow the illegal immigration problems. Bush knows this, as do the Republican/business complex; so they don’t have any problem with a showy, get-tough-on-illegal type of program that makes it *look* as though we’re doing something about the issue.

As long as there’s a big market for jobs, though, people are going to come here. And overall, I’m a big fan of immigration; I think we need to keep it going. There’s probably a breaking point at which it becomes more of a drag overall on our economy, but as a general rule immigration is definitely good for America, both in the short term and the long term.

Once we quit thinking of these folks as heinous or criminal, and start seeing them as fellow humans who just want to try and make their lives better, we can have a civil debate. And for that, at least, Bush deserves a bit of praise; he’s trying to keep the discussion going with that in mind.