David Karki

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich got in a lot of hot water for saying during the last debate, just before Thanksgiving, that illegal immigrants will have to be normalized somehow. Scarcely did the words finish exiting his mouth before the knee-jerk, hysterical shrieks of “Amnesty! Amnesty!” came from the conservative base, right on cue.  The only thing missing was channeling Hester Prynne and sticking a big red A on Gingrich’s front.

This is not an intelligent argument in the least – heck, it’s not even an argument – and plays to the stereotypes the left has of conservatives. And it will not help us get the best Republican candidate to go against President Obama in the most important election in America’s history.

I dislike illegal immigration as much as anyone; in one of the very first columns I wrote for NorthStar National, published on February 9, 2006, I called for building a wall on the Mexican border that would put China’s Great one to shame. (And, right on cue, predictably got called racist for it in the comments that followed it on the page.) We should do that now, with dispatch. As far as I’m concerned, we can even include the crocodile-filled moat with which Obama arrogantly and sarcastically taunted us.

I also think Mexico, which since then has descended into sickeningly violent gang rule by the drug cartels, is a total mess and probably an irredeemably failed nation. (All things considered, we might be as well off to militarily intervene and kill the cartels, not that it’ll ever happen.) Protecting the American citizenry from the spillover of that low-grade war is an urgent necessity.

Finally, there is the only argument for a wall that really matters:  any border open enough for migrant workers to cross is open enough for radical Islamic terrorists to cross. We simply cannot allow that threat to materialize.

Obviously, the first step toward implementing any of this is getting rid of Obama. He not only won’t enforce the border, he’s suing all the states who are doing it themselves in his stead! In my book, that’s an impeachable offense, a violation of Article IV, Section 4, guaranteeing to each state a republican form of government, and protection against invasion.

We are not going to get rid of Obama by reacting this way to a legitimate attempt by Gingrich to rationally discuss a thorny subject. We are not going to get rid of Obama by making the perfect the enemy of the good, or the good the enemy of the mediocre, as the case may be.

I hate to break this to some of the big-talking keyboard warriors that I see on various conservative websites, but there is not ever going to be a mass rounding up and deporting of somewhere between 15-30 million people! We’d need a force many times that large to pull it off, every American city in the Southwest would turn into its own Fallujah, and the Democrats would have a field day playing the race card, calling it the American Gestapo perpetrating an American Kristallnacht.

Yes, it sucks to see law-breakers benefit from their crimes. Yes, it’s unfair to the overburdened taxpayers of border states and “sanctuary cities”. (The liberal mayors and/or city councils of which should also be removed for having violated their oaths of office like Obama.) Yes, it’s unfair to those immigrants who played by the rules and are patiently waiting in line. But no one said life was fair.

The on-the-ground reality is that those illegal immigrants aren’t going anywhere. It’s just not physically possible to move that much humanity under any circumstances, much less against their will. Logically, the only way to put them back on the Mexican side of the border would be to move the border north and concede the de facto loss of American soil. (Which, in southern Arizona, Obama already effectively has.)

And indulge with caution the idea that the big wall and tough, stringent enforcement by themselves will result in self-deportation. So long as the multi-trillon dollar welfare state exists, it will be a strong magnet for those desperate enough to take the risk. Yes, a few might choose not to come, but those already here will not willingly go back to the third-world, violent-beyond-measure hellhole that is Mexico. After all, who in their right mind and is free to choose would?

So, as unfair as it is, as much of a fiscal drain as they are, as much of a de facto Aztlan “reconquista” as it might be, we need to accept reality.

Somehow, some way, after the wall is built and the border is sealed, employers are facing strict enforcement in hiring, and even the welfare magnet removed, those people will still be here and still need to be dealt with. We can and should classify these people as non-citizens and non-voters in perpetuity; that is the price they pay for having broken the law. There should be no path to full citizenship or voting for them, ever. If they don’t like this “second class” treatment, they’re all free to leave and apply to come back the proper way.

For those who absurdly think we can simply remove them by force and deport them all down to the last one on the spot, well, I hope all of you are men and women of your word and will be the first to volunteer for what is certain to be ugly paramilitary service.

In the meantime, can you please stop instinctively shrieking “Amnesty! Amnesty!” at every GOP presidential candidate who doesn’t share your views? It’s helping us get stuck with stinking RINO Romney, which in turn will get us stuck with four more years of communist-dictator-wanna-be Obama, unshackled by re-election. That prospect should get you far more worked up than the mere acceptance of a disheartening reality.

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