You Decide

"Everyone is looking for a solution to illegal immigration.

Big Labor fears immigrants will take away jobs from union workers. Big Environmentalism fears immigrants as they grow wealthier will increase their fossil fuel use, heating the globe. Big Nutrition fears immigrants will simply fuel themselves more, feeding the obesity epidemic

Many simply fear immigrants are undermining American values. After all, look what the great waves of European immigration did to Native American culture.

And worst of all, Republicans fear immigrants will vote for Democrats, while Democrats fear immigrants will become capitalists, get rich, and support Republicans.

It has become obvious to all these fearful folk that current protections against immigration don't work. When millions of illegal immigrants join rallies, smile for the cameras and declare "we've decided not to be invisible anymore," you begin to suspect that Homeland Security is oxymoronic.

So what to do? Grant those here five years amnesty! What a great ad for document forgers. Wall off our borders! How far out to sea? Provide a guest worker program! Look out for gate crashers. Punish employers who hire them! Right. The French have accomplished wonders by discouraging employers to hire new workers of any kind.

So, what really can be done about illegal immigration? Well, maybe we need to do what Time magazine said we should do about another problem -- global warming. The writers and editors there suggested at the end of their Global Warming Report: "Maybe we can begin by living a bit more like the average Chinese or Indian -- before they start living like us."

There you have it: The only way to turn the corner on energy use, and thus greenhouse gas emissions, at least in the short run, is to make us all poorer - a lot poorer.

Currently, after all, per capita income in the United States is $41,400. To live more like China and India, we will need to lower our energy usage, and thus incomes, down to their levels -- $1,300 and $650 per capita. Take it from Time - Poverty is the answer.

And as it turns out, it is the perfect answer to the problem of illegal immigration... and much, much more.

Think about it. Why have Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Colombians, Vietnamese, Thai, Sudanese, Ethiopians and others decided to break our laws by breaching our borders? Opportunity, of course. What does opportunity represent? The chance to make a better living for yourself -- to make more money; to trade muscle power for horsepower.

If we impoverish ourselves as a nation and individually, why would they want to come here? No money? No immigration problem.

The job security issues labor is concerned about? No one wants a job that doesn't pay. So, no one will want to take anyone's job. No money, no job security problem.

Our obesity problem would fade away as well. It takes money to buy food, or else you have to grow it and breed it yourself. Doing that burns calories. No money, no obesity problem.

What about gasoline price-gouging. You only need gasoline to drive cars, right? No money, no cars, no gasoline price-gouging.

The same goes for the housing bubble. No money, puff, the housing bubble disappears.

As for the rancorous relations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress. No money, no problems. No rich, no tax cuts for the rich; no rich, no taxes to spend. As a nation, we would all be in the same boat, so a lowering tide would sink all of us together. Hallelujah!

And as for our overseas relations? You don't see a lot of protestors in foreign lands burning the flags of Burundi and Bangladesh, do you? No money, no problem. Heck, we might even wangle some foreign aid -- as long as it left us poor.

Prescription drug benefits? Die young and you don't need it. Same for Social Security.

What all this will do for global warming, we don't know. If other countries don't join us in our race to the economic bottom, then they will produce the greenhouse gases Time claims are going to destroy the planet.

And, of course, they and no doubt tens of millions of other Americans might decide to leave here for greener economic fields abroad. But, hey, then we'd be other nations' illegal immigration problem. No money, their problem. Sweet revenge, eh?  "

Duane Freese is Deputy Editor of TCS Daily.  "