The venerable Wall Street Journal touts open borders as the ideal American immigration policy. Yup; the Wall Street Journal; not the New York Times, not El Tiempo; the bloody Journal. Further, that bastion of law, order and conservative thought editorializes that we should grant blanket amnesty to illegals. As difficult as that may be to believe, it is more difficult to understand. Moreover, using a rhetorical tactic worthy of those liberals it usually decries, the Journal defames anyone who opposes its policy as "restrictionist" and "anti-immigration".

There are something like 10 million people illegally in the United States. Nobody knows who they are, where they live or what they do. Sure, we know generally that most of them are Mexicans and live in California or Texas but that's about all we know. Nevertheless, the Journal argues that:

1. illegals should not be forced to return home and re-apply for entry and citizenship as others in the world must do; it's too family disruptive;

2. deporting illegals would harm businesses where they are employed at jobs Americans won't do; (See my article in the archives: Americans Won't Do that Kind of Work)

3. illegals should be given American citizenship or residency by paying a paltry $1,000 fine;

4. illegals result from the "porous border" between a rich and a poor country and America must get used to that reality.

Positions such as these are not arguments: they are conclusions. The only real argument against the deportation of illegals is that it would be logistically difficult. Rounding up 10 million people is no easy thing to do. Also, were we to march them to the border, Mexico wouldn't take them back. Mexico's policy is to export its unemployed to the United States. The Journal's positions are mere constructs: none is sustainable. The arguments against making illegals legal are many but fall into a few categories: the law, simple justice and America's culture.

It is obvious that converting an illegal alien to a legal alien - compassionately called amnesty - without changing the rule which made the alien illegal in the first place is wrong and dumb. It is a political reward for law-breaking, pure and simple. It is politics at its worst: pandering for Hispanic votes by condoning criminality. If liberals wanted campaign finance reform to take the money out of politics, what about this: rewarding intentional criminal conduct by total forgiveness and citizenship to boot.

It is also patently unjust to those foreigners who have followed the rules via a proper immigration application only to see millions of rule breaking Mexican illegals granted amnesty. It tells those hundreds of millions still living in Latin and South America that if they can make it over that "porous border", their chances of staying are almost 100%. After all, we just had an amnesty. Now there may be another. The next one will be sooner rather than later and after that, the sky's the limit.

Then we have the sensitive issue of assimilation. Pro-amnesty types point to the late 1800s and the early 1900s, pointing out how those millions of Europeans (including my maternal grandparents) assimilated in two generations. Well, yes, but not exactly. They forget to remind you that America was closed - really closed - to immigration from 1924 until 1965. That's why there was such assimilation; there was no long tail of Europeans following those who came here. And those immigrants came here legally; we wanted them to come.

Many of today's illegals do not assimilate well. There are numerous groups espousing that illegals band together to take back the lands "stolen" in the Mexican-American War. Many illegals don't care about this country. They just don't want to live in Mexico as a Mexican; they want to live in America as a Mexican because we provide Mexicans preferential treatment as to school admission, free medical care and other government give-aways.

Beyond assimilation, amnesty is a racist policy in that by knowingly importing foreign labor that works cheap, the government is hurting Americans at the bottom of the labor market. It is fatuous for amnesty supporters to say that illegals do work Americans won't do. The real reason Americans don't do the work illegals do is that illegals drive down the cost of labor. They force Americans out of the market. This may be good for the Wall Street Journal's subscribers but it's tough for a young black kid in Los Angeles, looking for an entry level job. It will become more difficult for white kids at the lower economic level as the illegals spread around the country. The Bush and other political families don't care; they have power, money, and influence. Their kids are secure.

If amnesty is granted, there will be another 10 million or 20 million seeking free and easy entry in the next 5 to 10 years. And more and more after that. There is no end to those who want to come. Amnesty as a policy is the importation of uneducated people to live and work in a society where education is the key to success; it is the importation of poverty; it is the importation of the seeds of social revolution. It is the beginning of the end of the America as we know it.