A Case for Immigration Reform

Realistically, the status quo is probably better than any immigration bill that this Congress could conceivably pass.

Better...but still not good:

The number of Mexican migrants who died attempting to come work in the United States climbed to a record high of 516 last year, almost 40 percent more than in 2004, according to figures compiled by the Mexican government.

Record heat last summer and an American border control strategy that induced people to trek across more remote areas were largely to blame, Border Patrol officials and immigration analysts have said.

Reducing demand through employer-side enforcement might help. Increasing the (ridiculously low) immigration quotas would certainly help. Even a guest worker program, as odious as it is in other ways, would probably reduce deaths among would-be immigrants.

The one thing that will absolutely not work is a great big fence. If anything, it would exacerbate the problem by making would-be immigrants more dependant than ever on coyotes to get them across. In other words, it would take the most vulnerable and make them still more vulnerable to the least scrupulous people around. That must be why it's so appealing to so many Republicans.

In any case, this is a reminder of why, sooner or later--probably not this year, maybe not for another few years, but eventually--we need to come up with a more humane way to do this.

[That's all, folks]