Our New Roomies...

I came home last night to find that my house had been broken into. A couple (a family, actually. Husband, wife, and young son.) was there. As I was picking up the phone to call the police, the husband asked me not to. "Look around", he said. While you were out I fixed the light on the back porch. My son mowed your grass. My wife washed all the dishes, made the bed, and mopped the floors. She has just finished putting a load of laundry in the dryer, and I'm about to take out the trash and clean the gutters. You need us, sir."

He was right, all the things they had done were minor jobs I had little time for. His little family was pleasant, and courteous, but I hadn't asked them to come and do those things for me. I did not want him and his wife living in my home. His argument was simple and compelling. "We're already here now, and we're doing the jobs you don't want to do, so you should just let us stay". My argument was just as simple. "You violated the law by breaking into my house", I told him, "I can't just let that go by without calling for the law to be enforced".

Which of us was right?

No, the scene above did not actually happen to me yesterday. Instead it's happening right now to all of us, and the Senate and President Bush both feel that I was wrong in the fictional scene above. The Roanoke Times Editorial staff agrees with them. I'm grateful that Virgil Goode and George Allen, two thirds my Representative force in Washington, agree with me.

Today's Editorial says that I should have simply assigned my guests a room and allowed them to stay in my home instead of calling the Police. After all, they are being productive, and if I let them stay long enough they will eventually be welcome at the family reunion.

Even more ridiculous, the Times states;

The United States could attempt to round up and deport all 12 million illegal immigrants and ship them back home.

Who wants the job of packing people into cattle cars headed for the border? The workers with the most experience in such activity have either died of old age or been tried for war crimes.

So maybe that won't work. Which pretty much leaves the unacceptable status quo: an underground sea of laborers who live in constant fear of exposure.

Duh.. Of course 12 million illegal aliens cannot be rounded up and sent home. Actually, I'm amazed the Times does not see the obvious solution. One would think, with their disdain for Industry and Profits they would be all over the solution. Seriously enforce the law regarding the hiring of illegal workers. Very seriously. Hefty fines, not to the Corporation, but to the actual officers of the Corporation. Real fines and real jail terms for real people. Remove the incentive to hire them, and they will once again become Vincente Fox's problem.