Immigration and our new Third World
Article Launched:08/01/2007 09:48:14 PM PDT

About five years ago, a think tank in South Korea concluded that in another 30 years the United States will be a Third-World nation.

The Koreans based their prediction on our number-one domestic problem: illegal immigration.

They may have been right. Given a continuation of current U.S. policy, almost no policy at all, it does not take much to picture a nation reduced to Third-World status: rampant joblessness, crowded schools and emergency rooms, local governments unable to function, etc.

By the standard of that think tank, we have 25 years to go before being consigned to the Third World.

As I write this, I can picture the response of some readers, e.g.: "It's liberals like you who who helped cause the problem by embracing those who came to this country illegally."

There may be truth in that, but it is past history. Dwelling on it does not help solve the problem.

Romney, Obama

Among the legion of presidential candidates, two get my attention for comments on illegal immigration.

One, Republican Mitt Romney has been telling Iowans how, as Massachusetts governor, he deputized state police to enforce immigration laws and how he also denied drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants.

While this is no cure-all to our immigration dilemma, it resonated with Iowans, a state where the federal government has raided meat-processing plants and where residents feel their wages have been undercut by lower-paid immigrants.

It resonated with me because it seems like something many governors could do now.

The other candidate is Democrat Barack Obama. Let me quote from his second autobiography, "The Audacity of Hope": "Native-born Americans suspect that it is they, and not the immigrant, who are being forced to adapt. In this way, the immigration debate comes to signify not a loss of jobs but a loss of sovereignty, just one more example - like September 11, avian flu, computer viruses, and factories moving to China - that America seems unable to control its own destiny."

While I'm not sure Obama will have my vote if he becomes a candidate, I think he expresses what many of us feel, but are reluctant to voice for fear of being seen as biased.

But the time has come when such fears should give way to practicality.

America's poor

Several times in these columns, I have defined poverty not only as the lack of money in one's bank account, but as the inability to control the events that impact on a person's life.

By that measure, many of us are becoming more and more impoverished. From city halls to statehouses to the White House, politicians seem increasingly unwilling to listen to us, increasingly unwilling to become engaged in illegal immigration and other tough debates.

While immigrants and their sympathizers take to the streets, some with Mexican flags, and organizations such as the Minutemen take to the border, many of us in the middle are left dangling, but pulled this way and that. Consider the feelings of many of us when we see Mexican flags in pro-immigration rallies.

Some of us can empathize with Lilliana, the Mexican mother of three who has found sanctuary at St. Luke's Episcopal church in Long beach. At the same time, however, we can recoil at the prospect of more illegal immigrants pouring across the border, burdening our economy.

Remember Ronald Reagan's admonition: "Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem."

That's proving more and more accurate, especially when it comes to immigration.

If you have any ideas, I'd like to hear them. And if you feel the immigration problem can no longer be solved, I'd like to hear that, too.

Tom Hennessy's viewpoint appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at (562) 499-1270 or by e-mail at Scribe17@mac.com


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