http://michellemalkin.com/2008/01/18/th ... -solution/

The Immigration Solution
By Michelle Malkin • January 18, 2008 10:29 AM

Every lawmaker, every campaign, every engaged citizen, and every reporter who writes about immigration should have this book:

As I wrote in an endorsement on the back cover: The Immigration Solution demolishes open-borders myths and provides a clear, sane path toward an immigration plan that benefits America and adheres to the rule of law. Heather Mac Donald, Victor Davis Hanson, and Steven Malanga battle muddled amnesty advocates with impeccable logic, facts, and principle. This book is not just a must-read. It’s a must-do.

Front Page Magazine has a symposium with the authors. You should read the whole thing. Heather Mac Donald looks at how the dynamics of the debate have changed:

The fact that we are engaged in this debate at all represents a radical shake-up of the immigration status quo (‘we’ being not just my coauthors but the pundit class and reluctant politicians as well). For the first time in decades, the public has forced the political and media elites to respond to its dismay at illegal immigration. Though liberal and—more surprisingly—conservative opinion-makers are untroubled by illegal immigration’s massive assault on the rule of law, the public still cares deeply whether our laws are respected or not. Moreover, people who live with the influx of poorly-educated, low-skilled illegal immigrants see the strains that this demographic wave puts on their communities.

The prominence that illegal immigration has had in the public debate over the last two years represents a triumph of democracy, in my view. After decades of being silenced, the popular will is finally being heard, amplified by the rise of the new media. And this change in the political climate is more than cosmetic. Though the Bush Administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming into its current enforcement policies, those policies are many magnitudes more aggressive than anything that has been seen for years—if still a fraction of what they need to be. Even more responsive have been local and state legislatures, which are forging ahead with efforts to stop rewarding and start penalizing immigration law-breakers, both American and foreign.

Are the political ferment and the ensuing government actions perfect? Of course not. As Steve has pointed out, the debate has largely failed to take up the question of what a more nationally beneficial immigration policy should look like. And it is still possible that after the Presidential election, politicians will go back to ignoring the public will. Still, I think that the public deserves credit for persisting in its demand that our national borders and immigration laws be respected.

And persist we must.
Posted in: Immigration
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