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VALUE DRIVEN
Introducing the New Third Rail: Immigration
Rising illegal immigration spells big trouble for the U.S. But what's a politician to do?
By Geoffrey Colvin

When thousands of Californians refused to go to work one day in mid-December, and thousands more kept their kids home from school, it was all because Governor Schwarzenegger had barely brushed the new third rail of American politics. While Social Security is conventionally the third rail (touch it and you die), nearly all politicians of all parties would endure the agony of remaining silent for an entire day rather than say a word about one increasingly high-voltage issue: illegal immigrants. Trouble is, like Arnold, they'll soon have no choice.

Schwarzenegger's sin was making good on a campaign promise by signing a bill that he had proposed and the Democratic legislature had passed overwhelmingly, preventing illegal immigrants from getting California driver's licenses. They couldn't get licenses anyway, but Governor Gray Davis, in his final days, had signed a measure that would have permitted it as of January. Losing that prize so incensed many of California's immigrants, illegal and legal (obviously excluding the one in the governor's mansion), that they attempted a statewide disruption of daily life.

There's the problem for politicians, whose first commandment is "exclude no one." Any action against illegal immigrants infuriates a lot of Hispanic voters, whom no one can afford to infuriate. Yet continued inaction is impossible.

The main reason is that illegal immigration increased hugely in the '90s. The illegal population is apparently around eight million, increasing by a half million a year. Perversely, a trumpeted toughening of border security may have made matters worse: Border patrols apprehend more people, but more people are trying to cross, so just as many get through as beforeâ€â€