‘Self-deportation’ is no joke
nypost.com
OPINION
by Karol Markowicz
Updated: 11:14 PM, January 29, 2012
In a Republican primary season overloaded with second-tier candidates and gaffes, lots of people seem to be watching the never-ending debates with an ear for the next laugh line. After last Monday’s Florida debate, they seized on Mitt Romney’s suggestion that his immigration policy, rather than rounding up illegals, would have people “self-deport.”
“The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here,” Romney said.
It was an instant joke; everyone was self-deporting. Rick Klein, senior Washington editor for ABC World News, tweeted “pretty soon I shall self-deport from my couch, to gather more liquid to drink.” Andrew Sullivan, hyperventilating, live-blogged that it was “a new Romney verb.” Roll Call’s Ryan Beckwith tweeted that self-deport was a “new phrase to me.”
Later in the week, Newt Gingrich jumped on the Romney-mocking bandwagon, calling the plan “fantasy” and finding a way to work in class-warfare references to Swiss bank accounts, the Cayman islands and “$20-million-a-year income with no work.”
But is it so funny — or new? Why would anyone self-deport?
The answer is in the middle of Romney’s response: You’d self-deport because you don’t have legal documentation allowing you to work here.
So the mockable, hilarious and unlikely idea is an enforcement of existing law. It remains illegal to work in America without proper documentation; that we collectively look the other way doesn’t, in fact, make it legal.
The extremes don’t make serious arguments about “fixing” immigration. We can’t round up masses of people and send them home, despite Rick Santorum’s suggestion we do that because Mexico is “a great country” and “not Siberia.” We also can’t give blanket amnesty to people who broke the law to get here, unless we want to encourage millions more to do the same.
Some paint Romney’s position as far-right because a version of it has been supported by more zealous immigration opponents, but it’s actually a fair compromise. Enforce the laws, secure the border and give those who self-deport a fair track to US citizenship.
The immigration argument drifts leftward with time. The left will no longer accept anything but living with the fact that countless people break the law to come here. Even Gingrich, criticizing Romney in Thursday’s debate, painted the plan as pulling grandmothers from their homes and churches, separating them from their families and shipping them home.
It’s impossible to have a reasonable discussion on immigration when any talk of enforcement is greeted by this kind of hysteria.
Sure, critics can make the emotional argument that illegal immigrants come here for a better life, just as all of our ancestors did. But it’s not anti-Latino or anti-immigrant to believe that a nation must secure its borders for its survival; when the influx is unsustainable, there has to be a more practical approach.
Mitt Romney’s plan, funny as it may sound, may be just that compromise.
Read more: Mitt Romney’s border proposal—Karol Markowicz - NYPOST.com
