Of Immigration, the Law, and Donuts

Wednesday began, as so many days do around here, with a short drive to the local barrio to pick up a couple of donuts at a favorite Mexican bakery. The donuts — or donas, as they prefer to call them — are delicious and reasonably priced, and if they happen to have run out there’s always a wide variety of exotic cookies, cakes, rolls, and other tasty baked goods to choose from. Nice folks there, too, especially the lovely young woman at the counter who always greets us with a mellifluous “Buenos dias, Senor” and then smiles nicely when we respond with “And good morning to you, ma’am.”

As we brewed a couple of cups of coffee to round out breakfast, we turned on the radio and heard that the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments about the Arizona law designed to crack down on illegal immigration from Mexico. By all accounts the federal government’s famously inarticulate Solicitor General, the same Donald Verrilli who got such horrible reviews for his defense of Obamacare, was having another bad day as he tried to explain why Arizona shouldn’t be allowed to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an arch-liberal appointed to the Court specifically because she’s Hispanic, was telling Verrilli that “You can see it’s not selling very well.”

In Verrilli’s defense, something he apparently cannot muster for himself, he’s been charged with making some very hard-to-make arguments. There are lots of nice people in Arizona who have grown weary of the serious crimes, high governmental costs, and various other problems associated with mass illegal immigration, so it’s tough enough to explain why the federal government isn’t doing anything about it without having to justify preventing the Arizona state government from responding according to the law and its citizens’ wishes. The only plausible reason is that mass illegal immigration combined with lax enforcement of the voting laws might further the political interests of the Democratic party, and poor Verrilli is obviously handicapped by his inability to come right out and say that.

Even that political rationale might be less compelling now, as the massive decades-long migration of potential Democrats from Mexico has apparently slowed to a virtual halt. That’s the conclusion of a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center, at any rate, and it’s corroborated by our own observations of the local Hispanic neighborhoods. The reasons given for the slowdown are a sluggish American economy, which makes sense given that the construction jobs which once attracted so many illegal immigrants have been especially scarce for the past few years, as well as the law enforcement efforts by Arizona and the several states with laws similar to the one being challenged at the Supreme Court. Most Americans will regard a significant decline in illegal immigration as the sort of good news, something that an administration would ordinarily be boasting about, but neither of the reasons for it reflect well on Obama’s policies.

The great migration from Mexico that occurred over the past decades has had mixed results, as most things do. It’s caused the sorts of problems that Arizona was forced to address, but it’s also brought in a lot of hard-working, resourceful people who have made valuable contributions to the communities they’ve joined. Our morning donuts are but one of many diverse examples we can point to in Wichita, and we don’t doubt that the citizens in every American town and city can do the same. This country should be able to craft a sensible immigration policy that allows such people in on a path to citizenship, however, without swinging the doors wide open to the more troublesome immigrants. Why the administration has not sought to do so, rather trying to prevent states from protecting their citizens by enforcing existing laws, is question that should be asked during the upcoming campaign.

Perhaps the administration has concluded that if we did somehow restrict immigration to only the most self-reliant newcomers, it might not benefit the right party.

— Bud Norman