| Driven to Sanity |
8 December 2003
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California Drops Driver's Licenses for Illegal Aliens
One of former Governor Grey Davis' more vulgar political grandstanding moves was signing a bill that allowed illegal aliens in the state of California to get a driver's license. The state legislature last week repealed the law, and Governor Schwarzenegger has already redeemed a campaign pledge. The case just goes to show that the US has no immigration policy worthy of the name.
Simply put, an alien is one who is not a citizen of a given society. With citizenship comes duties and rights. Those without citizenship do not have the same duties nor, logically, do they have the same rights. Their ties to that society are morally and legally different from a citizen's. Any society is entitled to create rules under which non-citizens may operate within that society. Any alien who conforms to those rules (tourists, students, workers) poses no threat to that society, and indeed, such an alien may well be on the path to citizenship. This is not an American idea; the Romans concept of bestowing their citizenship on non-Romans was an old custom when St. Paul had need of his.
An illegal alien, however, one who enters a country without conforming to those rules, is not in anyway different from a tax cheat, a con artist or an embezzler. The word "illegal" has meaning and is distinct from "undocumented." Asylum seekers often arrive without ID, Louis Vuitton luggage and large amounts of cash. Yet a system of rules for dealing with them exists and should be generous in a nation built by immigrants. The issue here is not someone who has need of sanctuary, but someone who arrived contrary to law and with no compelling reason in mitigation.
There are, naturally, two ways to get rid of illegal aliens. The first is to remove them from the US. The second is to get rid of the illegal status. The fact is that America imports a large number of laborers who are willing to take lousy jobs at low wages because it is better than what they can earn for themselves in their own country. To do this, they will pay thousands to gangsters to smuggle them into the US. Many are abused physically, emotionally and financially. They live in constant fear of deportation by "La Migra." All of which could be avoided by creating a system that made them legal.
The unions will hate it. The nativists will hate it. The gangsters and abusers will hate it. But America needs to create a guest worker system of some kind that creates a basis for the foreign tissues in the body politic to be tolerated rather than rejected outright. The H1-B visa approach isn't enough, and until the nation has a good long debate about it, the present folly will continue. Imagine, giving the right to drive a car to someone who shouldn't be here in the first place when it is denied to Americans who aren't rich enough to afford insurance.
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