Comments on The Belmont Club,"Doppelganger"

whiskey,
You have a point about the alliance of elites and outsiders against the working class. The Roman Emperors from Augustus on employed the Equestrian class against the Senatorial class and championed the cause of the Plebeians. Caesar was a leader of the Populares. Successful English Kings allied with the Commons against the Lords.

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Both George Bush and John McCain expended enormous political capital seeking to build an alliance with hispanics. Certainly in McCain’s case that effort was wasted and he has expressed some feeling of bitterness. It will demand enormous discipline, not their salient feature recently, for the Republicans to assert that they are both for immigration and for the rule of law. The hypocrisy that has allowed loopholes to be created, or enforcement to be curtailed, for commercial interests must be stopped. At the same time real resources must be devoted to doing the level of investigation needed to verify an applicants eligibility for a visa. Right now our system is so broken that it is often irrational for a legitimate applicant to apply within the system as compared to a person who would in the normal course of business be rejected but who stands a better chance of gaining permanent residence by entering illegally and then establishing a presence such as a family.

Anyone who Enters Without Inspection (EWI) should be banned from ever gaining citizenship. No child of an EWI should be granted citizenship. The only exception to that should be if that child was conceived by an American mother as a result of an act of nonconsensual sex, that is to say a rape, that has been reported and certified in a legal proceeding. Customs and Border Protection Officers have less than 30 seconds to evaluate an applicant who does report for inspection at an entry port. Fraud such as providing false information at that point should invalidate the entry and subject the alien to immediate removal and a permanent bar on reentry.