Immigration and the U.S. Republican presidential candidates

Yesterday (Sunday, September 18) the New York Times took three Republican candidates to task for their positions on illegal immigration. More accurately, their lack of positions. All three of them have refused to say much of anything on the subject, for fear of alienating the most conservative of voters. The only thing they publicly agree on is the urgent need to "seal the border." But as the Times pointed out in a lead editorial, that "solution" hardly addresses the issue of what to do with the 11 million undocumented Mexicans already living and working in the United States. More to the point, it ignores the fact that illegal border crossings are at an historic low. In fact, most of the traffic is going the other way these days, due to the poor state of the U.S. economy and improved opportunities in Mexico. That, coupled with new laws (such as Arizona´s) specifically targeting Latinos for arrest and/or deportation, has caused record numbers of undocumented persons to give up and return home voluntarily.
The candidates´ proposals, such as we have them, are:

The Mitt Romney "Hold that Line" Plan: No amnesty and no special treatment for undocumenteds. Build a multi-million dollar high tech wall across the desert frontier ASAP.

The Rick Perry "Boots on the Ground" Plan: Forget the wall, it´s too expensive. Load the board with troops, and patrol it with both manned aircraft and unmanned drones.

The John Hunstman "Where There´s a Will There´s a Way Plan may be the most reasonable of the three. He too would build the wall, but with respect to the undocumenteds already in the U.S., he would support something which "leads to eventual legalization." Just what that plan might look like, Hunstman offers not a clue.

Any suggestion of reasonable, comprehensive immigration reform appears to be almost heretical with these three Republican front runners. But sooner or later they will have to confront the issue of what to do with 11 million people living just below the radar. No one can be elected president in the United States today without winning a substantial portion of the Hispanic vote -- about 43% of it according to one expert. Talk about high tech walls and unmanned drones is unlikely to seduce that voting block into any candidate´s corner.

[Photo: Mexican laborers in Texas, circa 1938. In those days their work was desperately sought, with no questions asked]