Illegal Immigrants Are, by Definition, Criminals : Prop. 187: Newcomers whose first act here is to break the law have no entitlement to America’s bounty.

With the crime bill passed, Americans are discussing options and debating solutions to a variety of crimes. One of the most common and devastating crimes committed in America is committed by people who are not even American citizens. To many, it is not even considered a crime, even though its name, illegal immigration, makes it clear that is is.

Many Americans and Californians in particular are concerned with illegal immigration and the attendant problems. There are those who argue that the economy is taxed by the unexpectedly speedy increase of people using public institutions such as hospitals and schools. Others respond that the economy receives a boost through a large labor pool and the taxes and other benefits generated. Some argue that illegal immigrants strain our criminal-justice system, while others say the strain has nothing to do with an individual’s residence status. On each point, proponents and opponents counter one another’s arguments. The arguments get weak, however, when the issue is criminality. People who enter or stay in this country illegally are criminals by definition.

There are those who argue that the law is unfair. Some say we stole this land. Some say there should be open borders. Some say that these are pioneers in the tradition of those who brought America west to the Pacific Ocean. Some want to compare them to those who entered this country through Ellis Island. Some feel today’s illegal aliens are in a situation similar to homosexuals and Jews in Nazi Germany or Japanese Americans in Manzanar during World War II. Some even want to compare today’s illegals to people who were brought to this country against their will.

The truth is that fairness is a matter of opinion, but border laws are universally considered necessary to maintain sovereignty. The truth is that our immigration laws do not attack anyone who belongs in our country, which was not true of Nazi Germany, the United States during World War II, slavery or Jim Crow. The truth is that the history of humanity has seen the ownership of land change hands countless times and that it is counterproductive to speak of it being stolen. Ellis Island, moreover, is the very symbol of legal immigration: people struggling to do whatever they had to to be legal residents of this country. And I have yet to figure out any connection between today’s illegals and the stolen Africans of yesteryear.

The ultimate issue, the reality that so many wish to ignore, is that we do have borders. The sanctity of our borders and the logic behind protecting them and returning illegals can be grasped by all but the most opaque of minds. Our state is overrun with people whose first experience here teaches them that the most valuable thing they ever did was to break the laws of the United States.

We can forget trying to teach that “crime doesn’t pay.” These people will know firsthand that crime can pay, big time. What they find is an America with open arms, ready to give her bounty away. With so many public benefits there for the taking, it’s like the way some people used to explain rape: She was asking for it.

Now comes Proposition 187, the “Save Our State” initiative. Proposition 187 will deny this criminal class benefits that are wearing thin for those of us who pay for them--and thereby discourage them from coming altogether. And, Proposition 187 will, through the inevitable lawsuits, force the federal government to face its responsibility for maintaining its borders while putting this issue on every American’s plate.

There are people (including some members of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education) who have sworn that even if voters pass this law, they will not uphold it. These 187 opponents say they are the new civil-rights fighters. As one who was tear-gassed during the 1960s, I resent the comparison. In the ‘60s, we were trying to get America to treat Americans like Americans. Illegal aliens have no right to be treated like Americans. Unless they are willing to do what immigrants have done for decades--enter and remain legally--they have no right to our bounty.

I sympathize with those living in poor conditions. But if I were to come home with enough groceries for my family only to find that two people had broken in and wanted to eat, I might try to make my food stretch. But if more and more people showed up, eventually there would not be enough for any of us. Neither the financial condition nor--contrary to what opponents of 187 might like you to believe--the race of those people would matter. Something would have to give.

After the legal challenges have fine-tuned it, Proposition 187 will allow us to regain our strength as a state. From that position, we will be able to do one of the things we do so well: help our neighbors in this hemisphere and throughout the entire sphere improve their lot and make a legal life in their own countries more desirable than an illegal life here.