Towns rethink laws against illegal immigrants

Wait, you mean banishing illegal immigrants from a town can have negative consequences? But Lou Dobbs told me all illegal immigrants are evil and have pernicious effects upon our entire society! He told me they're killing our economy, not helping parts of it! Oh my, what will the children think.

This article is interesting for two reasons: First, it shows the logical result of the kinds of policies that rabid anti-immigration zealots support:

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, it shows that for all the hysteria about illegal immigrants, it's actually pretty easy to solve the problem, at least at a local level:

A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated. The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.

Not surprisingly, if you penalize *the people who employ* illegal immigrants, the job market dries up and they go somewhere else. As we saw when the Congressional immigration debates last year nearly split the Republican party in two, businesses are in no hurry to see a major workforce (and even, to some degree, customer base) evaporate. But hey, if people want it done, it can be done.

I should say, I think illegal immigration is a problem in a variety of instances, and certainly border issues are a matter of physical as well as economic security. What I dislike, though, is the dishonesty that infuses the illegal immigration debate. If people want to really work through the economic (and even cultural) issues involved -- some of which hurt American citizens and some of which help us -- that's great. If they just want to yell about brown people, well, not so much.