House Bill 1383, which would limit aid to illegal immigrants, is going to get a lot of grief from the "let's just accept that these undocumented workers are here and help them adjust" crowd. Advance Indiana, for example, goes so far as to equate the effort to "the KKK of the 1920s. Back then the targets were Catholics, Eastern Europeans, Jews and blacks. Today, the target is Indiana's growing Hispanic population."
Now, it's fine to argue that we should reconsider our immigration policies. It's OK to say we should give those who are here some benefits -- refusing medical care, for example, goes against humanitarian principles. It's valid to wonder whether children should be punished for the actions of their parents with the denial of education. It's even a good debate to posit that some things we do for illegal immigrants are really for us (granting drivers' licenses as a way to keep bad drivers off the road, for example), although I would generally take the negative in that debate.
But it's absurd to compare the resistance to the flood at our border with Mexico to bigoted efforts against blacks or Catholics, completely blurring the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. If our policies are bad, let's change them; I don't know that President Bush's guest-worker concept is the right one, but it's worth talking about. But in the meantime, enforce the law as it is. Illegal is illegal, whether we're talking about bank robbery or immigration.
