Unintended Consequences Poleaxes the Xenophobes or, Why LULAC Should Support More Border Guards

More immigration, in honor of Columbus Day...

As noted yesterday, "illegal" immigration (we speak here primarily of Mexican immigration into the US) has become quite the divisive issue of late. Mexican immigrants are on the rise after a few years of decline, and are spreading out all over the country. Increasing the number of Border Guards, building walls, fences and the like are the traditional Xenophobic methods of combatting the phenomenon (along with calls to "enforce the law," forgetting perhaps in our Wal-Mart economy, we likey our meat packed cheap, our houses built cheaper, and our fruit picked cheapest of all, pesticides or no). At the other end are analyses such are this indicating that Mexican immigrants tend to be high school dropouts; their children also drop out of high school in greater numbers than either the general population or other(almost always more educated) immigrant groups. Recently, the law of unintended consequences has intruded on Chaos' conciousness...seems that immigrants, while not discouraged from coming over here, are going back in fewer numbers because of increased border enforcement. Is it Hotel California (you can check in, but not ever leave...) revisited? If the concerns of the Xenophobes ( lack of assimilation of Mexicans in contrast with previous generations of immigrants who came from overseas) are correct, increased border enforcement may actually lead to more assimilated and successful (economically, anyway) Mexican immigrants.