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This is a rebuttal to Mr. Blumel’s essay below. It will appear in the February issue of the LP News…………………………..
I was flattered that Mr. Blumel’s felt my essay on Immigration Reform published in the Nov. 5 LP News, was worth his comment. (December 05 LP News) I also find that I must agree with some of his assertions: the first being that the war on drugs is itself corrosive and unenforceable, and secondly that “Increased Border Enforcement” is unworkable, as the implementation currently operates.
I am very familiar with the Cato Institute discussion “Backfire at the Border” and many other writings such as “In Focus: Immigration Debate” published by U.S. Foreign Policy In Focus and “The Illegal Alien Problem: Enforcing The Immigration Laws by Dr. George Weissenger of New York Institute of Technology. I have found that no social or political ideology has a corner on genius and consider them all. I do depend finally on my thirty years in Border Enforcement in the Customs as a troop and as a manager, as an instructor in INS and Customs cross training, and as an instructor in the Overseas Training Program providing guidance to foreign Border Officials. Most of all when preparing an essay as important as this, I rethink all the issues that have led me to my position and ask for opinions from former colleagues, who are really the only experts.
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Immigration policy enforcement is ‘bound to fail’ by Philip Blumel
Published in LP News – The monthly News Magazine of the Libertarian Party 12/2005; in response to my article -Immigration Reform or Decline in Rule of Law.. Published in the November edition of The LP News and in the Brownsville Herald on 10/16/2005………….

According to Fred Drew (in The Forum, Nov. 2005 LP News), we should not consider liberalization of our immigration laws until we successfully enforce the current law.
This, he argues, is required out of respect for the rule of law.
Using this logic, alcohol prohibition should not have been ended until all the bootleggers and speakeasies were shut down. The federal government should not have allowed states to raise the national speed limit above 55 until highway traffic actually slowed down to that speed.
As a practical matter, had this policy been followed, it would have ensured that we would still be saddled with Prohibition. And the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit would be in force now and forever.
Drew is essentially arguing that an unworkable government program has to work before we should dismantle or even reform it.
The fact is that the war on immigration — like the War on Drugs — is itself corrosive to rule of law because it is immoral and unenforceable.
For a good practical discussion about why this is so, see the recent study by the libertarian Cato Institute, “Backfire at the border: Why enforcement without legalization cannot stop illegal immigration.”
It is available without charge at www.cato.org.
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