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immigrants, and, being one—both American and immigrant—I thought I’d weigh in on the immigration reform issue that is so hotly debated these days.

But first, a brief rant (did you really expect otherwise?). I was driving in to work earlier this week, and happened to be listening to NPR. The California Report came on, and its subject that day was the apparent “heated debate” over language in the immigration reform package that’s currently making its way through Congress. Some group of well-meaning citizens had taken exception to the usage of the words “illegal” and “alien” to describe, well, illegal aliens. They preferred to use the word “undocumented” instead. After recovering from my attack of outraged speechlessness^*, I determined to rant (er, blog) about it online forthwith.

This is just the kind of crap that, besides being engineered to drive me right up the wall, detracts from the genuine, important issue of immigration reform and mires all the players in useless semantic debates. This, it seems to me, is the surest way to get people to stop taking you seriously—not, as they seem to believe, the contrary. What they should be focusing on are common sense proposals to improve our nation’s obviously lacking immigration policy, not quibbling over terminology. I could continue, but then I’d just get worked up and deviate from my point, which won’t help anybody.

Let me begin by outlining my position on the issue. First, being a legal immigrant to this country, I have what some may consider to be conflicting positions on the issue of illegal immigration (and I don’t care what they say; illegal is the perfect word, seeing as these people are breaking the law). The first, as you might suspect, is that I sympathize with those longing to escape oppression or crippling poverty or even lack of opportunity for the chance to live the American Dream (or at least to survive or live moderately well in exchange for hard work).

But the second is that I take a very dim view of trying to do so illegally. Illegal immigrants (and the government’s knee-jerk reaction to dealing with the problem) make everything harder for those who want to come here legitimately. The surge in illegal immigration in the past couple of decades, and, of course, the ubiquitous effects of 9/11, have ensured that those who want to come here legally (even on a travel visa!) have to jump through endless hoops, with no guarantee of success. Why is it that the people who bother to try and do things right are penalized? This is much like my rant on how people who buy their movies and music legally are the ones that have to suffer through the unavoidable don’t-pirate rants from the RIAA and MPAA. The good guys really do finish last.

So what can we do about this? Well, first, we need to tighten our borders. Make it harder for illegals to get in, because once they have, it’s really hard, if not impossible, to get them out again. Part of that is making the punishments for sneaking in—and getting caught—much more severe. That, though I have no evidence to back up the assertion, would be a much more effective deterrent than the half-hearted policy we have now. I had brief designs of pointing to the extremely low rates of DUI offenses in Europe and justifying them by indicating the draconian punishments for doing so, but I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

Secondly, we need to make it easier for those who want to come in legitimately to do so. The current, tortuous immigration process is beset by crippling bureaucracy and appalling inefficiency (a hallmark of any government institution, you might say); anyone who has ever stood in a line at an INS office will know what I’m talking about. They are, at best, completely uninterested in making things easy (or just easier) for wannabe American residents/citizens, and at worst, are active hindrances to our lives and goals. Which, as you might imagine, is an encouragement for those who want to want to avoid all the rigamarole of trying to get in legally.

This can all be summed up by the following: don’t punish the good guy. I know this is a radical proposal, but how about we try to reward those who try to obey the law, and punish those who don’t?

^* And really, you’d think I’d be inured to such idiocy by now, but I am continually shocked and awed. Only in California, man.