An Immodest Proposal

The title of this post may give the impression that I’m about to boast about something. I’m not, but I suppose in the interest of modesty (or the appearance of it at the very least) I should couch the announcement of my proposal with more humility. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

Without further ado, I humbly report that I have the perfect solution to America’s illegal immigration quandary.

I can see all of you shaking your heads in disbelief. She thinks she has the answer—give me a break, you say. And now you’re laughing. I see LOLs all over the place.

Oh, ye of little faith.

Here’s the thing about politicians and illegal immigration. One side wants to change immigration law to allow all 11 million illegal aliens to remain in the USA. The other side wants to enforce existing immigration law and deport all of them. The group in the middle wants the two sides to come together and compromise just this once, for the love of Heaven, and let some illegals stay and deport the rest.

That is the condensed version of the current situational stalemate, correct?

It should come as no surprise when I assure you that not one of these approaches has a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding with the dysfunctional government we have in place. No way, period. Congress and the White House keep banging their heads against the same wall year after year, giving the American people headache after headache with no relief in sight.

Allow me to present my ingenious proposal to eliminate illegal immigration and the subsequent need to enforce existing immigration laws, or for unnecessary immigration reform, an untenable position America finds itself in because its political representatives and its chief executive haven’t yet figured out how to work together to do their jobs properly. They need to think outside the box—the way I did.

My solution: Annex Mexico and make it the 51^st State of the Union. Considering that the US already confiscated Texas and California from Mexico a long time ago, it makes sense to go after the rest of the country and complete the matched set.

Stop rolling those eyes, people. I know you must think I’m being whimsical, or cynical, or snarky, or that my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek, but I’m mostly serious about this.

I strongly urge our government to persuade the Mexican government to apply for U.S. statehood and that the USA should grant it forthwith. The Mexican president will become governor of the new 51^st state. Every illegal in the other 50 states will immediately become a US tax-paying citizen.

Every new citizen gets a social security card, a driver’s license, and registers to vote. No more living in the shadows. No more INS raids. No more being paid under the table. No more keeping everything he earns—the IRS will see to that. And the federal government will save a bundle not having to print millions of green cards.

Now there are those who will be snide and say, “Right. Everyone in the new State of Mexico will immediately apply for all the federal government’s candy-store freebie entitlements, like welfare, Medicaid or ObamaCare, cellphones, and food stamps.”

Shame on those pundits for being so small-minded. Once the newly minted tax-paying citizens of the new 51^st state see how big a bite the IRS takes out of their paychecks to pay for those entitlements, they will become the biggest proponents of entitlement reform this country has ever seen. Aside from that, it probably wouldn’t cost the US government that much more to put the less industrious of these new citizens on the dole than it costs the US annually in millions of dollars in foreign aid to the nation of Mexico.

Think of the treasure trove of corporate tax money the government would then be able to rake in from all the US companies that relocated to Mexico for the cheap labor and to evade the prohibitively high US corporate tax. The move across the border tax evasion tactic employed by these companies would be thwarted, and they would have to fork over that massive 35% corporate tax once Mexico becomes the 51^st state. And just think of the lifeline it would be to organized labor. The Teamsters and the AFL-CIO will be revitalized unionizing all the Mexican factories and sweatshops, and they would be able to swell their membership and fill their moth-eaten union bank accounts once again.

Another income tax measure that would help fill federal coffers would be to legalize the manufacture and sale of all drugs in the 51st State of Mexico and designate the formerly illegal drug trade as a commercial industry. Following such designation, the federal government could then impose the 35% corporate tax on the drug cartels, and a 39.6% individual income tax rate on the fat cat cartel leaders.

It goes without saying that the Unions should be permitted to organize the cartels’ drug lab workers and force the cartels to pay minimum wage and benefits such as cost of living increases, paid health insurance, paid sick days, paid parental/maternity leave, and paid vacations. The cartels have taken advantage of those lab workers as slave labor long enough.

Another of the positive advantages of making Mexico the 51^st State would be the enormous reduction in the length of the US southern border. The border between the US and the nation of Mexico stretches 1,954 miles (3145 km) from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean—an impossible distance for the US to mobilize enough manpower to monitor and protect. The southern border between the proposed 51^st State of Mexico and the Central American countries of Guatemala (540 miles) and Belize (150 miles) is only 690 miles long—approximately one-third the length of the US-Mexican border—much easier for our border patrol agents to monitor and protect, and another plus would be the eventual elimination of traffickers smuggling illegals into the US. It would be a greater challenge for traffickers to penetrate US territory with a shorter border to cross and snake-filled jungles to tunnel under.

Mexico as our 51^st State would be a godsend to American tourists. They won’t need to go to the expense of procuring a passport to visit Mexico or go through border crossing inspections. They won’t be required to go through customs or pay tariffs on the items they purchase in Mexico. They won’t be under a cloud of suspicion for secreting jars of peanut butter in their luggage—to counteract “Montezuma’s Revenge,” of course. Most significantly of all, any US tourist thrown into a Mexican jail for whatever justified or unjustified reason will be subject to the laws and judicial system of the US, not the former nation of Mexico, a blessing and a definite game changer.

The only drawback I can see to making Mexico the 51^st State is the design difficulty presented by the uneven number of states when the stars on the field of blue are arranged on the necessarily updated American Flag. Actually, we could solve that problem easily enough. We’d have an even number of stars again if we make Puerto Rico the 52^nd State. Frankly, we should have done it ages ago, but that’s another story.

Now why can’t our government think of these things? Can someone explain that to me? #ImmigrationAction