I’ve been reading a lot about the welfare and crime in the 1990s, and the essential point about them is that almost no social trend is inevitable. If society cares enough to send a different signal it can change decades long, seemingly intractable trends, such as rising welfare dependency and crime. It just may be that the same is true of large-scale illegal immigration, which we all accept as inevitable. An amazing story over the last two years is that if you deport a few Pakistani illegals–OK, maybe a few thousand–huge numbers of other Pakistani illegals will leave voluntarily because they get the hint. This theory should be tried in California and Arizona–I’m guessing if 1,000 illegals from Mexico and Latin America were deported tomorrow in a high-profile action it would have a huge effect on the in-flow of more illegals. As I wrote in my column earlier this week (look mom, no bleg!), it is understandable that our enforcement focus is now on Muslims and Arabs, but over the long-term immigration laws must, as a matter of fundamental fairness, apply to everyone.