Andrew: It ought to be said that the President’s immigration proposal of

last January is not, or not only, objectionable because it offers “short

cuts to citizenship.” In fact, it does not necessarily offer such short

cuts; and if it does not offer them, it is arguably even more

objectionable than otherwise, in that it represents a giant step towards the

full “Saudi-Arabianization” of US society, with all manual work performed by

a helot class of sub-citizens (“guest workers”).

You may say that this is the situation we in fact currently have, with ten

million or so illegal aliens in the country. The current situation,

however, is remediable in all sorts of ways: sudden spot roundups and

deportations pour encourager les autres, taxation of remittances,

prosecution of employers, and so on. The Bush proposals, if they do not

mean mass naturalization of law-breakers, would make helotry official.

That, in my opinion, would be the greater horror.