I can’t claim to be on top of this amnesty plan (or whatever we’re supposed to call it), which is why I’m looking forward to reading Mark Krikorian’s cover story in our new issue on this subject. But I don’t buy your attempted defense. We can always “get a handle” on a problem of rampant law-breaking by abolishing the law being broken. If we had good reasons to make a lot of immigration illegal in the first place, as I think we did, then the question becomes whether this plan undermines those goals (as I suspect it does). For one thing, I think there’s a national interest in limiting the total number of immigrants, legal and illegal. (Actually, I think there’s a national interest in reducing that number, but I’ll stick with the narrower claim that has broader assent here. Anyone who is not literally an open-borders enthusiast has to agree with that narrow proposition.)