MICKEY KAUS says it’s time to have a “real debate” on immigration.

My own sense is that immigration is a good thing, so long as immigrants want to buy into the American Dream. Assimilation is good.

I’d also like to keep out the terrorists, while not treating decent people like trash.

More nuanced discussion to follow.

UPDATE: Reader Evelyn Palmieri emails:

“My own sense is that immigration is a good thing, so long as immigrants want to buy into the American Dream. Assimilation is good.”

Glenn, Couldn’t agree more. If Bush makes that statement the centerpiece of the debate on immigration, he’ll get lots of support. Legal vs. illegal isn’t as important as why immigrants want to come here.

If people want to become just plain ordinary Americans, come on over. If they want to be hyphenated Americans and make little enclaves of where they came from, stay home.

Diversity is in the melting pot. Lots of good ingredients blending together make a mighty fine stew. I still get a kick out of the juxtaposition of different ethnicities like a local Mexican/Italian restaurant. In time the differences melt away and a pizza with taco toppings is just another type of pizza. It’s wonderful.

Let’s see what stance the White House takes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A lengthy email from an immigration insider. Click “read more” to read it.

Here’s the email:

I read your site and enjoy your comments, but I’m motivated to write by a few posts you’ve made recently about the immigration system. I feel like I ought to give you an inside perspective. I’m a consular officer serving in a very large visa-issuing post. I’m writing anonymously for obvious reasons…

First of all, I agree that the system is broken and decrepit. Far too many illegitimate travelers use our system to illegally migrate to the US, and the resulting procedures are cumbersome for legitimate travelers and immigrants. However, most of us involved in it recognize this (it’s driven home to us hundreds of times each day), and would love to fix it. But we can’t.

I have to say, I think your criticism of the process is misplaced. I will be the first to agree that I think DHS/CIS (ex-INS) makes boneheaded decisions all along the way. But you have to recognize that they are often forced to make boneheaded decisions by the mass of precedent accumulated over the years by Board of Immigration Appeals rulings- one bad decision at the top forces a future of similar bad decisions, even if the actual adjudicators might disagree. Thus, we have people who snuck across the border and made completely bogus claims of asylum being granted adjustment of status (green card) for “skilled labor” in critical shortage, like bricklayers and cell phone salesmen. Trust me, I’ve seen both of those approved by the Department of Labor.

Us lowly “grunts,” who are the ones doing the heavy lifting of actually interviewing applicants, making decisions at the border, etc; are actually very constrained in their discretion of what to do. So the decisions that everyone complains about and shakes their heads in disbelief, are usually not due to some stupid officer or inspector who can’t think straight. Secondly, the complaints about service and rudeness, while sometimes warranted, need a little perspective- we see hundreds (for consular officers) or thousands (for border inspectors) of applicants a day, a large percentage of whom are frauds, cheats, or liars, and our job is to 1) very quickly sort out who is honest and who is not, 2) decide if we can do anything about those who are not (very often the answer is no), and 3) send them along with the right visa or parole or admission or approval or denial. While it would be great if we could treat everyone with kind pleasanteries and happy conversations, we simply don’t have the time. If we did that, we’d reduce some of the complaints about service, but increase the complaints about the backlogs. DHS/CIS has immigrant petitions stacked hundreds deep on the floors of their office- they’re not to blame for not having the staff to handle them all! And we’d still get the complaints about service from everyone who is denied- they always feel they’ve been treated rudely no matter what we actually say. Along with that, the more illegal immigrants we let stay in the country, get green cards, and become citizens, the more work for our system: the number of applicants grows exponentially, because every relative in the village back home (and some non-relatives who are going to make fraudulent applications) is just waiting with bated breath for their lead scout to get that green card and start filing those petitions!

Professor, my point is mainly this: there is no one who knows better than the lowly consular officer or border/port of entry inspector that the system is broken. But please don’t blame us functionaries- the blame belongs solely with Congress and, in a larger scope, with the American people. Congress writes the laws that make us give benefits to people who don’t deserve it, and the huge amount of abuse tolerated and encouraged by Congress and the public is what makes us all so suspicious of everyone applying for something. I can’t tell you the amount of fraud I’ve seen, and so when I get a legitimate marriage between an American 56 year old woman and a foreign 20 year old man, who don’t have a common language between them, and have only met once, at their marriage, I’m sure that that legitimate woman is going to feel that I was unreasonably suspicious of their marriage.

Please get this perspective out there, on behalf of us long-suffering consular officers doing the dirty work of our country’s immigration system. And if you think the system is broken, then get Congress to fix it!

That’s what I’m trying to do.