These days I hear a lot of arguing covering the differing opinions on immigration, amnesty, border security, and jobs that Americans won't do.  I find some of the arguments persuasive and thoughtful, others I find to be just so much hysterical demagoguery.

I think that we all can agree that we should certainly protect our borders because it would be insane not to.  However, the primary focus should be on preventing terrorists from getting in.  This job would be a lot easier if we didn't have all the illegal immigrants coming across making our job that much more difficult.

I'm frustrated that nobody seems to be asking the important question:  Why do the illegal immigrants sneak across our borders.  Yes, they want a better life, but again, why can't they get that better life in their own country, surrounded by their own friends and families?

The answer to that important question is almost always:  economic frustration caused by long term bad tax policy that smothers the growth potential for their society.  Once the frustration reaches a certain level, only two choices are left:  revolution or emigration.  Vicente Fox realizes this which is why his government encourages and assists those who want to flee across the border into the US.  That flight is the pressure valve release to prevent the pressure cooker of his society from exploding into a full blown revolution.

There’s always cause and effect.  We keep arguing over what we should do about the effect, when we should cut to the source of the problem and talk about solutions to the underlying cause.  The first action is to determine what we should do to help remedy the situation.  Well, the answer to that is fairly straight forward.  We should persuade Mexico to change their economic policies so that there can be economic growth and hope in their society.  That would, over time, lessen the incentive for those to leave.

The white house should lean heavily on Vincente Fox and the Mexican government to cut taxes; especially those taxes that stifle economic growth.  The first choice would be capital gains tax reform.  Currently Mexico has eliminated the capital gains tax on their biggest corporations registered on the Bolsa (i.e. their stock exchange), but they have a heavy capital gains tax on ordinary small business entrepreneurs.  That is just inherently unfair and a recipe for keeping the rich and poor in their current economic positions.  This is classic liberal economic policy of creating a zero sum game of my gain is your loss and visa versa.  It doesn’t have to be that way; my gain can be your gain.  Supply side economic policy has made it clear that we don’t have to fight over which one of us gets the bigger piece of a small pie.  The answer is to increase the size of the pie so that even the smaller percentage pieces can satisfy anyone’s hunger.

So let's stop arguing over the effects of illegal immigration and let's attack the root cause.  The white house should use its considerable influence to do whatever is necessary to push Mexico to reform their tax policy and thereby improve the lives of ordinary Mexicans.  Illegal immigration will then slow to a manageable level.