Someone has written that for every difficult question there is one best answer, and that someone has already written a book about it. Seems logical to me.
I have not written a book about the best answer to the illegal immigration problem, nor do I know what book that may be, or where it might be found. But I think I know what the best answer would be--or would have been. I think a lot of us DO know that answer; and the problem now is that it may be too late to go back to where we can apply it. (Maybe somebody can write a book about just that, about redeeming the time.There does not seem to be any obvious way to rewind, does there?)
The answer would be--or would have been--for the United States to support the right kind of governments and organizations around the world. These would be, or would have been, governments and organizations who considered it their primary duty to provide a good life for their citizens or constituents--decent jobs, basic human and civil rights, good education, food, and health care, in no particular order. In societies served by such governments and purveyors of services people might still travel, but for pleasure. Not the least of which would be getting home again; because if you live in a place you like and care about, where you are treated with respect and decency, you will want to spend most of your time there.
How do we get back to where we can make up for all we have left undone? Never forgetting, by the way, that our omission has not been neutral. Many have died because of what we failed to do, as much as if we had acted directly against them.
This brings me home to the Lehigh Valley and Bethlehem, definitely an at-risk spot on the map of the world. (As, no doubt, are all spots in these times.)
I have just learned that Bethlehem has been named to somebody-or-other's list of America's 100 most liveable cities of its size range. People are drawn by the arts and entertainment, educational opportunities, and apparently more than anything by the "commutable" distance to major metropolitan cities. Which means--and I am not the first to say this, nor am I saying it for the first time--within a few years we stand to lose many of the wonderful things which make our home a place that draws newcomers.
It would be very hard--in fact, blatantly un-Constitutional--to try to prevent American citizens or legal residents from coming here. It would also be just about impossible to weed out the illegal newcomers, who have no official papers, from the others.
As usual, this influx could have been planned for in a serious way. Our leaders and planners could have decided what sort of jobs we needed to have, what sort of infrastructure needed to be available; and also--unthinkable idea!--what sort of limits might be necessary. (By, for example, zoning, which could be used to control the size of the population and protect our natural resources.)
In what has become the Great American Tradition of Procrastination (which in turn replaced the Can-Do Tradition of World War II), nothing seems to have been done.
I do not give up easily. And I'd like to know, What can we do to redeem the situation, here where we live, and now?