I didn't say Hispanic. I said "illegal immigrants."

Publius described a series of symptoms. I'm describing the problem.

If you want some of the rest of it:

• In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.

• A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution
schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.

• The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.’s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation.

I have seen numbers as high as twenty to thirty percent for the percentage of illegal immigrant inmates in Federal penitentaries.

...most illegal immigrants may be too tired to engage in gang activities after a day spent harvesting food for our tables, cleaning our houses, and landscaping our yards.

A lot of our crime and employment problems in California (never mind closing a major hole that terrorists can sneak through) could be helped by slamming the border shut. While it would be expensive, it would not be as expensive as the problems that illegals generate. Legal immigrants, who should always be welcome, can come through the gates.

Sure, there would be much wailing and hair-tearing from both liberals and those businesses that love cheap and frightened labor. But there are many states that have almost no illegal immigrants (almost 90 percent of them live in about seven states) and oddly enough, in all these states, lawns still get mowed, vegetables get picked, hotel sheets get changed, factories operate, and burgers get flipped. It just costs the businesses a bit more to hire citizens and legal residents.

I'm libertarian by nature, but "fully open borders," like "no taxes at all," are ideals that don't pass the reality test in our current environment.