Oh, come on. They’re not the Japanese navy. They’re not coming in battleships.
Look, I agree with you that the United States has every right to control its borders. I think our immigration laws are a mess. I’m absolutely in favor of a comprehensive overhaul.
Like (I’m betting) most people, I’d like to see a place in our immigration law for people without a ton of education, or money, who are coming here, just like my grandparents, for a shot at a better life.
Not such a terrible thing.
I’m not comparing them in terms of hardware, firepower or means of entry. The question was what the Posse Comitatus Act (as amended, it appears) actually prohibits the government from doing, and under what conditions the government can use the armed forces to prevent or repel an incursion by foreigners.
I think immigration should be robust, but I believe it should be based on national interest. When my ancestors came here, immigration was open. If you could get here and weren’t sick, you could stay. But the nation had a country to fill up and a man-devouring civil war to fight. But it was also true that if you didn’t have the money for passage or the health to (at least probably) survive a killer trip, you didn’t come. And so, open immigration was in the national interest at the time.
I’m not an expert at what the country needs presently. But it does not seem to me that willy-nilly admission can possibly be it. Do we need unskilled workers when there are plenty of them unemployed in our major cities? Do we need engineers from India if there are unemployed engineers sitting in their parents’ basements? Do we need Hmong to run our convenience stores or poultry farms?
I don’t know. I sometimes wish immigration was dumped on the Federal Reserve or some such independent body that is relatively immune to political pressures and raises and lowers the money supply based on perceived need.
But that’s not what we have. Right now we have a crazy system (or lack thereof) that is highly politicized and moreover “moralized” by people who often have no idea what living conditions are really like in various countries of origin.
Do people know, for example, that the GDP/capita in Mexico is higher than it is in any eastern European country? I guess not. There’s no call to increase immigration from eastern Europe. Haiti is one of the worst places on earth, but the cause celebre of the moment is of Central Americans, not Haitians.
And what of Filipinos who are relatively well educated, love America
