EDITORIAL

Those of you still taking Duncan Hunter seriously can finally stop, because it should be completely clear now that the congressman is off his nut. Hunter's lunacy was confirmed via his recommendation that the entire U.S.-Mexico border-from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico-be sealed with a tall fence to keep all those job-stealing, driver's-license-wanting, resource-using, foreign-language-speaking Mexicans out.

If not insanity, Hunter suffers from a severe case of reality detachment. He's stuck in the thinking that there's actually a point at which people who need work can actually be cut off from entering the country to get it. Go ahead, keep building the fence higher and wider; they'll go farther and climb higher to get around or over it. That's the thing with people and jobs: you can't keep them apart.

Meanwhile, you'll spend billions in another failed effort to lock the country down.

You'd think a conservative like Hunter would understand supply and demand. Does this guy have a brother in the fence-building industry? Even the anti-immigrant Union-Tribune said Hunter's idea is folly.

Hunter's in league with people like Tom DeLay, fringe right-wingers who don't understand that immigration policy requires a balanced approach. It won't work unless you devise a reform package that finds a safe, legal way for these folks to get into the country, connect with employers, pay taxes and become productive members of American society. Short of that, they're still going to come, and they're still going to work. They're just going to do it in the dark shadows of illegality. Why? Because they desperately need the work, and the employers desperately need the workers. There's no way around it. What you have then is Latin Americans paying far too much money to unscrupulous smugglers to find a way in-speeding across the border on the wrong side of the freeway; stuffed into cramped compartments in cars and trucks; trudging across the burning desert. Yeah, they're literally dying to get the work, to be reunited with family.

The economy needs about 500,000 of the sort of people who are streaming across the border illegally every year, and there's a proposed bill that would go a long way toward bridging the gap between current immigration policy and what supply-and-demand requires. The McCain-Kennedy “Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005” seeks to allow entry to many of the workers who will be coming in anyway (by creating 480,000 more visas), create an electronic worker-verification system, crack down on employers who continue to hire non-legalized workers, reunify families and help immigrants assimilate.

It makes a lot of sense-too much sense for a reactionary like Duncan Hunter to grasp.

About Zucchet and Inzunza

Back when former City Councilmembers Ralph Inzunza and Mike Zucchet were being tried on corruption charges, we were pretty hard on Inzunza. We never said whether or not we thought either politician was guilty of the charges he faced. But we did say that the evidence, coupled with what we already knew about him, showed that Inzunza was not fit for elective office. Guilty of corruption or not, he sought to deceive the public.

Zucchet might have beaten the rap if his attorney had separated his case from Inzunza and lobbyist Lance Malone. It was clear that Zucchet didn't play nearly as important a role as Inzunza did in what federal prosecutors said was a conspiracy to defraud the public of honest services.

Neither man should be sent to prison. Notwithstanding legal appeals, Zucchet and Inzunza should be sentenced to fines and community service. Inzunza may be a threat to local democracy, but he's not a threat to society. Prison would do no one any good. Sentence the two men to 10 years of community service. Let them perform a function that benefits the citizens of San Diego, and let them get on with their lives, pay taxes and fulfill their family obligations. Do we really need two more fatherless families, two more burdens for the taxpayers?

About Bill Horn

Did you hear about county Supervisor Bill Horn comparing himself to Rosa Parks? He said his refusal to follow state law by providing ID cards to sick people who'd like to smoke marijuana to help ease pain was just like Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus.