We depart once again from our usual topics of eminent domain and land use, to share this gem with our readers. Today’s LA Times reports that a Mexican gentleman has been arrested and evidently sentenced to five years in prison. The Times article discloses that the miscreant in question had been caught escorting illegal aliens into the US 23 times in the last 17 years. No, we are not making this up; it’s sitting right here in front of your faithful servant in living black and white. See Teri Figueroa, Migrant Smuggler Gets Prison Term, L.A. Times, March 29, 2016, at p. B3. Evidently each time he was deported he turned around and came back, with a clutch of illegal aliens whom he guided through the border. Last time, says the Times, his charges complained that he robbed them before bringing them to the Promised Land
According to our calculator, that comes to one round trip 1.35 times a year. It would be appropriate, it seems to us, if at the end of each such deportation court proceeding the defendant were to say to the Judge “Thank you your Honor. See you next year.”
We tried to be funny, but it isn’t working. This is way beyond self-parody and goes a long way toward explaining why America is in trouble, and why Donald Trump’s calls for draconian border controls are finding resonance with so many people, and why he has done as well as he has in the polls.