This just out:

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.

In a related story, in a new effort to crack down on illegal drug use, federal authorities are introducing tough new laws that require drug dealers to stop selling drugs to anyone who does not pay sales tax on a specific purchase.

I mean, seriously, the employers are the ones who entice the immigrants to come here in the first place; it’s not as if no one is offering jobs specifically to immigrants, who are coming over and passing themselves off as citizens. Forcing an employer to fire an illegal using a forged SS# truly is like having a dealer stop selling to a user: one is enticing the other to commit an illegal act, and forcing them to stop will simply cause both to seek the same activity elsewhere.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: illegal immigration will stop when, and only when, we crack down on the employers, the people who are creating the problem in the first place. But Bush has made it clear that he is absolutely unwilling to do this. Ergo the Bush administration will do nothing but harm–costly harm, in more than one way–with their various plans and schemes.

Unfortunately, as with the “War on Drugs,” the “War on Illegal Immigration” has a blindingly obvious solution, but one so politically unworkable that it will never be implemented, so instead we get treated to repeated garbage like we see today.