What does it say when the highway departments in most of our border states start putting up signs for Illegal Immigrant Crossings? You might have initially thought that the sign to the right was some sort of joke, but they're for real and they've started appearing on highways near the Mexican border in California, Arizona and now Texas as well - maybe more states, but I've only confirmed those three. Mom, Dad and Kid running while holding hands is now the official international symbol for "Don't hit the Border Bunnies or you'll have to hire them to do your yardwork and build a new patio."
I wonder how much tax money was spent on making and posting these signs? Might it have been better spent hiring a few more border patrol agents to actually keep illegals out of the country? The signs are certainly a fine humanitarian gesture. It's hard to pay attention to traffic while running across a desert highway and reading your comic-book border crossing manual by moonlight.
What does it say about our acceptance of illegal immigration that we now treat families running north from the border as just another road hazard like deer or elk? We can hunt those other road-crossing nomads. Does that mean we're going to have a hunting season for illegals soon? The signs tell me that we're no longer outraged. We're not trying to do something about the problem. We just want to make sure we don't end up with an illegal stuck on the grill of our SUV.
Maybe there's an upside. Since we can't seem to apprehend and deport the myriad illegals who've made it here, perhaps we can station sheriffs at the crossing signs and ticket illegals for jaywalking. At least that way border counties will make some revenue off of the human flood from the south.
Dave
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Victor Plenty
Road hazards are road hazards. Highway departments don't have any control over what road hazards exist. They just have a responsibility to keep drivers alert to whatever dangers might arise in the area.
Drivers hopped up on anti-immigrant fervor might be tempted to run people down for the sin of not having their papers in order. But even the newest toughest SUV can suffer damage to its bumpers and fenders from such an impact at freeway speeds.
If you don't like today's clandestine migration, there are only two ways to stop it. Either seal the border in electric fences and shrink-wrap, or implement a realistic guest worker program. Any other proposal will only throw more money into the hole.
2 - Dave Nalle
If you've ever hit a deer in an SUV you know how much damage they can do. I sure don't want to slam into a herd of illegals. I'm not even sure my insurance covers that kind of damage.
Dave
3 - Jones Violet
Victor: "Drivers hopped up on anti-immigrant fervor might be tempted to run people down for the sin of not having their papers in order. "
Is that in the bible? Since you call it a sin and all.
4 - Dave Nalle
All sin is subjective. And it's not that illegals don't have their papers in order. They have no interest in having papers at all.
Dave
5 - Victor Plenty
I'm not the one calling it a sin, Jones Violet. I'm lampooning the people who treat it like one.
I especially savor the bizarreness of libertarians incensed at the very idea of human beings who have not registered their existence and their movements with the government.
If you can't travel across an invisible line without getting a permission slip from several governments, can you really describe your condition as "freedom?"
6 - William Morris
It is illegal immagration or the signs wouldn't say so. I live in the Midwest so it doesn't affect me as much but the government does need to do something to take care of this problem and I don't mean putting up signs.
7 - Victor Plenty
The only word on the sign is CAUTION. Are we looking at the same sign?
8 - Mihos
Right on Victor. One day soon, an enormous earthquake is going rip the pacific region and the signs in lush fertile Mexico will be black silhouettes of Pamela Anderson and
Snoop Dogg dragging Mini Mi.
9 - Dave Nalle
>>I especially savor the bizarreness of libertarians incensed at the very idea of human beings who have not registered their existence and their movements with the government.<<
Most standard Libertarians believe in fully open borders. Personally I favor a guest worker program.
As for the signs, I find their existence mostly humorous.
Dave
10 - Scott
I'm still looking at that sign and thinking, "is that real?"
11 - Dave Nalle
It's real. My wife has seen them down in the Rio Grande Valley. There's also an article about them in the San Diego Union-Tribune and another in an Arizona paper I don't have the link to at the moment.
I was actually alerted to the existence of the signs when I was watching "The Mind of Mencia" on Comedy Central. He had a long, rather humorous riff on the signs, including a graphic of a more 'realistic' version featuring a much larger extended family. Pretty funny.
Dave
12 - Al Barger
As a good Libertarian, I'm strongly predisposed to favoring totally open borders. Victor's right in #5, I feel no need to ask some government's permission to travel. Screw them.
On the other hand, there are issues in practice that make me uneasy with the simple correct ideological answer. For starters, we have security issues post 9/11. Also, the continuing massive immigration from Mexico has created worse and worse strains on our whole social structure.
I don't know if there really even is a good solution. Maybe just some things to address these issues that would be less bad than others.
13 - Aaman
Is August 1st the new April Fools' Day?
14 - Al Barger
Our schools are failing US, as is evidenced by America First, who apparently has no concept of the definition of an "ad." A highway safety sign is not an advertisement. If the immigrants were shown drinking clearly marked bottles of Coca Cola, that would be an ad.
15 - El Bicho
These signs aren't new in California. They have been along the 5 freeway near San Onofre for years.
Is there any correlation between the schools failing and the country becoming more conservative?
16 - Dave Nalle
>>Is there any correlation between the schools failing and the country becoming more conservative?<<
That would be ironic - for the liberal agenda preached in the schools to have so alienated kids that they are easy prey for conservatives who show them a little truth and common sense and win them over. Like a man who's been on bread and water for years who's offered a steak.
Dave
17 - Al Barger
Mmmm, steak- preferably from a sacred cow. Get in my belly!!!
18 - Nancy
A possible solution to at least reduce illegals: change the signs to "shoot to kill", & post scalp bounties.
19 - Mihos
Ironic that indigenous people that speak Spanish and may or may not be of European and or Afro genetic admixture are called Aliens. In North America the same people speak English.
Does any body remember what happened to the tribes of South West North America --shortly after the civil war?
They were pushed in the "Mexico".
And seriously, please anybody remark on this factoid.
The entire region is overripe for an enormous earthquake. There is more fresh water, much more in fact in Mexico and the region is more stable during these events hence its relatively more biodiverse assemblage of plants and animals.
So where will North Americans go?
What will happen to Americans who find themselves desperately looking for food and Work?
20 - Dave Nalle
Mexico is NOT more geologically stable than Texas, trust me on this. Plus, when the earthquake hits the Mississippi valley there will be plenty of work rebuilding and burying the 10,000,000 dead bodies that will result from it.
Dave
21 - RogerMDillion
"Is there any correlation between the schools failing and the country becoming more conservative?"
It could also mean that more people are coming out of school as dumb as they went in.
22 - Dave Nalle
Except that conservatism generally comes to people later in life. Moving to the right is usually the result of experience and responsibility. It's easy to be liberal when you're young.
Dave
23 - Mark Saleski
Moving to the right is usually the result of experience and responsibility
ah, but this is how the transformed conservative thinks of the transformation.
as in "i'm smarter now, more mature, more reasonable".
...and it's all a matter of opinion.
24 - Dave Nalle
>>ah, but this is how the transformed conservative thinks of the transformation.<<
I don't know about that. I just know what I've observed. A lot of people who were liberal when they were young seem to become conservative when they get older.
My personal experience is different, because I've been politically at odds with both the left and the right over various issues since I was a teen - and everything I've seen since then just reinforces my belief that both parties are destructive and have lost their way.
Dave
25 - theunknownshredder
Actually "Moving to the Right" as someone put it is a sign of IGNORANCE and FASCIST thinking NOT Experience and Responsibility
All Most Conservatives do is butt their noses into everyones elss business and think they have the right to tell the rest of us how we should live our lives and what we should be allowed to watch,listen to and read
If Right Wing Nazi types had their way our country would be a Police State
Conservatives need to mind their own business and get our of our private lives!!!!!!
BTW I am NOT a Liberal but a
Libertarian