Here's the problem. If you give government a job to do, even one that seems justified in the abstract, it will use its power to make a terrible mess in practice. This is true in a host of areas from welfare to warfare, but it is even true in the complicated area of immigration.

Just imagine this. The owners of Chuy's Mesquite Broiler in Phoenix and 13 other locations around western states have been kidnapped from their popular restaurants and dragged to jail. This will be followed by trial, and certain personal bankruptcy. They could face 80 years in prison. In the raid, "Homeland Security" stole their computers, their accounting and employment records, and walked out the door – just like a gang of thieves. The only difference is that these thugs operate under the cover of the law.

And what evil did these restaurateurs do? Were they poisoning people, stealing customers' wallets, secretly running an assassination conspiracy, sending in the predator drones against people they hate, or what? To lock anyone away for life is a shocking sentence, so surely the punishment must fit the crime. Pyscho sniper-murderers have gotten less.