UPDATED: There’s an easy, cheap way to get illegal immigrants to self-deport

Note: I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long and I’ve missed my dear gentle readers. I think I have my health issues sorted out now and will explain more about that, soon. Now that I am well enough to work, I am finally able to create a career that will generate the income required to pay off the debts and taxes for my father and me that accumulated as a result of my health challenges. I don’t entirely know yet exactly how I will do that. But I’m starting to see my way and this blog is part of my plan, so I can write again without worrying that I am blogging instead of making a financially self-sufficient life for myself. I also want to thank one of my faithful subscribers for his donation yesterday. I promised him in my thank-you e-mail that I would write a post. I’m several hours late, but I’m here.

Sorting through the current embarrassment of riches, scandal-wise, dear Prof. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection was the first to point out that Democrats are going be able to pass their illegal immigrant amnesty bill, aka “immigration reform,” because Republicans won’t focus on the one menace they actually could stop in its tracks with enough phone calls, e-mails and letters to Congress. (I can’t find the link so I used a more recent one!)

Ann Coulter made an eloquent speech at CPAC in which she pointed out that research shows Republicans are not going to win the Latino vote with amnesty because the majority of Latinos embrace the welfare state. Click here to see Ann’s interview with John Phillips on PJ Media’s Next Generation TV. (Sorry, there’s no code to allow me to embed it here.) About three-quarters of the way through, Phillips says something I’ve pointed out for years: Mexico, our chief supplier of illegal immigrants, is an oil-rich nation with lots of other natural resources and it ought to be a prosperous country.

In her column this week, which I recommend you read, Ann makes the case that amnesty is suicide for the Republican party and Latinos don’t want it:

Who convinced Republicans that Hispanic wages aren’t low enough and what they really need is an influx of low-wage workers competing for their jobs?

Maybe the greedy businessmen now running the Republican Party should talk with their Hispanic maids sometime. Ask Juanita if she’d like to have seven new immigrants competing with her for the opportunity to clean other people’s houses, so that her wages can be dropped from $20 an hour to $10 an hour.

A wise Latina, A.J. Delgado, recently explained on Mediaite.com why amnesty won’t win Republicans the Hispanic vote — even if they get credit for it. Her very first argument was: “Latinos will resent the added competition for jobs.”

But rich businessmen don’t care. Big Republican donors — and their campaign consultants — just want to make money. They don’t care about Hispanics, and they certainly don’t care what happens to the country. If the country is hurt, I don’t care, as long as I am doing better! This is the very definition of treason.

Hispanic voters are a small portion of the electorate. They don’t want amnesty, and they’re hopeless Democrats. So Republicans have decided the path to victory is to flood the country with lots more of them!

I think Ann is correct that the Republicans pushing for amnesty are driven either by greed for cheap labor, or greed for votes, or both. But I think there’s another factor no one else is mentioning that is wearing down the resistance to amnesty, which is the idea that is would be an enormous, expensive hassle and really, really mean. However, I have a cheap solution that will make illegal immigrants not only want to leave the U.S. immediately but also pay their own freaking way home. To wit, if property confiscation is a good enough weapon for the war on drugs, then it should be employed to secure our borders, too. How? By passing a law that whistleblowers who turn in illegal immigrants get to keep 60 percent of the value of their confiscated assets with the balance going to local law enforcement. Bank robbers do not get to keep their ill-gotten gains if they get a certain distance from the bank before they are apprehended. There’s no reason for illegals to get to keep theirs, either.

UPDATE, 6/28/13, Fri.: The Senate passed its immigration reform bill yesterday and at HotAir.com, Gang of Eight member Sen. John McCain finally got on Allahpundit’s last nerve with his 1,001st trashing of his own party (the links to polling expert Sean Trende indicated in the text below are clickable in the original and very much worth reading):

And that’s not the worst part [i.e., that McCain trashes the GOP]. The worst part is that he [McCain] continues to peddle the self-serving double-barreled lie that (a) the Latino vote sunk Republicans in the last two elections (it did not) and (b) that immigration is an insuperable obstacle to being more competitive among Latinos. The man you want to read on that is Sean Trende, who’s had three indispensable pieces about it published over the week or so. First, he reveals the real culprits in why Romney lost last year, namely, economic-populist white voters who supported Perot and now stay home because the GOP no longer really talks to them. Second, he reminds the GOP that immigration reform isn’t as simple as winning Latinos, it’s winning Latinos at the expense of losing some white — and black — voters who might otherwise consider the party. Has McCain, Graham, Rubio, or anyone else on the amnesty spirit squad ever once been asked to address the prospect of losing some votes too in passing this bill? Do they have the faintest idea of whether they’d lose more white/black votes than they’d gain among Latinos? Do they care? If we’re going to pass a terrible bill purely in the interests of helping ourselves electorally, it’d be nice to have some idea of whether passing it really will help us electorally.