Here be dragons...and yeti, and sea monsters, and the chupacabra, and the skunk ape.  All of these creatures are just as mythical as many of the talking points surrounding the immigration discussion, but just like these cryptids, there are many who accept them as real.  (OK...the skunk ape may be real, but Michael Moore refuses to give a DNA sample, so we can't confirm anything.)

     The first mythical immigration bogeyman we need to confront is, "If we get rid of all the illegal immigrants who pick our strawberries, do our landscaping, etc. on the cheap, then our prices will go up."  Actually, this may be true, but the part that everyone seems to overlook is that the only reason these people work so cheap is precisely because they are illegal.  As soon as they are given legal status, then they will be entitled to minimum wage...and produce costs go up, and so do prices.  We cannot have it both ways.  We must either continue to wink at what is essentially an imported underclass in the labor market, or live with higher costs when their labor is legalized.  We are our own worst enemy here, as we cannot seem to figure out how to keep prices low while paying everyone a "living wage."  Labor costs will always be passed on to consumers through prices, so we have to decide what our priorities are.  If we insist that everyone make more money, we will pay higher prices.  (And if you take the left fork here, you will say that companies should just take less profit.  If you think the economy is bad now, wait until the government imposes maximum profit regulations on private businesses.  You may pass "GO," but you may not collect $200.  That's way too much.)

     Of course, the monster du jour is the subject of driver's licenses for illegals.  She Who Shall Not Be Questioned wrestled for her very life with this beast last week.  (It remains to be seen who won.)  But one common justification is that "if they're going to drive, shouldn't we license them?"  As far as I'm concerned, this one is a simple little critter to deal with.  If anyone throws that one up in front of you, ask them, "Should drivers with multiple DUI convictions be allowed to keep their licenses, since they're going to drive anyway?"  It's this kind of logic that got us in this mess in the first place.  We can't stop drug crime, so legalize it.  We can't stop minor children from having sex, so give them condoms at school (but not aspirin).  We can't stop illegals from driving, so give them a license.  If your 15-year old sneaked out and took your car for a spin, would you petition the state to issue him a license, too?  There are plenty of ways to skin that jackalope.

     This takes me to the real bigfoot in the room..."we can't deport them all."  The correct answer is that we don't have to deport them all.  We can't ticket every speeder, either, and yet I hear no one suggesting that traffic enforcement be abandoned in favor of amnesty.  If Congress were in charge of getting the nation's speeders under control, all you would have to do is sign an affidavit that certifies that you have been speeding continuously for the last five years.  Then you would be issued a Z-license, which would allow you to continue to speed until such time that speed limits were raised to match the speed you were already driving.  What we have to do is enforce immigration law and ensure that violators are sufficiently penalized so that it would discourage the practice.  It's called deterrence, and many will tell you it doesn't work.  Really?  So if you are zipping down the interstate at 20 MPH over the speed limit, and you spot a state trooper ahead, you don't slow down?  Of course you do.  You don't have to actually get the ticket to adjust your behavior.  The threat of the ticket is enough.  We should approach immigration enforcement the same way.  We'll never catch them all, but we can slow them down.

     I suppose to remain in theme, I must also address the myth that "we can't find them."  Now, I certainly can't find the Loch Ness Monster, (and neither can anyone else apparently), but I can fill a school bus with illegal immigrants inside of 20 minutes.  Probably anyone who lives in a town of any size has illegal immigrants living somewhere near, and you probably know what part of town they live in.  If you don't, ask any pollster, as they always seem to come up with enough of them to get a good sample for an opinion poll.  For example, in June of 2007, New American Media conducted a telephone poll of 1,600 illegal immigrants to ask their opinion of things like the Z-Visa, US citizenship, and so on.  Where was all this illegal wiretapping when we needed it?  We could have rounded up 1,600 right there, since obviously New American Media seems to have lost the number to ICE.

     By now you see these creatures are imaginary explanations for a very real monster we need to face down.  The surrender of our society, economy, and rule of law.  Here be dragons...