How can America regain control of its borders? One approach would be to remove the perverse incentives that drive illegal immigration.

Economist Mark Thornton points out that the current wave of immigration from Mexico
has a lot to do with the housing bubble created by the Federal Reserve, which has drawn countless laborers north of the border to work in construction.

?[I]mmigrants have a powerful economic incentive to move to America ? lavish government benefits plus good-paying jobs that are the result of the housing bubble,? writes Tornton.

Ending welfare subsidies and reestablishing a sound currency, though beneficial, wouldn't be a complete solution. It's worth noting, however, that before the welfare state, America attracted and absorbed a far larger immigrant influx, in proportionate terms, that we're facing now: In the 1850s, annual immigration was about 1.6 percent of the total population, as compared with 0.25 percent today.

It's doubtful that any effort to interdict illegal immigration will work as long as we have an inflation-based economy and the world's largest welfare state.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.