Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

YOU ARE VISITING THE OLD MALKIN(S)WATCH. THAT'S FANTASTIC. PLEASE VISIT THE NEW MALKIN(S)WATCH WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE.

One of the complaints, if a slightly esoteric one, that I have with Malkin's stance on immigration is that she seems to think that immigration laws are the same everywhere, or that they've always been the same throughout history. She never says as much, but the attitude seems clear. Today she complains about a Wisconsin program allowing illegal aliens - ones who, by the way, are paying taxes - to buy homes. She links to an earlier column:

A Department of Homeland Security investigator informs me that an ongoing federal probe of FHA/HUD-backed loans found that "a staggering number were approved to persons with false Social Security numbers." The Denver metro area alone accounted for 20,000 to 40,000 of the FHA-approved loans for suspected illegal aliens. "Even if a small percentage of the loans were foreclosed, HUD could be bankrupted," the homeland security official said.

First of all, neither Malkin nor the homeland security official clarify why an FHA foreclosure on an illegal alien is any more damaging to HUD than an FHA foreclosure on a citizen. "A small percentage" of foreclosures occur all the time. Moreover, Malkin provides no evidence that illegal immigrants show any higher rate of foreclosure than citizens.

Really, what we have here is Malkin objecting to people who arrived here illegally a) paying taxes and b) otherwise boosting the economy. This on top of earlier writings about how the "underground economy" among illegal aliens hurts the overall financial health of the nation.

Which brings us back around to Malkin's black-and-white view of immigration:

America: Still the world's home sweet illegal alien home.

It's as though "illegal" were a worldwide, historywide standard. I warned you this was esoteric...