ABSTRACT
The issue of undocumented aliens in the United States eludes resolution because of several factors. These include distorted, ritualized commentary, an incomplete and incoherent national policy framework, deficiencies in the federal immigration law and its implementation, and consequent public misperceptions which encourage more of the same. The United States can, and should, revive its mori bund hospitality toward immigration and, in the process, legitimatize the status of undocumented aliens in the country. Unnecessary immigration barriers serve neither national nor global interests. The United States should reassume its historic hospitality to prospective immigrants. Human migration is a natural, more or less biological pattern of manifest destiny; it is a "familiar and healthy phenomenon." Even aside from broad humanitarian considerations within the framework of world order, the United States national interest would be served by new policy and laws which encourage immigration, rather than stifle it.
