Justice B. Hill

What is there to say about Fausto Carmona or, as we know him now, about Roberto Heredia?

Well, guess there’s plenty to say, right?

To start, this game of scamming the immigration system has to cease in baseball. It’s not as if Heredia is the first Latin player to slip into this country with somebody else’s identity. Heredia surely won’t be the last one, either.

For the system in Latin and South American countries that allows Major League ballclubs to find, hide and nurture baseball talent is as corrupt as the mortgage industry.

In the past, we’ve given such misdeeds a wink. It’s OK; no one’s hurt. We let this happens anymore. In the post-9/11 climate, we must demand honesty from every man who crosses the U.S. borders. Each man must be who he’s claiming he is.

No more Carmonas/Heredias – ever.

Now, nothing here is meant as an indictment of Latinos. Anybody with American citizenship can understand why other people want to enter the United States. People have been trying to slip into this country for the better part of 200 years. Most of those years were wide open to unregulated immigration. No more, though.

The country is short of jobs and resources, and the opportunities that used to be the envy of the world don’t exist as they used to. Men or women who cross into this country illegally and land a job are taking jobs from someone who has a right to it.

They don’t deserve sympathy for breaking the law; they deserve are loathing.

Yet we should not be in the business of scooping up people like Carmona/Heredia and shipping them home without some sort of due process. America, after all, is not a country that is absent a bleeding heart.

America is not, however, a country that can let other nations view it as a fool’s paradise. It might still be the wealthiest country on the planet, but it is not a country whose wealth can accommodate everybody. The consensus among some is that unlawful immigrants must go home and can’t return, even if they throw a fastball 95 mph.

That’s a Draconian approach, though it’s an approach not hard to understand. But a better approach is this: offer amnesty.

Tell every illegal alien – OK, the term is unseemly to some people, so what? – he has one shot: step forward, admit he’s here unlawfully, pay a small fine or do community service of some kind and work toward citizenship.

Look at it as if it’s a no-tax day. One shot … that’s all each of them gets. Set a deadline for all illegal aliens, and if they miss it, they face the consequences.

If caught, they go back to their homeland; they go home and can never reenter the United States, even if they happen to be the finest pitcher on the planet.

What such a strategy shows is the compassionate side of America. What this policy also shows, however, is that Americans will never tolerate lawbreakers like Heredia. They might understand the reasons for breaking the law, but never, ever can they live with people who, when given the second chance, ignore the laws that govern.