My Secret Life As An Illegal Immigrant

As Atrios says, it would be nice to see a bit more self-reflection on the part of American elites about how easy it to find oneself violating international immigration law. I am surely not the only American journalist in history who’s ever traveled to a European country without obtaining a work visa, and yet performed some work. Yet I think relatively few of us former illegal immigrants believe ourselves to be wild and crazy lawbreakers or worthy of being described as having passed through some ontological doorway through which we should be described as “illegals.” We broke the rules because the relevant rules were dumb, and because countries have wisely chosen not to invest many resources in enforcing them all that rigorously.