Let’s charge for illegal immigrants

Jeff Silverman, Las Vegas

Thursday, April 10, 2008 | 2:01 a.m.

Given that anyone who possesses an IQ higher than Forrest Gump’s realizes that the Mexican government is corrupt, I have a proposal that may be of interest to all parties involved. It’s really quite simple.

For every person who crosses our southern border illegally, we charge Mexico one barrel of oil. I’m not greedy and I think a straight-up, one-for-one trade is more than fair.

Considering the number of people who cross into the United States from Mexico illegally every day, our gas prices would drop back to 40 cents a gallon, where they belong, and we could zero out our multitrillion-dollar deficit in about a week.

We might even get a fence out of the deal. I have no doubt that after Mexico President Felipe Calderon received his first monthly statement for services rendered, he’d call back all the people who have taken American construction jobs illegally to build a border fence that would make the Great Wall of China look like a parking block.

Maybe only then will all the Americans who have been laid off in favor of the cheaper, unskilled labor that greedy corporations covet so much get their jobs back.