American immigration law is utterly dysfunctional. Legal immigrants who fight for America in Iraq and Afghanistan wait years to become citizens. Skilled workers needed by the high-tech industry and hospitals are blocked from entering the country. The economy suffers.

Yet, at the same time, “local governments are stupidly providing welfare for illegal aliens, such as taxpayer subsidies for day-laborer centers for unskilled illegal aliens who cannot even lawfully work in the country. And politically-correct newspapers believe that illegal aliens have a constitutional right to such welfare, and that they should receive preferential treatment at state colleges” over legal immigrants.

It now costs someone already in the country legally over $1,000 to apply for a green card to remain in the country. My wife, a legal immigrant who already has a green card, will have to pay another $650 to apply for yet another state in the immigration process (naturalization).

Yet in last year’s senate amnesty deal, illegal aliens could get stay in the country and get a renewable “Z” visa for just $2,000 (and non-working dependents could be sponsored by an illegal alien taking advantage of the amnesty).

What incentive is there to come legally?

My wife, a legal immigration, began her time in America as a “legal alien” whose restricted visa only permitted her to work for embassies or international organization (she started work for the Gabonese Embassy at $12,000 per year). She could have made far more money coming illegally and working on the black market. (The average illegal-alien household in the Washington, D.C. area has an annual income of about $60,000 — lower than most natives, but far higher than the minimum wage).

Yet there are silly people who claim that illegal aliens are so oppressed that they deserve to receive “tax-paid government benefits” even if they “don’t pay taxes,” as letter-writer Nicholas Holsen-Smith did in the February 22 edition of the Washington Examiner.