Some observations about the raids last week to scoop up alleged illegal aliens working on dozens of state contracts that the State of Rhode Island has with two janitorial companies:

First, the law says being in America illegally is, well, illegal. To countenance breaking immigration laws makes the country less secure, tends to lower wages (as studies at Harvard and elsewhere have shown) and makes other law enforcement more difficult, in part by encouraging a general disrespect for the law.

If people aroused by the raids don’t like the law, then they should change it. Meanwhile, with Rhode Island’s jobless rate at 7.5 percent, two percentage points above the nation’s, imagine the irritation of many citizens by the raids. And consider the sensitive places, such as courthouses and the attorney general’s office, that these alleged illegals had access to.

Second, hiring illegal aliens is illegal. We await the arrests of those individuals who hired illegals in this case. It has become clear for a long time that federal authorities, because of a mania for “free markets” and cheap wages above all other concerns, and politicians’ too close connection with the businesspeople who benefit from them, have not been enforcing the immigration laws in the most effective way possible — going after those who do the hiring.

Third, the system of using private contractors for such state work must be constantly re-evaluated. Given the difficulty and inefficiencies of monitoring the operations of private businesses, sometimes the old-fashioned way is the most reliable and even cheapest way — using state employees to do state tasks, of all things! And we must constantly monitor the role of political influence in the hiring of private contractors doing the public’s work. Governor Carcieri, in any event, has ordered a review of the contracts that the state has with the two companies whose workers were arrested — Tri-State Enterprises and Falcon Maintenance.

Fourth, few Americans oppose immigration or immigrants per se. After all, every citizen is an immigrant or a descendent of one (Native Americans, by the way, came from Siberia) and is well aware of that fact. But those who favor illegal immigration like to drop the word “illegal” and say that those who want to enforce the laws on the books hate immigrants. This is very intellectually dishonest.

Just because someone favors an orderly, predictable and transparent immigration system instead of the present near-chaos and corruption doesn’t mean that that person is a xenophobe. There are, sad to say, plenty of bigots around. But most Americans who favor enforcement of the immigration laws on the books are not. They just realize that for a country to lose control over who comes into it is dangerous.

That’s why most countries, including Latin American ones, enforce their immigration laws far more zealously than does the United States its own.