On eve of tonight's Dem debate, Elizabeth Warren calls for decriminalizing border violations

As the only candidate registering double-digit support among the candidates at tonight's Democrat presidential "debate," Elizabeth Warren expects to be the queen of the kiddie table. Sharing the stage with her will be Bill de Blasio, Tim Ryan, Julián Castro, Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, and John Delaney. Real Clear Politics polling averages: It is her chance to look like the giant among the pygmies and continue to move up and challenge the fading Bernie Sanders for second place. She covets the slot as the principal alternative alternative to Joe Biden, whose predilection for gaffes and increasingly obvious mental limitations have panicked party and media kingmakers.

For tonight's Big Chance, she has chosen to capitalize on the current propaganda campaign demonizing the very concept of detaining border-violators and expelling those who have enjoyed due process and flouted court orders. The logical end point of this agitation is open borders, of course. And yesterday, Warren took the step of calling for complete decriminalization of border violations, telling the Huffington Post: We should not be criminalizing mamas and babies trying to flee violence at home or trying to build a better future. We must pass comprehensive immigration reform that is in line with our values, creates a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants including our DREAMers, and protects our borders.

Photo by Gage Skidmore. Julián Castro preceded her in calling for decriminalization last April, but at 0.8%, he is not a factor. He thanked her on Twitter for joining him. Thank you, @ewarren, for joining me on this issue. We shouldn’t criminalize desperation—it’s time to repeal this terrible law. https://t.co/669Q456Yfz — Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) June 25, 2019 Warren, a former law professor at Harvard, knows that by making border violations a civil offense (equivalent to getting a parking ticket), with no detention possible, anyone and everyone among the billions of poor people in the world who wants to come here will be able to do so without fear of obstruction. A mere citation they would be free to ignore would enable them to disappear into the 340 million people reckoned to be living within our borders. Border-violators now are in excess of 100,000 a month, a figure that would multiply under a decriminalization approach. In this age of cheap intercontinental travel, the sky is the limit when word gets out. Numbers that seem impossible are actually quite realistic. What would America look like with an extra hundred million poor third-world people? It is a recipe for the fundamental transformation of America that Barack Obama promised. An America of half a billion people, many of them non-English-speakers with little education but eligible for driver's licenses, earned income tax credits (AKA welfare), food stamps, and children needing education and health care at public expense, would complete our transformation into a third-world country with a permanent Democrat-voting majority once the "pathway to citizenship" she demands is in place. I can see how this appeals to progressive Democrats, but I am at a loss to understand its broader electoral appeal. Will any of the other candidates tonight be willing to call her out? Doing so would be an opportunity for Tulsi Gabbard to make an appeal to the centrist faction among the Democrats' base. Governor Hickenlooper, the other Dem making a play for the sane vote, appears tomorrow night.