This Idiocy Is What Needs to Be Terminated

Tony Cornejo pointed to the checkerboard tile of his Silver Lake barbershop when I asked what he thought about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.

“Black is black and white is white,” said Cornejo, telling me that the difference between legal and illegal is just as clear.

“I’m against it,” he said, “and I’m from Mexico.”

I tell you about Tony Cornejo because, given the rallies and political rhetoric, you’d think the entire Latino community supported the idea of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. But Mike Madrid, a former GOP consultant, said Latinos in the emerging middle-class would rather move on to education, housing and healthcare.

Sure. They’ve already got driver’s licenses. But they may also be tired of having politicians hammer away at an issue that generates so much resentment and so little movement.

The bill in question, by state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), passed the Legislature and its fate is in the hands of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plans to veto it.

There’s been speculation that Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante might try to sign the bill while Schwarzenegger is back east at the Republican National Convention, trying out for future president.

But Bustamante would have to interrupt his hibernation, and the governor’s people tell me Bustamante can’t get his paws on the bill anyway.

Two years ago, I said illegal immigration is the lie we’re all in on. You couldn’t have 10 million people living in the country if nobody was hiring.

And as Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca argues, illegal immigrants are behind the wheel anyway, so it makes sense to have them get background checks and buy insurance.

But although I bought in, I wasn’t convinced illegal immigrants would come running in out of the dark to sign up. Fake licenses are as easy to come by as corn tortillas, for one thing. And legal residents can barely afford car insurance, so how many illegals would spring for it?

Schwarzenegger promised to find a compromise, but wanted the licenses to make clear that the holder was a noncitizen. That might have limited the number of people willing to sign up, but, given the political realities, it seemed like a fair trade.

The other side held firm, though, so Schwarzenegger is going to boot the bill, and that may finally be the end of the discussion.

But it could be the beginning.

As governor of the state with the most immigrants, and an immigrant himself, Schwarzenegger can do something daring. He’s always talking about terminating this or that, so now that he’s on the national political stage, why not lead the call for terminating the nation’s idiotic immigration policy?

Sure, it’s a federal matter, but nobody at that level is doing anything, and the driver’s license flap is a symptom of that failure.

We can’t decide whether to enforce existing laws or completely throw open the floodgates to cheap labor. We won’t end policies that drive foreigners to the United States, and we won’t stop griping about the cost of having them here.

Work permits? Amnesty? Bus illegals to Tijuana? Fly them to Mexico City?

Don’t ask, because no one can tell.

Down in Calexico, we’ve got a poor guy fixing half a dozen new holes in the fence every day, there’s a line of dead bodies from Texas to San Diego, and we’ve spent five years talking about driver’s licenses.

So c’mon Arnold, lead.

Don’t be a girlie man.

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Reach Steve Lopez at steve.lopez@latimes.com.