There’s actually a fairly simple explanation for why immigration is so bad. The people it serves can’t vote. Immigration never gets a phone call from a congressman, with power over their budget, about a constituent that is caught in the red tape, and who they’d damned well better get out of it. The only job pressure they face is from people screaming about the immigrants taking over the country or threatening to blow up Topeka. All of their incentives are to treat their customers as adversaries.

Contrast that to whichever office at State it is that processes passport applications. Two summers ago, I hadn’t heard back from them six weeks before I was supposed to go to Poland. So, I called Keith Ellison’s office. (Yeah, I helped elect the first Islamofascist to serve in the US Congress; you can blame me when he allows al Qaeda to take over.) Two days later, I signed for a FedEx package with my passport in it. Being a registered voter opens a lot of doors.