It is an exercise in ethics problem-solving.

In the town of Herndon, Virginia undocumented workers gather in a 7-11 parking lot waiting for jobs. It's not a safe location for them or an attractive one for the community, so a coalition of non-profits and social advocates proposed to have the city create a modest but official site for the workers, with bathrooms, shelter, and even some English classes. It is town property, but the non-profits are optimistic they can pick up the tab, which is about $175,000. The Herndon town council, after a furious debate that was joined nationally, okayed the site.

The solution is humane. It solves the safety problem of eager day-workers rushing every pick-up truck that pulls into the lot, and the aesthetic problem of groups of men standing around the store all day when work doesn't materialize. But the solution has a problem itself. The men it helps are in the country illegally. The businesses who will hire them are knowingly skirting the law. Is this right?

Herndon is in the position that ethicists exist to clarify, as it faces a dilemma where all options violate one or more ethical principles. Solving such problems requires a balancing of values, but more importantly, it requires the proper definition of the problem being addressed. What is the exact problem that Herndon is trying to solve, what are ethically acceptable means to solve it, and if there are no ethically acceptable means, is the status quo more desirable than violating one or more ethical principles?

One problem Hendon cannot solve is illegal immigration. That is a federal matter, and the city is ill-equipped to enforce laws that are enmeshed with labor issues, race and international relations. It cannot solve the problem, but it can make the problem worse. Effective in 2006, a new Virginia statute declares that "no person who is not a United States Citizen or legally present in the United States shall receive state or local public assistance." That may be controversial, but it certainly isn't unreasonable. And whether the law is formally in force or not, the State of Virginia has made its position clear: cities shouldn't be assisting those who broke our laws to get here, and who continue to break our laws by staying here.

Is that what Herndon is trying to do? The town council says that the problem it is trying to solve is basic: addressing public safety and order by giving undocumented workers a better place to wait for jobs than a 7-11 parking lot. Helping the illegal workers is incidental; the purpose is to serve Herndon's public.

Or that's the theory.

In analyzing an ethical dilemma one is often more influenced by the weakness of one argument than by the persuasiveness of its opposition, and this is one of those times. The Washington Post, in an editorial called "Herndon Gets It Right," endorsed Herndon's decision to fund the center, with a series of points…all ethically dubious:

• A critic who claimed that the measure "rewards and encourages illegal behavior." was exaggerating, since it isn't much of a "reward" and nobody would be likely to be "encouraged" to sneak into the country illegally to use Herndon's nifty center. True enough, but the Post was being deceitful: the critic obviously meant that the center assists illegal workers in illegally finding work…which it undoubtedly does. And it is not illogical to maintain the position that when government does not discourage illegal conduct, it encourages it. In fact, the Scoreboard heartily endorses that view.
  
  
• The Post points out that the money, if non-profit contributions don't cover the bill, won't come from Herndon but rather Fairfax County, where it is just a "negligible" percentage of the County's huge budget. Well, a negligible amount of money spent on the wrong thing is still unethically spent. We're talking about whether creating the center is right, not whether it's a bargain.
  
  
• Illegal immigration is a much bigger and complex problem than a couple dozen daily workers in a parking lot, and Herndon's center won't make it better or worse, says the Post. This is perilously close to the Scoreboard's choice for the most threadbare of all rationalizations for bad conduct, "This isn't the worst thing." Again, the issue is whether this measure is right, not whether other measures would be worse.
  
  
• Finally, the Post settled on a version the Paul Hamm Excuse, "It isn't Herndon's fault!" We can stipulate: Herndon didn't create the immigration crisis; that fact doesn't permit it to act as if the nation's laws don't matter.

If the Post's weak attempts at justification weren't enough to turn an ethicist against Herndon's center, then the comments of center supporters at Herndon's town meeting would close the deal. Most of them focused on the "racism" of center opponents, as if ignoring law-breaking by minority immigrants was proof of moral superiority.

Herndon's proper and ethical course, unpleasant and burdensome though it may have been, was to check the IDs of the workers in the parking lot, arrest those who had no documentation and hold them for pick-up by the INS. Doing this about twice would end the problem the lawful town government of Herndon needs to address, the misuse of the lot, while not aggravating another problem…not of its making, in a very small way, at relatively little expense…by providing undocumented workers with a officially funded and sanctioned center. That problem is the flood of illegals into America, and towns in Virginia or elsewhere providing them with any level of support is part of the problem, not part of a solution.