Under the headline “Illegal immigration,” in the Letters to the Editor column of the July 6 issue, a Beachcomber reader suggested a novel and totally unique method for detecting illegal aliens by simply observing who is cheering for whom at a soccer match.

According to the letter to the editor respondent, “80,000 of the 93,000 attendees at a recent Soccer Gold Cup final in Pasadena, Calif., were cheering for Mexico and booing the American team.” So acute was fan reaction at the Pasadena match that The Beachcomber reader was even able to delineate that those fans booing the U.S. team “were not Mexican American immigrants but illegal aliens.”

This made me wonder if there was something uniquely discernible about how an illegal alien roots as oposed to a documented immigrant. Is the documented immigrant more subdued? Does the illegal alien call attention to himself by eating a taco rather than a hot dog? Does the documented immigrant wear a baseball cap and the illegal alien, a sombrero? Does the documented immigrant order a Budweiser as opposed to the illegal alien’s preference for a Corona?

Whatever the telltale characteristics of the illegal or documented immigrant, one has to admit that the soccer fan reaction method does illiminate the need for any other form of ID. Forget driver’s licenses, green cards, passports, not to mention blood tests and DNA swabs. Adopting the Soccer Fan Reaction Program (SFRP) would even allow us to do away with the border patrol and stop construction on that endless fence between the U.S. and Mexico. 

When in doubt, simply transport a suspected illegal alien to a soccer match (I think the government should pay for the ticket) and observe who the suspect roots for and also how enthusiastically he or she roots, which might also indicate radical tendencies on the part of the illegal alien. Unresolved at this point is the possibility that the suspected alien might conclude that he or she is being observed and root for the U.S. simply to confuse SFRP officials. In such instances, follow-up questions may have to be devised. Also SFRP directors must anticipate challenges by liberal organizations, such as the ACLU, which could introduce peer pressure as opposed to true fan sentiment.

Not content to get rid of illegal aliens south of the border, the Beachcomber reader has suggested that booing Canadian soccer fans should be sent home as well. This made me wonder how you would go about detecting an illegal Canadian soccer fan. Eh?

— Brian Brown is a retired editor and publicist from Time Magazine.