There is much discussion these days about expensive programs to ameliorate social problems. One plan that has been overlooked is to bribe fortunetellers.

From the LA Times:

Whether migrants should stay or leave California is a question that reaches even the palm and card reader at the El Indio Amazonico botanical shop on Alvarado Street.

Patrons usually come in with common questions about love or money. But since the economy wobbled, they also come to ask whether their future is elsewhere — perhaps far from California.

"A lot of people ask, 'Should I go back to my country, to Mexico or Guatemala or El Salvador,'" said Juliana Contreras, 45. "People ask, 'Should I go or should I leave?' I usually tell them if it's bad here, it's worse in their countries."

Still, the streets teem less than before. Is that because fewer people are going out and spending money, or because immigrants have left?

It seems to me that slipping palm-readers a few twenties to tell unemployed illegal immigrants on the verge of leaving the country that, yes, they should go home, their moms miss them, would return more bang for the buck than any other social program imaginable.

Really, when out-of-work illegal immigrants are already asking "Should I go or should I leave?" how hard would it be to persuade them to go and/or leave?

The Obama Administration has been desperate to get unemployed illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. through Census Day, April 1st to pump up the quotas by making them fear they'll miss the Coming Amnesty if they bail out now. But, come April 2nd, can we finally let the poor bastards go home?