Illegal Immigration




As to immigration - my position:

(A) The U.S. should control its southern border.

(B) Recent illegal immigrants (up to last five years) should be returned to their country of origin.

(C) Illegal immigrants who can prove they have been in the U.S. for over five years, have no criminal record, are fluent in English, and show they are supporting themselves and their family may go through a process that will eventually give them citizenship.

(D) Employers of more than 10 illegals should get jail time.

My reasoning is three fold:

(1) - There is no practical solution I know of that would accomplish a 100% expulsion of illegals.

(2) - We have a legal tradition in America of eminent domain and statute of limitations which suggests to me that if we do not take action in response to a transgression within some reasonable time, then the opportunity to take action expires.

(3) - We do have a long tradition of being a nation of immigrants and most of us are descendants of immigrants.

Regardless of my position, I am incensed that my government has twiddled and shuffled and ignored this festering problem year after year after year -- they are all bums and all of them should be thrown out of office.

Comments

Larry Blasko said…
Well, you’re right about the twiddling and shuffling, and right about a lot else.

The Farm Bill brouhaha in the House over the weekend just highlights that Congress isn't the place to get anything done about illegal immigration, mostly from Mexico.

At core, this is a foreign policy and economics problem, not a citizenship or a legal problem. Americans are using the labor and the immigrants who take the jobs. Protests and howls of outrage aside, roughly half of all illegal immigrants are employed by homeowners and renters. Benefiting from the labor of illegals carries about the same social stigma as selling or drinking beer during Prohibition. Passing more laws to be mostly ignored won't help.

Instead of diddling with Congress, this administration - or the next -should start playing hardball with Mexico. Fifteen percent of their labor force is in the U.S. and Mexico reaps the benefits, both in social stability and plain old cash, about $20 billion a year. We get the cheap labor, but also the bills for health care, education and law enforcement. Not to mention the serious issues of taxes and Social Security. Or the concerns, some legitimate, some downright racist, about assimilation.

Right now, Mexico gets all benefit, and we get some benefit and all the bills. That's got to be fixed.

I wrote a book, "Opening the Borders, Level 4 Press 2007) suggesting one way to do that without opening a path to citizenship. There are certainly others, but the way to discover them is in a treaty negotiation between two governments, not by trusting the 535 members of Congress, all of whom fall completely in love every time they pass a mirror.


Larry Blasko
Summit, NJ
Monday, August 06, 2007 9:55:00 PM
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