Posted by
Patrick Henry on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 2:05:29 PM
When the borders are secured, businesses constrained to obey hiring laws and a
fiscally sound pathway to citizenship established, the great mountain known as
immigration reform will be mostly climbed. Before the view from the summit can
be enjoyed, however, there is painful detail to work through. And the devil is in
these details.
What actually constitutes the citizenship program for those in the country unlaw-
fully? Who will qualify to be in it? What happens to those who either don't qualify
or don't opt in? How long will it take? These are all multi-faceted and thorny issues.
Credit here to Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer, because the DREAM Act
had the program mostly right. The price of citizenship will include public admission
of wrongdoing, payment of a hefty fine and back taxes, learning to speak English
along with all the other requirements for citizenship, including renouncing allegiance
to foreign governments and pledging it to the USA. No person unwilling to meet
each of these conditions should even be considered a candidate for amnesty. This
is where it gets sticky. Perhaps he is here illegally, and sending money to Mexico
as he earns it to support a wife and children there. Does he stay or go? And if he
stays. do they join him? Or perhaps he sneaked in looking for work, but hasn't
found it. Then what? Or perhaps she's here legally and he's not, and oh, by the
way, her aged parents in Mexico are dependent on them both for support. Does
she stay while he goes? And what about the old folks? Clearly there have to be
some clear guidelines drawn and some careful triage applied.
First in line should be those who are here and have regular employment and an
employer prepared to pay a fine to keep them on, along with their nuclear (not
extended) families, whether here or elsewhere. That's pretty much a no-brainer
since their purpose in coming will be obvious and their industry proven. Right
behind them should be those who willingly come forward, confess their sins and
agree to go to the back of a greatly expedited line to return legally. Those in the
country unlawfully who have had children while here (Americans by birthright)
should be next, considered on a case-by-case basis. Those who cannot stay because
of criminal histories or other disqualifiers should have ethe option of taking their
citizen-children with them, or leaving them as wards of the state at the time of
their deportation. It sounds cruel, but nobody said such choices were all going to
be easy. The child, of course, would be free to return upon reaching majority and
providing proof of U.S. birth.
Those here unlawfully but having seasonal or part-time work can be shuttled
into a competently administered guest worker program that (a) ensures knowledge
of their whereabouts while in the country, (b) sets specific time parameters for
their stay and (c) guarantees their return home when their seasonal employment
is over. Anyone overstaying their permitted time should be banned from any return
in the future.
But Americans do not have a corner on stupidity, and there will be a large number
of those who have entered the country wrongfully yet will opt out of amnesty. They
have mastered the cat-and-mouse game of living in the shadows, don't wish to yield
their anonymity, foreswear their allegiance to Mexico (or wherever else they came
from), can't or don't wish to pay a fine or taxes, have learned to game the system
for free benefits and have no desire to learn English. THIS is the crowd that has to
go. They are essentially hardcore petty (or worse) criminals who are sponging away
the lifeblood of the states in which they reside and are ripe for the very exploitation
amnesty seeks to eliminate. Getting rid of them may eliminate as much as a third of
all those wrongfully in the country. It will require many more enforcement troops
in ICE and a lot of sorting by the courts. But identifying and eliminating these outliers
will add dignity to the process for those who genuinely wish to be Americans and will
lighten the fiscal burden of both state and federal governments. Any of them caught
sneaking in again should go straight to prison.The timing of limited amnesty will be everything. Congress cannot just dump millions of suddenly legal job seekers into an
economy that has near 10% unemployment and is flailing just to stay afloat. This will
take careful thought, planning and preparation.
Undoubtedly there will be those who are put off by this segment. Critics on the right
will faunch at rewarding illegal actions with ANY amnesty. Unfortunately, this is
America's unpaid parking ticket. The longer you wait to deal with it, the more painful
it becomes. The need for targeted amnesty is the "fine" that must be paid for years of
inaction. On the left, amnesty advocates will balk at excluding illegals by category, at
forbidding the migration of non-nuclear family (chain migration) and will scream about
the painful choices that may face illegal parents of children born here. The situation is
already a painful one, and nobody suggested the remedy would or could be painless.
Hard choices always hurt someone. Failing to make them hurts everyone. There is no
free lunch -- not for illegal immigrants, the right or the left. Compromise means no one
gets everything he wants, but everyone gets something.
In the next post we'll look at some of the timing issues, as well as some of the other
conundrums which must be negotiated before true immigration reform can be achieved.
Even if you bitterly disagree with his particular segment, I hope you will stay with me
until the argument is fully made.