Recommendations from a Novice.
What would motivate a novice to make recommendations on such a subject as immigration in the first place? The short answer is, immigration is an important issue facing America, and it is an issue America has not addressed appropriately. Not that there hasn’t been a lot of hand-wringing and legislative tinkering over the full course of American history, but our present situation is chaotic, difficult to understand and, frankly, duplicitous. I wanted to understand the situation better myself, so I decided to do some research. The research has been enlightening.
At the same time, even as I share some recommendations, I want to underscore my limitations. I have little foot-to-ground experience with immigration and its associated issues. The recommendations I make here are certainly idealistic, which is to say, calling for policy and enacting policy are two very different things. To those who are professionally involved in these issues, my recommendations are likely to seem naive. On the other hand, the proposals I am seeing in the media are highly questionable, or are mean-spirited attacks on those proposals. I don’t see much in the way of reasoned proposals. I hope I can at least do that. Are my recommendations the best solutions? I doubt that very much. My hope is that this will help novices such as me (most Americans) to begin thinking about enacting solutions to America’s present situation. Our laws and practices today are inadequate and inhumane.
1.Automatic citizenship should not be extended to children born here if there parents are not legal citizens. Citizenship is conferred to all children born in the U.S., regardless of the status of their parents. There is dissension about whether the Constitution actually requires this practice. However, this does seem to be how the law is interpreted throughout the country.
This is simply bad practice. Not only does it serve to threaten family continuity (when adults are deported but there is a means and a desire for their children to stay in the country), but it tends to be used as a means for bringing parents back into the country. Family unity is more fundamental than national citizenship. Creating a back-door means for gaining citizenship simply subverts any attempt to assign citizenship with appropriate rationality.
This change should not be applied retroactively, but should apply to all births going forward.
2. The U.S. should not build a wall on the Mexican border. There is already a wall in the areas where it is most effective. As the physical barrier becomes more of a deterrent, gangs and cartels will react to become the favored means of smuggling across the border. They will find ways to defeat the barrier. The wall will serve more to bolster organized crime than it will serve to deter illegal crossings from Mexico into the United States.
3. A sophisticated system of biometrics should be instituted to track all visitors to the U.S., whether on tourist visas, work visas, seasonal worker visas, etc. The U.S. should have means of locating all visitors within its borders and should be swift to deport any who overstay the legal limits.
4. The U.S. already has a system in place (E Verify) that helps employers determine whether employees are legally in the States. However, this system is not mandated for use unless federal dollars are involved. The system should be applied fully throughout the U.S. The system will need to be well supported in order for it to contain accurate information. This will call for significant financial commitment from the U.S. government. (Such a system should be much cheaper than a border wall, however.) If undocumented aliens cannot find work, and if employers do not have access to unfairly cheap labor, it will be difficult for large numbers of undocumented aliens to remain in the country. It will certainly be less inviting for them to come in the first place.
A system of fines should be put in place for businesses that fail to follow established rules for vetting worker eligibility. Fines should graduate based on company size, meaning that punishments should serve as meaningful deterrents, no matter the size of a company. The number of violations should be factored. Evidence of fraud should be punished more severely than operational incompetence. Government operations found out of compliance should be punished by firings of responsible employees, rather than through reductions in funding for services.
5. The existence of second-class resident aliens must come to an end. 11.3 million people reside in the shadows of America, living in poverty, being exploited, and living in fear.
We need to pick a cut-off date to make a split. I propose 7 years here. Undocumented aliens, including those who are in the U.S. on expired visas, who have lived in the U.S. less than 7 years should be deported. Any person who has been deported for being in the U.S. illegally should not be allowed to return to the U.S. for three years. A second deportation should make exclusion from the U.S. permanent. Those who have been in the U.S. seven years or more should find themselves on a fairly quick track to legal status. Full citizenship is a possibility, but I suggest a kind of permanent legal residency instead. The difference between the two should be largely symbolic, but it remains problematic to pardon illegal behavior. At the same time, U.S. legislation and enforcement have been complicit in the devil’s bargain that is today’s mass of undocumented aliens. We have, by and large, looked the other way. While they acted to come here illegally, they have generally served to support the culture and financial well-being of all U.S. citizens.
Making determinations about who has been here for seven years, no doubt, will be a major migraine headache. The immigration judicial system is already backed up for years. This project will not help…though it does provide light at the end of the tunnel. We ought to be able to get to the place in, say, 5 years, where it is fairly clear who belongs in the country and who does not.
6. The U.S. should continue to provide special worker and seasonal worker visas. The limits for these kinds of workers should be determined by each state, with input from business and worker interests. These numbers will need to be reviewed annually or biennially. Businesses must be able to survive. At the same time, Americans citizens should be able to find living wage work, particularly if work is here that needs to be done.
7. The U.S. should continue to grant citizenship to immigrants, with the number one priority being restoration of nuclear families. Families should be extended to include elderly, dependent adults, but should not be expanded to include adult siblings, cousins, etc. unless there are compelling extenuating circumstances. U.S. need for skilled workers should be a major factor for naturalization. Another factor should be to provide refuge for those whose countries are traumatized by wars, as well as individual asylum seekers.
8. The U.S. has naturalized roughly 700,000 citizens each year for the past decade. It would not be difficult for the U.S. to continue admitting citizens at this level. I recommend the U.S. work toward reducing this number. I say this for the following reasons:
a. The intent here is to legalize the residency of the vast majority of those undocumented immigrants in the United States, anyway.
b. If worker visas are better controlled and functioning with volumes adjusted to employment needs, this would reduce pressures on individuals to relocate to the U.S. permanently. (See point 6 above)
c. There should be some thought given to the population pressures being placed on our country and throughout the world. Space is not unlimited. Natural resources are not unlimited. The world needs to think more about population control everywhere.
d. U.S. prioritization of international stability should work to reduce the pressing needs for emigration. (See points 9 & 10 below)
9. The U.S. needs to adjust its foreign policy to emphasize the importance of national stability. While the U.S. naturally is interested in supporting democratic governments, more important is how governments care for the human rights of their citizens. If the world tends toward stability, with high regard for human rights, then needs and pressures of emigration should diminish.
10. The U.S. should make the financial health of its nearest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, high priority of foreign policy. Financial stability in Mexico would greatly reduce the need for Mexicans coming to the U.S. for the sake of survival. Special consideration should be given to illegal drug trafficking. U.S. policy has failed in this regard for decades. Serious research and debate should be assigned to the question of legalizing the use of drugs. The big questions are: would legalization increase the use of dangerous drugs and, if so, to what extent? The other question is, what benefits would result by eliminating the need for illicit manufacture, transportation, and sale of these drugs? (This is a subject I will return to explore more fully at another time.)
11. The U.S. should immediately discontinue deporting undocumented aliens for crimes, unless they are convicted of a major offense, such as murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, maiming, sexual abuse, assault with a dangerous weapon, arson, armed robbery, felony, or involved in the illegal sale of controlled substances.
In the final analysis, U.S. immigration policy should be driven by the principle of universal human value. The lives of all people are sacred. All humans should be treated with respect and justice. While our nation’s government must first be concerned with the well-being of its own citizens, this concern is not to serve as justification for ill use of other citizens of the world. U.S. treatment of the world should be the same as it would have the world treat it.
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