Posted on 02/17/2017 8:13:33 AM PST by MichCapCon
The authors believe in free markets and free people, and therefore, peaceful choice in association through legal immigration. The millions of immigrants to the United States every year are powerful evidence that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is still an unattainable dream for the average person around the world.
Although immigration is primarily a federal issue, we believe the evidence shows that legal immigration from around the world is a net positive for the United States — and for Michigan, too. The state’s employers need highly skilled and educated immigrants to fill open positions in information technology, engineering, finance, health care, education and other industries.
Still other immigrants come with experience in skilled trades, or the entrepreneurial drive to start and run a business that they could not fulfill in their home countries. These men and women help develop good companies that create good jobs. They become our co-workers, friends, neighbors, vendors, customers, fellow taxpayers and even, at times, our relatives.
Nations must have the ability to control their borders and our federal government must make decisions in the interest of national defense that may limit an individual’s access to the United States. But however important those responsibilities may be, they cannot override the fundamental need for due process and the rule of law in setting immigration policy. Americans — both current and prospective — deserve no less.
We are concerned that President Trump’s recent executive order halting some refugees bound for the United States from specific countries was instituted in a clumsy and almost haphazard fashion. Government should never exercise its power in an arbitrary or capricious manner, regardless of what ends it means to accomplish.
People who have abided by the law and gone through the process to receive green cards have the legal right to reside in the United States and come and go as they wish. The government should not bar them from doing so without due process of law. People who hold a valid visa from a U.S. embassy or consulate that declares them eligible for entry to the United States should not suddenly be made ineligible without due process simply because of their national origin.
Immigration is one of many federal policy issues with broad and deep implications for states. Good policy that protects our nation’s borders and the people of Michigan while interfering as little as possible with free markets and free people is unlikely to result from arbitrary and haphazard executive rule-making.
Gov. Snyder’s interest in seeing legal immigrants freely choose Michigan over other options is a long-standing and laudable one. We would caution, however, that the decision to move to the Great Lake State should be done so without subsidies or other targeted state efforts. That is, the government should not create special offices or programs to lure people from anywhere. Any changes to policy should be guided by the goal of having a “fair field and no favors” approach that does not distort the decision to move here.
Michigan can be a magnet for people in the United States (and from elsewhere too) when it makes sound policy choices. International immigration is a federal issue, but it clearly effects what happens with and to Michigan and her citizens. We hope to see federal immigration reform that is less haphazard and arbitrary — and encourages greater legal and peaceful, voluntary association.
All good points for LEGAL Immigrants, not illegal Aliens. The left still doesn’t know the difference.
“Highly skilled and educated immigrants?” Where is THAT happening? What I see are ignorant peasants, many of them criminals in their home countries, with zero skills and a sense of entitlement. How does that benefit our society? And where are the processes that test for skills and education for immigrants? To even suggest such minimal vetting is to be called a xenophobe or worse.
Spare me the “strength in diversity” myth.
It is fair to require authorization and passing a background check to enter and remain in the United States, and it is predictable that violators of our requirements will be shipped back where they came from.
“Highly skilled and educated immigrants?” Where is THAT happening? What I see are ignorant peasants, many of them criminals in their home countries, with zero skills and a sense of entitlement. How does that benefit our society? And where are the processes that test for skills and education for immigrants? To even suggest such minimal vetting is to be called a xenophobe or worse.
Spare me the “strength in diversity” myth.
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This is how the left always argues. Point out the tree and not the forest.
Like a valid visa granted by the criminal Obama administration which not only could have cared less that you were an ISIS sympathizer or terrorist yourself?
The controls were instituted with the idea that even current visa holders could be suspect and that they needed to go back and look at every person coming in so that we don't find out 6 months from now that a terrorist organization has pushed through 20 cells that will go nuclear when Ali Ben Jihad calls them and says Allah Akbar.
Did the authors visit DEARBORN?
Sorry, but that is WRONG.
Aliens have a right to due process while IN the United States. Once an alien leaves, there is no “due process” for re-entry.
A Visa, immigrant or non-immigrant, is a permit allowing the individual to be present in the US for a specific purpose and for a given duration. There is no inherent right to that permit and the law is more than clear on that. It does not even guarantee entry!
For example, a Green Card holder that leaves the US, commits a crime, or contracts a disease, and attempts to return CAN BE DENIED ENTRY by Customs and Border Control. IOW he has no inherit right to re-entry.
Legal Immigration, from any country whatsoever, is mostly gladly seen and accepted by the American People. Unvetted refugees, or immigration from countries where the veracity of the information provided in the visa application can not ascertained is simply stupid.
> Nations must have the ability to control their borders and our federal government must make decisions in the interest of national defense that may limit an individual’s access to the United States. But however important those responsibilities may be, they cannot override the fundamental need for due process and the rule of law in setting immigration policy. Americans — both current and prospective — deserve no less.
You’re confused.
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