Posted on 05/18/2006 8:47:15 PM PDT by ClancyJ
Each of us has ideas on what should be done on the immigration problem and the government is having problems working out such a complex issue. So - why not use the abilities of the FreeRepublic community as a "think tank" to resolve some of the problems faced in Immigration Reform?
OhioWfan had a great thread earlier, The First Entirely Positive - "How Do We Help Solve the Illegal Immigration Problem?" Thread in which many varied ideas were presented. We need these ideas and others grouped together where the pros and cons can be discussed, and solutions will work themselves out.
Now, this again is a "problem solving thread". So, needless to say, please limit comments to respectful discussions, no personal attacks, on the President or other posters and please do not waste our time with the continual "cute" but worthless comments to show machoism, hate, threats, etc. This is an "idea mining thread" and there are plenty of threads on FreeRepublic where the posters can exchange rants, government insults, great one-liners, pictures, etc.
President Bush presented a 5-point plan for reform in his White House address. So, we can just start with that and use our own "think tank" to come up with workable solutions. You may have the perfect solution for one segment and another poster has a suggestion of how to solve another part on one of the other threads. Should we come up with a wide variety of solutions, I will consolidate a list.
There will be five threads, one for each of the President's five objectives of comprehensive immigration reform in order to sort out the different areas of reform. Use them as a starting point to discuss solutions whether the same as he suggests or not.
Come on, give us your ideas and we can discuss.
The Five Points (summarized from President Bush's speech on immigration found on whitehouse.gov):
Ok - show the government what we can do.
WALL
Thread going downhill in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
I don't understand amnesty's attractions, but I do understand our fecklessness and inability to articulate positions that are easily demagogued as 'mean-spirited'. I do understand that, having judged the other options unpalatable, Bush and others fall on amnesty as the only answer.
Shelby Steele's essay on "White Guilt" in Opinion Journal explained the impulse well. And it is a paradox of Bush, so tough in many ways but helpless when it comes to facing down the evils of multiculturalism and racial/ethnic/religious issues. The man who takes on Saddam and the Taliban is the same man who peddles the soft-hearted lie that Islam is a religion of peace. as the Governor of Texas, Bush consistently battled the hard-edged elements in his own party - Tom Pauken, members of the religious right, etc. "Compassionate conservative" was that triangulation that telegraphed he was a man who wouldn't do those punitive things.
There is a simple solution to our immigration woes. It is simple and workable, just not very easy. It will create hardship cases, whining, protests, and all sorts of counter-currents from those who prefer illegal immigration to legal immigration only. But it will be the one and only thing that will end illegal immigration in the massive levels that we've experienced in recent years: ENFORCE THE LAW. RIGOROUSLY.
But enforcing the law requires being punitive, in many cases against job opportunity seekers. So we surrender to illegal immigration by granting the lawbreakers citizenship rather than a ticket to the home country, for the same reason Steele mentions in how we fight 'minimalist' wars. It is a failure of the Will.
That failure leads to a conclusion that will create a policy far worse than our current policy of neglect and the other alternative of levels of increased law-enforcement and deportation. These real alternatives, and not the strawman of mass deportation, are the real comprehensive solutions, for you cannot have "comprehensive immigration reform" without immigration law enforcement, and you cannot have immigration law enforcement without deportation. (And our deportation system is broken).
Amnesty on the other hand, is abdication and surrender. It will not stop future illegal immigration, only induce it further. It will not make America a fairer place, only create an imported underclass of poverty-wage Americans (Latino poverty rates have been going up as latino immigration skyrockets, see David Frum's articles.) It will make America poorer, less able to control its future, and unwittingly will tie our politics to the interests of millions of dual-citizen Mexicans. And in the end, even the cheap-labor-lobby will lose, to the higher taxes and burdens all Americans will pay for this.
There is a cure: It starts with rejecting moral relativism and the axioms of "White Guilt"; recovering moral clarity that right is right and wrong is wrong, gets us out of the 'world-turned-upside-down' situation where malefactors (like terrorists) have right to dictate to us. (Consider the preaching bile of the Iranian Prime Minister.) Once we chase away the ghosts of the Guilt (Success Guilt, Male Guilt, White Guilt, etc.) we can then act with Moral steadiness. We should establish that the United States has the moral right to deport persons here in violation of immigration law.
America can and should act in the best interests of America and Americans. That is an important principle and fact to introduce, in this debate and many others as well. Being gun-shy on being selfish with respect to our own country, culture and citizens is the root of our problems. It is the heart of this impulse to do exactly the wrong thing, i.e., amnesty.
We must honor the great American tradition of having a majority Euro-white heritage.
We need to snap out of the white guilt trip that is meant to turn every white nation on earth into a white minority. Every other race of people has several countries populated by majorities of that race.
The Census Bureau recently announced that the US will be white minority by 2050, and that was before all of the mass immigration talk.
Ping - need your immigration suggestions again if you wish to add them.
Stop the spurt bleeding, then worry about the rest of the surgery.
Secure the borders.
The really angry side of me would like to take this a step further, though.
MILITARIZE the border for a minimum of 6 months. Tell anyone coming across that if they are caught on our side without appropriate documentation, found wandering in the wilderness, etc., they will be captured and documented, and dropped back over the border IMMEDIATELY. If they are found coming in again, they will be treated as enemy soldiers in an undeclared war and EXECUTED.
Wanna bet that stops things right quick?
Will it ever happen? Of course not.
Okay...back on track.
The rational side of me would grant AMNESTY to Americans living on our side of the border that use force (deadly or otherwise) to protect THEIR property (ranches, homes, family, etc.) against illegal trespassing on their property. This would prevent border jumpers from crossing into private property, empower Americans to defend their homes, and systematically redirect traffic to concentrated areas where border patrol can round them up - or force them through desolate areas that will deter the number of folks willing to make the trip.
How's that for a sensible, workable option?
Then set up stations at the border. All employers, and all illegals would have 30 days to check in. Businesses would have to request workers and show proof that the job had been offered to Americans. "Guests would be required to show proof of insurance and they and family members accompanied would be required to have a criminal and health check.
The "guests" would be required to be productive for America and not be eligible for benefits, including SS. A "Guest worker tax" equivalent to SS amount would be deducted. This would vary, dependent on how many children would require public school education.
Limit their work visit to two years at a time. Under no circumstances would I give them an edge on citizenship. One would have nothing to do with the other.
Finally,I would require registration but exempt the elderly already on SS . I don't want to be a nation that pushes the old people in wheelchairs to the middle of the bridge and let's them roll home.
Great post and well thought out.
I agree we are caught between the lack of will to deport and cause hardship and the firm need to stop the bleeding. Part of that lack of will is furthered by the liberals and their efforts to weaken this country by playing on the sympathies. When in reality - they could care less - they just want voters - legal or otherwise.
But, America has always had many wanting to immigrate - but there is no qualm about holding them out. You don't see any "lack of will" there. So - I think a lot of that hesitation is purely the influence of the liberal vote-getting efforts.
Love your tag line - hm...you sound like Mark Levin
I agree - we are quickly become the minority.
But, in two years time, they can have created a home, had a child that is now an American citizen. Wonder how you solve the problem of sending them back to no home, no job without the same guilt/hardship problem we have with the illegals here for years?
PATROLLED WALL
American Missionaries and foreign workers do this all the time. When they go to another country to work they realize that they are a guest and will be returning home. We have Canadians working here that handle this just fine.
But, what prevents them just disappearing at the end of the 2-year period and becoming just one more illegal. Then they were ushered into our country without having to rough it.
Why would they want to, if they can't work or get benefits? It would be like going shopping with no money:') IMO we have to get really tough with employers, including the people that need baby sitters, maids and gardeners.
It is weird - when we did not have any troop options, we had Arizona's sheriff deputizing thousands to patrol the borders themselves, we had minutemen volunteering.
Now that we have Bush putting Guard there - we will see all kind of backing off of allowing the guard, misusing the guard or claiming it is the wrong way to go.
But, you are right - especially in California. If they don't want the Guard, then provide their own people to man the borders.
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