"According to a RoperASW poll from last year, 83 percent of Americans support mandatory detention and forfeiture of property for illegal immigrants, followed by deportation."
I'm one of the 83%.
If the President Bush or Tom Ridge would announce that in six months they will be paying a $50 per head bounty for each illegal alien on American soil there would be a mad rush for the borders.
A policeman in a car costs the average city about $200 an hour. Helicopters cost at least $2000 an hour with the ground crews. What is the full cost of a teacher per hour? $140.00 or there about.
If we could get illegal aliens to turn each other in, just the ones trying to slip through the net, (I know thousands would attempt it) we would save billions in law enforcement, welfare programs, unemployment, medical care, job training and schools the first year.
Do all this under Executive Order and tell the Courts to back off. This is national security!
Any employer who has employed an illegal alien more than five months from the announcement date will be fined $5000 per employee. One month later enforcement begins. This will give employers 5 months to shed the illegals and hire legally papered actual American citizens.
Then on the announced date, start in a state such as Oklahoma. Well centered, not overly populated and clean the state out. This would give Homeland, INS and Border Patrol time to install their co-agents in various court houses around the country to verify a persons paperwork, i.e.. birth certificates, hospital records, etc.
Go state to state from the epicenter sweeping out the criminals who have successfully avoided suspicion. They already had 5 months to get out, hanging around to test the system carries a SEVERE penalty. They won't be able to say they weren't warned.
Divide a state into quadrants depending on population per square mile., First arrest those whose names were turn in for the bounty. Then others suspected by local law agencies. When arrests slow down, open an adjoining quadrant.
Get caught after the selected dated and the result would be every foreign national who is not in America legally would forfeit all their belongings (houses, cars, bank accounts, etc.) and be deported within 24 hours. These forfeited belongings would then be given to local churches for distribution to the needy in that community. Another cost saver!
This enforcement would apply to illegals from every country in the world, not just Mexico.
Imagine the number of Chinese who would be taking the ship home with everything in the house, new cars, you name it would be on those ships. The thousands of Canadians who decided the USA was better than Canada would be again headed North.
How many schools could be closed? How many hospitals and state paid housing tracts? How many welfare offices? How many planned jail enlargements could be stopped for lack of need?
How many state and federal employees would find out that they have the time to actually give good service to their American customers?
Oh yes, it would be an economic shocker in the amount of taxes that could be reduced or used to actually improve something needed for American citizens, instead of illegal foreigners.
Want an approximate number of the population drop? Try 50 million+ with the majority over 30 years of age, having been illegal residents of America for over ten years.
I've always wondered how many folks are on Medicare that don't deserve it. I'll bet that would save a big chuink of money that could be used for American war veterans and citizens health problems.
Just imagine the frantic squealing from our politicians thinking of the lost votes and contributions. That would be a sideshow worth watching!
Scan the whole page for good reading!
Conservative Debate Handbook
The first step is to identify those illegal immigrants who just want to make some money and go back home. Identify them and offer some monetary incentive for them to return to their country of origin at the end of some period, say three years. In addition, insure that they are paid minimum wages and receive benefits equal to the benefits received by American workers. What this would do is reduce the difference in cost between illegal and American workers and therefore reduce the incentive for business to hire illegal workers. Sounds like Bush’s plan to me. However, this is only the first step.
The second step is targeting those illegal immigrants who are criminals. The deportation process must be streamlined with more judges, lawyers, holding cells, and INS workers. Instead of taking ten years to deport a criminal, it should take only a few months. Lock them up until the deportation process is complete, then put them on an airplane back to their country of origin. We haven’t been able to do this yet because of the pressure from businesses that need cheap labor and the social activities who think all immigrants will be targeted. Most of that pressure will have been eliminated by step one.
Step three is to eliminate welfare benefits for illegal immigrants. We haven’t been able to do this yet because of all the pressure from social activists who think that all immigrants will be targeted. These social activists are usually folks that are employing an illegal immigrant as a domestic servant and since step one makes that servant “legal” much of this pressure will be eliminated.
The first three steps would eliminate the majority of our illegal immigration problem. Those folks who want to stay here permanently might be induced into the temporary worker status if there was a mechanism to eventually obtain citizenship. I am not opposed to eventual citizenship for temporary workers provided that the requirements for citizenship are strengthened, including an English language requirement.
Step four involves the sensitive question of “anchor babies.” If a person is born in the U.S., they are an American citizen regardless of whom or what their parents are. Although I don’t think we can or should change the constitution on this issue, how much of an “anchor” the baby is can be changed by immigration policy.
Far from offering amnesty to illegal immigrants, I think Bush’s plan would be a good first step in solving our very real illegal immigration problem.