This isn't directed at you, but I have little patience with people who wish to front for illegal immigrants. As you state, we are a nation of laws. It really bothers me when people come to a conservative forum and use every thirteen year olds excuse in the book for not minding our nation's laws. But dad.... sorry kid you know what the rules are.
Thanks for the long response. I appreciate it. I'll address some of the issues you raised.
Don't ask, don't tell was a good example of Clinton's moral decay. It was a sad commentary on those bought into the policy as well. I agree with your assessment.
Catch and release is such a waste of time, you have to ask yourself why bother paying people to 'catch' at all?
No, in the 1980s the government didn't follow through. Now there are calls for all sorts of walls. Despite the fact that Israel's wall is going to be 400 miles long (believe it or not, I was amazed to hear this on Medvid's show), some of our leaders are carping about a 700 mile wall on our border, "too costly". Then some of them want a "virtual wall". I'll tell you about a wall, I thinking the "handwriting is already on it", and this looks to be going nowhere if we're not careful.
We stand a very real chance of legitimizing upwards of 20 million people in our nation. About eight to fourteen years later, they'll become citizens and bring extended family members over. This will cause an absolute explosion of recent Mexican citizens in our nation. If each of them only brought over one extended family member, that would be twenty million more. Do you know any families that only have one extended family member? No, we're talking about multiple people for each of the twenty million we sweep under the carpet today. How does that portend for our future? Frankly it is a very disturbing concept to me.
To be clear, it sounds as if we both desire closed borders. When I say I'm not going to sucker for that once again, I'm referring to this concept. If we allow the twenty million to be legitimized and sucker for the empty promise of closing the border, when we know they won't, we're signing on to a plan to sink this nation. I will NOT sucker for that ever again. I want people returned to their nation of origin. I want a wall. I want our government to prove that it has to will to enforce our borders. Then and only then will I sign on to some limited seasonal work program. IMO, there is not a full-time job in this nation that U.S. Citizens will not do. If farm work that is seasonal requires some temporary labor, I can live with it. I'm not going to surrender the housing trades and other jobs that used to support U.S. Citizen families to illegal aliens.
When I address employers and their employment of illegal aliens, I recognize that there must be some way to hold them accountable. I don't want ICE swooping down on some business and detaining illegal immigrants, then fining the business for hiring them, when the business was not aware they were. There simply MUST be some mechanism that insures that business know whether their prospective employees are legal or not. Otherwise we'll have business employing them from here on out, and pleading that they just didn't know. I can't accept that under a new plan. The employment of illegal immigrants must end. That will require some changes.
Consider this. You review four new prospective employees. As part of the process they provide their SS Numbers to your personnel department. A clerk in that department signs into an internet sight and punches in the numbers. The first one pops up...
555 55 5555 Miller Rochester New York.
Then second one pops up...
555 55 5556 Invalid
The third one pops up...
555 55 5557 Deceased
The fourth one pops up...
555 55 5558 Dominguez Your City Your State
This would take about five minutes. Which one would be an eligible employee? The first three would be invalid. The fourth would be hirable. This wouldn't end the process, but it would be an excellent start. It would allow you as an employer to document the process you went through to validate your prospective employee. It would in effect absolve you from a later determination that the fourth guy was in fact using a community SS Number, something a second tier 'new hire' process executed by the INS would detect.
As alluded to in the above paragraph, the INS would review all new hires. Duplicate use SS Numbers would be detected and investigated. Once a person had been reviewed, their file would become dormant for the IRS. The person would have passed review.
I'm not a big fan of you doing the government's work. I do think businesses have a responsibility to attempt to week out illegal alien applicants. In this manner, you could comply without a major impact on your staff.
You mention that the government screws up all the time. Okay, let's say they do. What other process could you envision that would still hold the employer responsible? Without this type of a check system, it would seem the employer would continue to be unaccountable for hiring illegal aliens. I think that is a policy that must end. Perhaps you have a better plan for employer involvement. If so I'd like to hear it. It must meet three criteria. It must involve the business doing due diligence. It must prevent the illegal alien from gaining employment. It must protect the employer from the charge that they didn't take precautions to prevent the hiring of an illegal immigrant.
I have no problem with law enforcement involvement when they turn over illegal immigrants in the execution of their jobs. It's beyond my comprehension why a law enforcement officer would be instructed not to apprehend a person breaking our nation's laws. I realize that illegal border crossings only constitute a misdemeanor these days, but they are people who are in our nation illegally. They should be taken into custody, turned over to ICE and deported.
I'm not a big fan of the seat belt laws. They're tantamount to a "look both ways or else" law. They're an example of a nanny state law that does nothing more than instill contempt for government.
As for a need to do away with the INS, I'm with you. There has to be a better way.
D1