Without stopping the ability of illegals to get employment it won’t matter how many assets and people you throw at the border.
>>Without stopping the ability of illegals to get employment it won’t matter how many assets and people you throw at the border.<<
I understand that, which is why I think the illegal immigrant issue has to be addressed on more than one front simultaneously. I absolutely hate “comprehensive” legislation because, as Pelosi famously said, “you have to pass it to see what’s (really) in it.”
I think each issue though, should be on the table at the same time, and addressed simultaneously. For example, a dependable means for an employer to check electronically on a green card should be in place. Right now, the illegal worker without one just disappears to a big city for a few days and comes back with one. He wasn’t waiting in line at the immigration office during that time away either.
Simultaneously, the streets have to be cleared of those here illegally who have criminal records. Deport them as soon as they’re caught.
Also simultaneously, the border has to be policed. It does no good to send them home if they can cross back over tomorrow.
But we also have to realize that there are millions here illegally who are already working. Whole industries will suffer if they’re all sent home overnight (as if we could ever actually pull that off.) To my mind, it makes complete sense to clear most of them for green cards so that we know who they are, how many they are, and where they are.
After those steps are taken, then it would make sense to start issuing green cards primarily based on which immigrants will do the most to improve our economic prospects.
And none of this should necessarily lead to a path to citizenship. If anything, someone who is here illegally should go to the back of the line. Furthermore, the Constitution should probably be changed so that automatic citizenship wouldn’t accrue to someone born here to a non-citizen. I can understand why it was put in there initially, for we are a nation of immigrants, but perhaps it would make more sense to award citizenship to a child born here only after their parents became citizens themselves. The constitution didn’t anticipate a workforce traveling back and forth across the border to the extent we have would have today if we had a workable green card apparatus.