Taking under consideration factors such as the decline in the worker-retiree ratio (needed to pay for social services for older Americans) due to the rapid retirement of the baby boomers, and the drop in the birth replacement levels for the US, where would you find workers to fill the immediate needs of employers?
Well, that's an interesting hypothetical.
If I had the power to immediately deport all Illegals and exercised it, I'd also use my super powers to immediately end welfare in the US and after lunch I'd gut the Mexican oligarchy and institute free market capitalism without cronyism and corruption down there. Then I'd take a nap, because later that evening, I'd be getting rid of Castro.
Now, back to reality...
I support incremental approaches to Illegals on a number of fronts, none of which would be tremendously jarring, that would encourage Illegals already here to leave on their own, and discourage more from coming. There would definitely be some deportations, especially of easy-to-locate day laborers (I'd streamline that process), but that alone won't solve the problem. Employer sanctions would be another tactic. I'd like to see more cooperation between the INS and the IRS where there is evidence of fraudulent SS numbers being used to gain employment. I'd like to see States and municipalities be given the discretion to deny services and entitlements to Illegals. I'd tighten up the much-abused political asylum and refugee systems. There would never be another Amnesty. The cumulative effect of these and other measures would, I think, be most beneficial.
Illegals aren't the solution to the Social Security Ponzi scheme, nor are legal immigrants or even a higher birthrate. Such schemes require a geometric growth rate in the population, which is unsustainable. Eventually it's going to implode, and the sooner, the better.
With the wage-eroding Illegals out of the blue collar job market (they aren't all fruit pickers and maids), many of the entry rungs of the economic ladder will become more attractive to America's own underclass. Opportunities for further welfare reform will open up.
If, after that, the domestic labor market is too tight, then once we've gotten a better grip on the problem Illegals, we may want to look into guest worker programs or perhaps, even, increased immigration level, to fill any resulting voids in the employee pool.
As for the unemployed tech-jocks: why are we giving out HB-1 visas given the current state of the high-tech industries?
Another thing, I'd like to see a simple solution to the problem of chain immigration through family reunification. Make family reunification immigrants count against our immigration caps. If our cap is at 1,000,000 and there are 200,000 new immigrants to be reunified with their families, current policy dictates that we'd end up with 1.2 million new immigrants. I'd keep it at the advertised million, leaving 800,000 slots for non-family reunification immigrants.
