Toward a smart and modern American immigration policy
Mark Around the World – Sept. 10, 2012
America has historically drawn great strength from diversity in its society. Compare the British and French look-alikes on the left to key faces from the Obama administration
• President Obama, a black man whose father was a Kenyan national;
• Former White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel, whose father was an Israeli Zionist who fought the British colonialists;
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, arguably a WASP, but whose roots include a French Canadian line.
America of previous centuries, literally an empty country in need of people to perform basic labor, generally welcomed immigrants without much planning beyond token health and safety checks.
Diverse waves of immigrants came from such places as Ireland, Italy, China and Poland. With a few notable hiccups, young America was able to absorb them and within a generation the magical melting pot turned each wave into quintessential Americans. The primitive immigration policy worked.
But America has matured. Its vast resources and treasure are nevertheless finite and must be used wisely. And, they must be allocated fairly, first and foremost among its citizens and their future generations.
This requires a fundamental overhaul of our existing immigration policy, which is based on 19th-century conditions and thinking. The Hispanic immigration wave has proven this. Despite the current momentary lull there is no end in sight. Consider the following jaw-dropping statistics.
- Unauthorized migrants make up 30% of the foreign born population. Of this, 78% are Hispanic;
- Over 10 million illegal adult Hispanics live in the U.S., of which about half have children;
- Between 2000 and 2010 the Hispanic population grew 43% compared to the overall 9.7% growth. This represented 55% of total U.S. population growth – 15.2 million out of a total 27.3 million.
America’s resources and treasure are overwhelmed. The hidden cost to every American citizen for providing social welfare and infrastructure to this generally uneducated and under-skilled wave is enormous. And, this tsunami is far beyond the capacity of our magical melting pot. Even English, the shared lifeblood of our social fabric, is being eroded as public school districts are setting up Spanish-as-primary-language programs, nationwide businesses set up Spanish/English customer care systems, etc.
Our 19th-century immigration policy must be overhauled to reflect the needs of 21st century America. Our 21st-century immigration policy must stand on the following two principals:
1. The sanctity of rule-of-law. History shows that great nations collapse when the rule-of-law is no longer respected. For immigration policy this means:
• Securing our borders. Now! The feasibility and costs for this task have been grossly exaggerated by opponents. Certainly, it will cost a fraction of the $2.5 trillion dollars we spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
• Passing definitive legislation regarding existing illegal immigrants based on a compromise between the current Republican and Democratic proposals, but leaning in the direction of the tough-love wing.
• Simplifying the laws and enforcement procedures for legal immigration. Currently the laws are too vague and expensive to comply with. Processing and enforcement is largely in the hands of front line immigration officers who to a large degree are left to use their own discretion, and whose decisions are nearly impossible to appeal. Too often this leads to inconsistent treatment of equivalent cases. The path from VISA application through Permanent Residency to citizenship is an expensive multi-year process that is traumatic and often humiliating.
• Eliminating birthright citizenship for illegal aliens and other visitors, narrowing the interpretation of the 14th Amendment to children who have at least one parent that is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident (green card holder). This has bipartisan support, but will likely also need an assist from the Supreme Court. Both Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev) 1993 bill and Rep. Nathan Deal’s (R-Ga) 2009 bill address this head-on. The latter bill gathered 100 sponsors. Such a narrowing would bring U.S. policy in line with the rest of the world.
2. Diversity planning. Left unchecked, the magnitude of the Hispanic immigration wave risks creating a permanent parallel society with its own culture and social values. An overwhelmed broken melting pot will have dire consequences to our society.
To keep the melting pot humming, a 21st-century U.S. immigration policy must set up quotas to ensure diversity. These quotas must have a global geographic dimension and a socio-economic dimension. Via the latter, we can control the immigration ratio of migrant and day laborers vs. skilled middle class.
America does not need less immigration. What it needs is diverse immigration that complies with the rule-of-law.
September 10, 2012 - 6:00 AM
So now Mitt ISN’T going to get rid of “Obamacare” his first day in office? He’s going to keep stuff — you know, all that stuff people say they like.
Yeah, like Gitmo was closed, and torture was stopped, and the Bush tax cuts were scrapped. All that stuff 0bama promised.
Good article Mark.
How Hanus do the crimes need to be to deport someone here on a federal green card? Does the strike 3 policy apply to them as well? Does the add a child every thing will be ok/citizen policy apply here? Does Malicia still exsist? How is that different from Murder I? Are Law makers going to prosecute them as well? at the border?
Does the federal building make enough revenue to mandate/regulate all immigrants. How do you determine the legal from illegal? What nationality are we talking about here? How does one find out what nationaLITY IS?
Thought provoking thread, Mark.
FWIIW, in the past, I have posted that the “illegal immigration” / “undocumented workers” issue would be easy to address by removing the economic incentive to hire undocumented workers. IMHO, were we to place serious consequences and costs on those who hire an undocumented worker those business and individuals would quit hiring a undocumented workers. The jobs dry up = the major flow stops. Place an absolute requirement to document that the employees (including day-labor) are “documented” on the employer. As much as I hate the “internal passport”, “papers please” concept of society, I do think it is time for it in the employment process. To walk around, move around, etc, NO! To get any job, yes.
As to your, “Eliminating birthright citizenship for illegal aliens and other visitors, …” I agree. However, I suspect the best way would be a Constitutional Amendment, which probably has no chance of being ratified. 100 sponsors of a House bill is impressive, but doesn’t a law make. Even if a bill gets passed and signed into law, the Judicial process will play havoc with it for a long time, IMHO. However, that very process might be the route to getting folk on board to an amendment.
Look forward to replies from the wings.
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Footnote: What the heck does #1 & #2 have to do with the thread OP? Go to an Open thread and quit trying to hijack a focused thread.
Wow, what a bunch of fungible pasty white boys up there. Makes me even more proud that we’ve progressed to the point where we have a minority as head of state. Of course, Great Britain is ahead of us in that they’ve already had a woman. We might have to wait another 4 years for that.
The US has thousands upon thousands of miles of border…lots of it coastline, which would be difficult if not impossible to “secure”. I don’t see how you can overestimate the difficulty of securing that much ocean front, short of having constant air and sea surveillance. If you’re only talking about the points of access from Mexico, that’s a much narrower scope, but who knows if that poses our greatest security risk.
As for restricting the birthright citizenship, I don’t know that our goal should necessarily BE to be more in line with the rest of the world. We’ve gotten where we are NOT doing that, for better or for worse. Personally, I think our position on granting citizenship to those born here is something special that sets us apart…a strength, but also a weakness. Instead of revising the 14th, my position on anchor babies would be that the entire family (assuming they’re up for deportation) is sent back to their country of origin and that the “anchor baby” alone can return at age 18 to assume their citizenship rights here.
I will never believe that answer to curtailing immigration lies in going after the immigrants. I think it would be much more efficient to cut “demand” – levy catastrophic fines on the first couple of companies caught with illegal labor and everyone else might fall in line. Without the demand, we know the supply will decrease on its own…during our recent economic downturns and high unemployment illegal immigration has already diminished.
#5 dave H, I sent a message apologizing for mistakenly posting #1 on this thread but don’t know what happened to it. I’d be delighted for Dan to remove my post.
I agree with MJ on this topic. This is one of the areas that I feel fairly conservative about. I would go so far as to make English the language of the country. The amount of money being spent on bi-lingual advertising and marketing could help pay off the national debt.
However, I think we need to find a firm and decent minded path FORWARD. We do not need to punish everyone already here. So yes, I agree that a compromise version is needed to deal with those already here. Oh wait, I said the “C” word. For shame.
Re: Comment by Kristen — September 10, 2012 @ 11:29 am
I will never believe that answer to curtailing immigration lies in going after the immigrants. I think it would be much more efficient to cut “demand” – levy catastrophic fines on the first couple of companies caught with illegal labor and everyone else might fall in line. Without the demand, we know the supply will decrease on its own…during our recent economic downturns and high unemployment illegal immigration has already diminished.
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Bingo.
See we can agree on somethings. FWIIW, I agree with the rest of your post, also.
Count me in as to the solution being simply making it illegal and damned painful to hire an illegal immigrant, as being the quickest and easiest way to curb that pipeline. That is the root of the problem, they come knowing there are jobs here, even now, because there are and business is not afraid to hire them.
Second, bolster and increase vigilance on who is here and why, increase border security (great jobs program!), we are far too lax on people who overstay a Visa, people who are illegally here but have children here and people who say they have been here longer than they have. We win this battle by working with Mexico and other countries to solve the drug cartel, violence, lack of jobs and poverty problems they face “at home”. We need to make a path for at least long term work visas and tracking for those who have been here for years and who have children born here, but we have got to stop the people who just keep coming, that is simply a fact of life, resources and fairness.
The most humane nation can become overwhelmed when it is charged with fixing everyone’s problems. Consistency, fairness and humane treatment must lead our efforts for the struggling immigrants and an iron hand must meet the criminally minded immigrants. We are not going to round up 10 million people and ship them “home”. We need to get real.
BTW, by “serious consequences” I would strongly suggest going well beyond just criminal “catastrophic fines.”
I envision “catastrophic fines” plus open-ended tort legibility against the employer for the cost to the governments (local, state and national) for all cost incurred as a result of the undocumented worker being here — e.g., total cost of deportation of the worker; if a child is a “birthright citizen”, all support and education cost (including higher education) associated with that child; ditto cost for a parent allowed to remain as a result of the “birthright citizen”; etc.
As, civil recovery has lesser of a requirement of proof and a lesser Mens rea requirement, that open-ended cost would become very “serious consequences.”
Add the typical increases for gross negligence with repeat violations being prima facie evidence of gross negligence and I bet the problem would go away quickly.
Re: Comment by Miriam — September 10, 2012 @ 12:35 pm
However, I think we need to find a firm and decent minded path FORWARD. We do not need to punish everyone already here. So yes, I agree that a compromise version is needed to deal with those already here. Oh wait, I said the “C” word. For shame.
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Yup!
Totally agree.
I will never believe that answer to curtailing immigration lies in going after the immigrants. I think it would be much more efficient to cut “demand” – levy catastrophic fines on the first couple of companies caught with illegal labor and everyone else might fall in line.
It’s always the businessman we should screw first, no matter what the issue. How about we close the first school that enrolls kids of illegals? Or sanction the first DMV that gives them a license? Or shut down the first government agency that paves the way for them to stay here?
Or better yet, the 0bama administration should get the hell out of way and allow states to enforce FEDERAL anti-illegal immigration laws on the books?
@#6 “I will never believe that answer to curtailing immigration lies in going after the immigrants. I think it would be much more efficient to cut “demand” – levy catastrophic fines on the first couple of companies caught with illegal labor and everyone else might fall in line.”
That has been my take on it for forever and a day. To every person that cries “They’re taking away American jobs!”, I would like to ask “Okay, and who is GIVING them those jobs?”. They wouldn’t be getting jobs here unless someone is willing to break the law and give them the jobs. The laws against this are already in place, enforcing them would go a long way.
If, in the ideal world, not one American employer was willing to give one single job to someone who did not have legal status, there would be no reason for people to try to come here illegally in the first place.
Suzie, you speak of enforcing “FEDERAL anti-illegal immigration laws on the books”….not employing illegal immigrants is one of them. Shouldn’t companies that break the law be punished? How is that “screwing” them? Because they can’t continue to pay peanuts to illegal workers to make more money? Cry me a river.
#13 So suzie thinks that we should crack down on illegals but let businesses continue using illegals without cracking down on them for violating the law. Cool.
BTW, toots, do you know what Fox claims was the first thing Obama did to bypass illegal immigration enforcement — why, he loosened up on businesses!!! The very thing you’re in favor of!!!
PS — Obama has deported more illegals than Bush ever thought about deporting.
“If, in the ideal world, not one American employer was willing to give one single job to someone who did not have legal status, there would be no reason for people to try to come here illegally in the first place.”
This is exactly my point. In all fairness to the immigrants, they don’t seem to be coming here to sit on their butts – they’re here for jobs. As long as the jobs exist, they’ll come for them. Once the jobs dry up, so should the supply of workers.
Referring to Dave Hicks #5, it seems most legal scholars do not think it is necessary to Amend the 14th Ammendment to curtail birth right citizenship. The current broad unrestricted interpretation is just that – an interpretation. It is mostly based on the precedent set by the 1898 Wong Kim Ark ruling.
The Supreme Court has reversed earlier decisions on a number of occassions,some very significant. Perhaps the most famous reversal is Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 which reversed Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 racial segregation ruling.
A very realistic and achievable path to restrict birth citizenship is for Congress to pass a law along the lines of Harry Reid’s 1993 bill or Nathan Deal’s 2009 bill. Inevitably it will be challenged in the courts and would ultimately reach the Supreme Court. Then the Supreme Court could rule that the bill is constitutional and does not conflict with the 14th Ammendment.
While doing research for this essay, I read the 14th Ammendment and it seems to me that such a ruling would be correct. The Wong Kim Ark ruling of 1898 is the one that’s a real stretch interpretation of the 14th Ammendment.
When looking at all the cases that flowed from challenges to the 14th Amendment, I doesn’t appear it would be an easy task to overturn years of case law – especially since the US Supreme Court has consistently declared that any child born within the precincts of the U.S. is a legal citizen.
However, the extremes of deportation or amnesty – one unworkable and one disrespectful to the rule of law – have not worked to stop the influx of illegal immigrants entering the US.
In the past the government controlled immigration by limiting or expanding Visas based on the country of origin or on specific professions or job skills. As a first step, the United States always has the ability to begin with a reduction in the numbers of legal immigrants [for example, Mexico], while simultaneously developing a comprehensive immigration policy to stem the flow of those entering the country illegally.