immigration reforms or am I an idiot; discuss

Somebody relatively important came up with a 10 point plan (sounds familiar from this guy, more on that later). I'm not concerned that it would pass (because nothing that makes sense to me ever does), but I felt given that the politicians have decided they want to do something else, that I'd comment on this one (since it mirrors some of my own conceptions).

Keep the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli commitment and control the border. -- I put the focus more on number two. But in practice, controlling the border is important. Further commentary in the original essay shows emphasis on walling and fencing, which is actually pretty unnecessary and a typically American mentality (close off the outside world!!). Think for a moment about the Great Wall. Why was it built? Did it stop invaders? No. In fact, the problem there was that the guards were often bribed by smugglers and invading armies (then of course killed). We have the same problems with some of our border guards. That's another place to start. Anyway, as I see it the line in Patton is most appropriate. Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of mankind. A wall is a type of fortification. It serves little purpose save to keep stuff in. Stuff that wants in will find a way around it or through it eventually.

Announce an immediate shift of Internal Revenue Service resources to audit companies that are deliberately hiring people illegally. ----- This is the point of the entire immigration problem. It isn't that people want to come here. We should want people to come and live and work here. It is that they're coming here and not tracked or processed, followed up on, etc. It is incredibly easy to stay here once someone gets here. We used to enforce credible laws on the books that punish the companies for hiring people they're not supposed to. Shifting the activity to controlling the border is the hideously expensive way of enforcement. In a sense, this is like my drug control issues. Shift to a 'treatment' mentality and it's much cheaper and has both short and long term effectiveness. Border control is nice for national security reasons, for the war on drugs, etc, but it lacks long-term punch. Punish the corporations and businesses that knowingly hire people that aren't legally established to work here. If we allowed/required local entities to cooperate here, we'd get this down to a science in a few years and most of the problem would go away naturally.

Outsource to American Express, Visa or MasterCard the job of building a real-time verification system so that honest companies can confirm the legal status of all workers and identify people with forged papers before they hire them as fast as your automatic teller machine identifies you and gives you money in a matter of seconds. --- Outsourcing ideally is to make this a quickly available and more useful, and more invisible, form of control. I don't care for a national ID card. But for things like visas... Think for a moment about the local DMV branch. Remember those lines that never move. Outside of a monster-mega bank or supershopping center, how many times have I waited in line besides where the government is involved? (and even then I use those self-check aisles and have memorized my banking information, so not much line there either). Then ask yourself, hmm.. there's a long line to get visas and green cards. Maybe the government is involved. Ahh yes. That's the rub.


Focus deportation efforts on criminals. -- While there are plenty of ways we can depopulate our prisons without exposing ourselves to major crime waves (releasing sole count drug offenders would make it at least 1/3 of the way), we could start by deporting foreign 'fighters', as they're called in Iraq. Criminals are not something we should want to import. Get rid of them. If the homeland doesn't take them back, offer them a two way street. We'll give you police training assistance or help build crime labs CSI-style (so they can have CSI-Mexico City TV rights) if you take them. If you don't, we pull the plug on any foreign aid. The money for the aid is available in the federal budget, if someone would go through and pull out all the earmarks and pork. Honestly, some foreign aid now and then will help prop up some of these countries that either a) hate us, b) have so many poor people they export them as a commodity.

Cut off all federal aid to any city, county or state that refuses to investigate if a criminal is here illegally. --- Since the aid and footwork from local governments is something we should want, this is a probably a good idea to punish local governments who are uncooperative. I'm not sure it would make a difference in some places, but eventually some taxes would be levied that not everyone would like just to fill in some potholes and the like.

Offer intensive education in English to anyone who wants to learn English, and make English the official language of government. ---- I don't understand the need for English to become officially our language. It is unofficially. I don't necessarily understand the need for me to press 1 for English either. In Ohio. I've met and seen a fair number of migrant workers up here, but seriously. It's OHIO. How many people here can even speak regular English anyway? They speak American because they're never going to England. I think this too is a two-way street. We'd probably get some better receptions out there in the 'real' world if some of our people didn't need translators everywhere they went. Sure other developed countries learn English, but that doesn't mean we can't respect some linguistic differences now and then. Used to be that a mark of education was the ability to speak or write in several languages. Two would suffice; it's certainly better than the current zero.

Ensure that becoming an American citizen requires passing a test on American history in English and giving up the right to vote in any other country. --- I suspect that most American citizens couldn't pass a real test in American history, but nevertheless, there should be a bit more than repeating the oath to the Constitution to change one's nation. I do not care if someone could vote in another country, because many other nations recognize dual citizenship. A test is perhaps unnecessary but perhaps a few classes on civic duty (something average Joe America could use too). In practice, immigrants who have stayed and lived in America are perhaps its most dutiful and patriotic citizens. It's the born-again effect, sometimes it has uses. Its often annoying though.

Within the context of these proven changes, establish an economically driven temporary worker program like the Krieble Foundation proposals. -- The biggest part of these are 1) biometric data and 2) paying taxes while you're here. I can live with imported labor, but when it is considered that our economy no longer focuses on manufacturing or agriculture as a whole, I have to wonder why we need to import so much of it. I mean seriously are these people coming here to work at a desk and complain around a water cooler? No. So why do we need them? Ok sure, fixing roofs and lettuce and the like is important. But seriously, there aren't any regular citizens left who like hard work? We can't round up high school drop outs or other welfare receipients to go outside? I don't get it.

Create a special open-ended worker visa for high value workers who bring specialized education, entrepreneurial talent or capital that will grow the American economy and make America a more prosperous country. -- Ok this makes some sense. One big issue I've seen is that we're welcoming people illegally here who can't do anything but restricting people who have educations, etc. The free-market would do just fine to control the flow of specialized and professional laborers, thank you. I think they're small enough in number that we could test any ID system on them before it was deployed en masse.

Workers who came here illegally but have a good work relationship and community ties (including family), should have first opportunity to get the new temporary worker visas, but instead of paying penalties, they should be required to go home and get the visa at home. --- I don't know why the bills are called amnesty. They don't even seem to acknowledge a crime is being committed. I think you'd have to start with that premise to even introduce the idea of amnesty into a bill. This here idea isn't necessarily practical, but it does make some sense because it introduces a concept of rule of law. I don't think fines are going to provide necessary incentive to people 'coming out of the shadows'. I think a legal and recognizable process that is expedited in an efficient and practical manner would. Lots of immigrants come here because they like it here, or they think they will. I've no problem if they find ways to stay, but I'd prefer that we allow them to because they're following a process of immigration and at least moderate acculturation. Acculturation is a two way street. We didn't start out in America eating spaghetti dinners, pizza, burritos, and takeout Chinese food. Or listening to the Beatles. Americans have historically always liked to buy trendy ideas/objects from other countries. The fact that we think it works the other way now is ridiculous. We just export more crap. Well if by export we mean: produce crap in China so we can ship it to somewhere else. There's some lovely filth everywhere now thanks to American ingenuity.

Now the bad news. Newt came up with this list. I'm not sure if that means I'm idiot or our politicians are so devoid of reasoned ideas that people like Newt sound like they make sense again. It might mean both.