Immigration: Sense and Nonsense
The immigration problem is complex: it has real and imaginary parts. One of the imaginary parts is the idea that it is hard to stop illegal immigration. In fact, it would be pretty easy. The reason that it doesn't happen is that a lot of people want to keep immigration common, not too difficult, and illegal. Some of those people are illegal immigrants, but they don't really count, since they can't vote or afford large campaign contributions. The rest are the people who employ the illegals.
The NPR reporter put it something like this "Americans don't want to be overun by immigrants, but they also don't want to lose their nannys."
That, I suppose, is the perspective of the urban upper middle class, but most illegals work in businesses, including agriculture, restaurants, janitorial services, construction, etc. There are a lot of advantages to employing illegals. They work cheap and don't go to the police when they get cheated. Immigrants who are professors, I guess, can get green cards.
The way to stop illegal immigration is to fine those who employ them. Very few immigrants, legal or illegal, come here to watch the soccer games, they come here to work. If you are going to punish people for employing illegal immigrants, you need to be able to identify them. Every American who works or goes to school already needs a Social Security Card. Just make those cards into hard to forge picture ID's and you are there.
Eliminating illegal immigration will require some sort of guest worker program, at least temporarily. More about that in another post.
Because there are so many with a stake in keeping immigration safe, common, and illegal, you hear a lot of psuedo ideas bandied about in Congress, like making illegal entry a felony. Yah right. Just what we need. A few million more prison inmates. Advocating ideas like that is a real idea to keep solutions imaginary.
The NPR reporter put it something like this "Americans don't want to be overun by immigrants, but they also don't want to lose their nannys."
That, I suppose, is the perspective of the urban upper middle class, but most illegals work in businesses, including agriculture, restaurants, janitorial services, construction, etc. There are a lot of advantages to employing illegals. They work cheap and don't go to the police when they get cheated. Immigrants who are professors, I guess, can get green cards.
The way to stop illegal immigration is to fine those who employ them. Very few immigrants, legal or illegal, come here to watch the soccer games, they come here to work. If you are going to punish people for employing illegal immigrants, you need to be able to identify them. Every American who works or goes to school already needs a Social Security Card. Just make those cards into hard to forge picture ID's and you are there.
Eliminating illegal immigration will require some sort of guest worker program, at least temporarily. More about that in another post.
Because there are so many with a stake in keeping immigration safe, common, and illegal, you hear a lot of psuedo ideas bandied about in Congress, like making illegal entry a felony. Yah right. Just what we need. A few million more prison inmates. Advocating ideas like that is a real idea to keep solutions imaginary.