Nobody Asked But
Posted by Chris Martin at 3/21/2010 9:32 AM 
Categories: Immigration, Illegal Aliens, Economic Theory, Fiscal Crisis of the State
Tags: That's why I blog
Categories: Immigration, Illegal Aliens, Economic Theory, Fiscal Crisis of the State
Tags: That's why I blog
Wonks Anonymous has a plan for immigration reform.
We should start with the basics. Illegal entry into the US is a valuable commodity. From what Wonks Anonymous hears people pay thousands of dollars to smugglers to get in. They then pay thousands more to lawyers to have their status legitimized. Please note, illegal immigrants are hard working people with resources to spend to enter the US. They are not coming here for the paltry public benefits that we pride ourselves in offering.
With that much money being spent per potential illegal entrant no amount of border patrol will stop the flow. We cannot outspend them.
If we cannot outspend them then we might as well join them. We should sell green cards. After some careful research to determine the price people are willing to pay for illegal entry we should set a price - say $5,000 per year - for a green card. An employer might pay for a green card but the immigrant would own it.
You get free passage across the border for a year. Go home when you need to and, if things don't work out on the job market stay home. Renewal would depend on payment of the fee, a clean criminal record for the year and, for adults, proof of employment by records of payroll and income tax payments.
Eventually holders of these green cards could apply for citizenship, with the usual conditions.
Which entirely changes the game as far as potential immigrants are concerned. Where current immigrants have less incentive to participate in the legal economy - where their chances of getting detected and deported are increased - immigrants who bought their way into the US would need to participate and to pay taxes to be able to renew their green cards.
But won't people cheat? You bet they will and that's part of the fun of raising them. If we set the price right, the cost of cheating will be higher than the cost of following the law. Meanwhile the remaining sleaze who insist on cheating will be more easily detectable by law enforcement and will have absolutely no moral standing in their attempts to avoid deportation.
Revenues from the green cards could be used to pay for immigration enforcement and distributed to states, based on their share of green cards.
Unfortunately this simple proposal would require good sense and guts. It would also kill a major Republican wedge issue - that would be a way to raise up the party's racist base. Wonks Anonymous is not holding his breath.
We should start with the basics. Illegal entry into the US is a valuable commodity. From what Wonks Anonymous hears people pay thousands of dollars to smugglers to get in. They then pay thousands more to lawyers to have their status legitimized. Please note, illegal immigrants are hard working people with resources to spend to enter the US. They are not coming here for the paltry public benefits that we pride ourselves in offering.
With that much money being spent per potential illegal entrant no amount of border patrol will stop the flow. We cannot outspend them.
If we cannot outspend them then we might as well join them. We should sell green cards. After some careful research to determine the price people are willing to pay for illegal entry we should set a price - say $5,000 per year - for a green card. An employer might pay for a green card but the immigrant would own it.
You get free passage across the border for a year. Go home when you need to and, if things don't work out on the job market stay home. Renewal would depend on payment of the fee, a clean criminal record for the year and, for adults, proof of employment by records of payroll and income tax payments.
Eventually holders of these green cards could apply for citizenship, with the usual conditions.
Which entirely changes the game as far as potential immigrants are concerned. Where current immigrants have less incentive to participate in the legal economy - where their chances of getting detected and deported are increased - immigrants who bought their way into the US would need to participate and to pay taxes to be able to renew their green cards.
But won't people cheat? You bet they will and that's part of the fun of raising them. If we set the price right, the cost of cheating will be higher than the cost of following the law. Meanwhile the remaining sleaze who insist on cheating will be more easily detectable by law enforcement and will have absolutely no moral standing in their attempts to avoid deportation.
Revenues from the green cards could be used to pay for immigration enforcement and distributed to states, based on their share of green cards.
Unfortunately this simple proposal would require good sense and guts. It would also kill a major Republican wedge issue - that would be a way to raise up the party's racist base. Wonks Anonymous is not holding his breath.
This is a kooky idea. It would work but the country would suffer a beating in international diplomacy and human rights concerns. It would be like legalizing human trafficking. Terrorists and Criminal elements would gain the system and loan the money to potential immigrant with onerous interest rate they would never be able to pay back. And it would be legal. The immigrant families would suffer all because of the approval of the US for the trade traffic.
My solutions are to to make enforce the law and make it more effective. 1) have five immigration courts stuff with judges all year around that will only hear about immigration cases. We could do this in a heart bit and would not cost a lot of money. We should have one court in the east, one in the west, one in the central part of the US, one in near the Canadian border, and one in the south near Mexico.
2) the judges would be able to allow deportation in most cases in 30- 60- 0r 90 days. As soon we apprehend the illegals and verify that they are in fact are illegal either through illegal entry or expiring visas, sham marriage, etc. For criminal illegal immigrants would be sent to the criminal court for prosecution and jail time and deportation after serving their sentence or sentences. The legal immigrants would also fall under the jurisdiction of those court if they fail to follow the law.
3)We should allow more guest workers if there is a demand for for them. We should have a more human immigration policy that make it easier for people to enter the country legally by eliminating some red tapes. We should also have AN AMNESTY every ten years before the CENSUS for people who manage to evade the system for 10 years. They will only get that amnesty by proving no criminal past activities except their illegal status, have been a model citizens, have worked and paid taxes. Have american citizens in their community testified on their behalf. All the burden of proof will be on them and verify by the FBI. community leader, etc.
That way we can reboot the system every ten years before the census to get a better pictures of our reform and our population as a whole.
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