Default Yes Immigration

I want to ask this question non-rhetorically: what if our only limits on immigration were based on actual reasons for denying an individual?

So here’s the proposal. If someone wants to move to the United States, they need to agree to a background check, and they need to somehow pay for the background check. To throw out some random numbers, let’s say it’s $3,000 cash up front, or a $5,000 tax burden to pay over ten years. I don’t know if these numbers are reasonable, and welcome correction.

You have to complete the check before moving to the US. A criminal record, membership in or stated support of terrorist groups, membership in an oppressive regime, and a few other metrics will result in a denial.

But if you don’t have a reason like that to be denied entry, you will be admitted.

This isn’t an open borders proposal like we used to have, but it’s a far more generous immigration policy than the US has had in decades. And my question is, what would be the likely effects of such a policy? What advantages would it have? What disadvantages?

I’ll start: I think it’d result in significantly more immigrants. I think it’d result in a harder time for criminal immigrants, e.g., drug cartel member, since they’d comprise most of the sneaky immigrants to the country, allowing border enforcement to see them more easily. I think it’d be a more humanitarian policy. Since immigrants on balance are a net tax gain, it’d result in a boost to our government budget.

But I’d really like to hear what problems it might have, or what other advantages it might have. And if there’s currently a proposal similar to this one being discussed elsewhere, I’d love to see more about it. It strikes me as a very reasonable approach that I’ve heard nothing about.

My first thought on this is that running a background check on everyone applying would grind the system to a halt and have the opposite effect to the one I assume you want. Imagine trying to run a background check on the million-plus people who currently immigrate to the US each year? Would be pretty ugly and would, I assume, bury the system in red tape.

Myself, I’d base it on something similar to what other countries do. Can you demonstrate employment (or can you invest a million or whatever dollars in a local US business), either because you are currently working in the country on a works program or you have a valid offer of employment from a company working in the US? Do you have a criminal record? Do you have a basic understanding of the laws that will apply to you as a citizen? If all the correct marks are checked you are in…welcome to the US.

I’m not sure why that would be the case. Would an average check take longer than 20 hours, including fingerprints, running criminal checks, interviews, calls to local police, etc.? If the average check takes 20 hours, a worker could clear 100 people a year. Figure 2 million people wanting to immigrant a year; that’s 20,000 workers to clear people. We’ve got 20,000 people working in USCIS currently; doubling that number to process new people doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Again, though, I’m doing very ballpark numbers here, and wold welcome real numbers.

As a political compromise with my preferred option of open borders, I heartily endorse the proposal.

I suspect the background check process can be streamlined and automated more than it currently is, but also recognize that may lead to more gameability of the system. So that may need to be worked on.

I’d take the employment requirement out of XT’s suggestion, but other than that it’s fine. The reason for this is, I think people contribute to the economy by being present for job opportunities, not just by actualy having a job. Sure, while unemployed they’ll be spending money without making money–but spending money is part of the economy. Also there’s more to the importance of residency than strictly monetary economic stuff.

It takes us between 1 and 3 weeks to get one for potential employees. I don’t know what adding a million or so people to the queue would do, but don’t imagine it would be good. I suppose it depends on what exactly your background check entails, though my WAG is it would really depend on how willing you are to spend the money to increase the size of the agency doing the checks and reviewing the results.

So IOW, trust but not verify? I don’t like that. And I’m an immigrant.

What kind of “background check” are you going to run on foreigners? I’m familiar with the term as it relates to gun purchases, but then we’re just checking a database of convicted felons and domestic abusers here in America, where we actually keep and have access to pretty decent records (and even then we’re far from perfect). What kind of a background check are you going to run on someone from Somalia, or war-torn Syria?

The problem isn’t immigration; it’s illegal immigration, and I don’t see how this proposal changes that. If they can’t pass a background check or they haven’t got the three grand, they sneak across the border.

If I got in legally and I want to bring in my family, do they have to pay the $3000 per child/brother/spouse/whatever? What if they are from some country with no record keeping?

Regards,
Shodan

Here are some of the forms required for immigrants from Sudan. Note that you have to get a certificate from your local police saying you’re in the clear. Currently the number of people who can even submit these is very limited: if you’re not a spouse of a US citizen or some other exception, you have to rely on a “diversity lottery” or something like that.

My proposal is that, first, immigrants pay the fees for their own background check; and second, anyone from Sudan or other countries, not just spouses of US citizens, should be able to apply.

What about immigrants from nations that are enemies of the US, such as North Korea? That becomes more difficult, admittedly, and I’m not sure what the best way to handle them would be.

This absolutely changes that. Most of the people who sneak across the border do so because they have no legal path to immigration. Removing all these people from the pool of illegal immigrants would make it much easier to weed out the people doing it because they’d fail a background check.

As for the lack of three grand, those people are generally not crossing our border anyway: “Coyotes” charge $5000-$10,000 to smuggle someone across the border. Granted, I’m not sure how many people come across without paying a coyote; do you have evidence that this is a large number?

Even if there are people who still come without going through the more expansive process, again, their numbers would decrease, and the remaining ones should be easier to find.

Is this Immigration System meant to replace only the current Immigration, or also political asylum? Because in dicatorships, protesters or journalists are labelled “Terrorist supporters” (see e.g. Erdogan) and put in prison. Under Putin, anybody trying to start an Opposition Party is accused of “corruption/ stealing Money” and found guilty.

On the other Hand, in corrupt countries, how do you make sure rich People don’t buy themselves a “Persilschein” from local Police, and thus don’t Show up on during your inquiry?

Also, how do you account for the differences in culture as to what Counts as crime at all? In some countries, homosexual acts are punishable by death by law (hence Gays seeking asylum elsewhere), so they have a criminal record. In some countries, a woman testifying to rape only Counts half, so she might be sentenced for “infidelty” and the rapist get off.

And for those who are vetted, like People who helped the US Army and now want to get out of Iraq before they are killed in Retaliation, it takes years to check. Not weeks or months, years. Because getting documents from a state that had a Regime Change, or denies certain ethnic Groups birth certificates, or where there is not infrastructure to Keep records, is difficult to impossible. (Let aside the cost for getting a certified translator to get everything into English)

So you check two People, one Comes up without a criminal record, because records were destroyed 10 years ago in his Country. The other Comes up, for what is not a crime in the US. First is allowed in, the second is denied. Is that fair? Helpful?

Do you imagine that the local police in Sudan are generally:

A) impeccably incorruptible
B) only slightly corrupt
C) moderately corrupt
D) very corrupt
F) rotting from the head with corruption

If you prefer a numerical answer rather than a letter grade, what % of Sudanese local police do you think would give a certificate saying they are “in the clear” to someone they know is a terrorist in exchange for an appropriately-sized bribe?

ETA: If you’d like to refer to some notes before you answer:

Well, I don’t think you have to worry about North Korea…their citizens aren’t allowed to immigrate, so generally, the only ones who are applying to become US citizens are under a different category (political asylum seekers I presume or something along those lines). That opens a whole 'nother can of worms, of course, wrt your proposal.

I imagine that the answer is the same when they’re asked about spouses of US citizens as when they’re asked about other people. Are you arguing that the US government’s background check procedures for Sudanese immigrants who are married to US citizens are insufficient?

Because if not, I think this is a red herring. You asked what I meant by “background checks,” and I referred you to what the USCIS means by the term. If you disagree, it’s with them, not with me. My proposal would, if anything, strengthen those checks–I’m suggesting that if a check costs $100 an hour to conduct, every immigrant undergo 30 labor hours of checking.

The difference isn’t the strength of the check, except that it becomes stronger; the difference is the number of checks.

If necessary, I could see charging more to immigrants from nations where it’s harder to get good information. In Sudan, do we need more agents on the ground? The system should be self-funding, and if you want to get granular down to the level of country, that could make sense.

An immigrant from Saudi Arabia recently joined her husband in shooting up the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health’s Christmas party. Yes, I think the US government’s vetting of immigrants is insufficient.

That just makes the System more unfair. How is a poor Sudanese going to pay for 100 hours of Research, instead of 30 hours, because his Country is failing and corrupt and thus not all documents available? This only means more opportunity for criminals - because the criminals get rich in bad places, and the poor want to leave for better chances elsewhere.

The System is already set up to be unfair, subjective, and hard to navigate - apparently on purpose to make legal Immigration difficult, then complain about illegal Immigration. If the Goal was to stop illegal Immigration, you don’t want to make it harder, you want to make it fair, objective, useful and reasonable.

It is however unreasonable to expect poor People from Areas with no perspective to meet arbitrary requirements of documentation. It’s also useless to demand blanket documentation without regards to corruption in some countries, different Standards etc.

For that matter, if you want to Keep the “criminals” out, Immigration is the wrong Point - you would want to control entry into the Country. Immigration Comes later, so a more useful Approach would be to look at what Person X has done while living in the US for the past 5 years. Like the DACA / Dreamer program: has the minor gone to School / the Person gone to college and gotten good grades? No record in the US? Finished education and has reasonable chances of getting a Job? Stamp of approval. Easier to administer, more realistic, workable, and objective.

The effect would not only be to slow illegal border-crossings - which are a security risk - but also to get a load of highly motivated People. Everybody who gets to the US, learns the language and finds a Job in 5 or 10 years is much more of an Addition to Society than the 66 year old guy watching Fox News and living on his social security Pension.
Also, allow NGOs to help These People adjust into Society, instead of hindering them.

So is the vetting of all White men who follow racist ideology or have mental health Problems (but can’t get help) and become mass shooters. Because the vast vast majority of terrorists and mass-shooters in the US are White native-Born Americans. It’s just the media usually calls a White mass-shooter “lone gunman” (or mentally disturbed) but a shooter with black Skin Comes from “a culture of violence” (with Brown Skin / Arab looking “Religion of violence”)

Reading up on her, it appears she went to The Al-Huda Institute prior to her immigration. AFAICT, the State Department knew about this and let her in anyway.

Remember the “other metrics” I mentioned above? I could absolutely see having any ties to a Wahhabi institution as an adult being a deal-breaker. This is the sort of thing that a background check would seek to uncover.

This proposal would make legal immigration far easier for the vast majority of would-be immigrants, by virtue of making it possible. I can see arguments on either side of the granularity-of-cost issue. Overall, I’d rather have a general fee, based on the average cost of conducting a thorough background check: if it takes 100 hours on average to conduct a check for someone from Sudan, it might take only 4 hours to conduct one for the average Canadian. Letting would-be immigrants from wealthy nations subsidize the immigration of folks from poorer nations would be A-OK by me.