The reason why the Democratic Party is often accused of supporting “open borders” is because, to the ears of many voters, the practical implications of Democratic policy sounds awfully like…open borders.
Very few Democrats say that they actually support “open borders.” But when asked if the United States should have a wall on its border, most Democrats say “No.” (There are already fences on some parts of the border, but many voters don’t know that.) And when asked if illegal immigrants in America should be deported, most Democrats also say “No.”
The result is that many voters add these two things together, and the product sounds a lot like…“open borders.” To use an analogy, it would be like someone saying, “I do not support shoplifting at Walmart.” But when asked, “Do you support Walmart installing an anti-shoplifting system at its stores?” this person says “No.” When asked, “Should shoplifters be prosecuted?” the person also replies “No.” Then these two things, combined, make it sound like the person does, in fact, condone shoplifting at Walmart, even if that’s not his intention.
I honestly struggle with this. Truth is, I’m disinclined to admit violent criminals even if they have served time for their crimes. But I reserve the right to change my mind on that one to a more lenient position.
If you are discovered to be fleeing justice for a violent crime, you will be denied entry. If you lied about it and somehow managed to be admitted and were later found to have lied, it’s is grounds for deportation unless there are additional mitigating factors, i.e. sufficient evidence of having turned over a new leaf, etc.
ETA: On review, this is not entirely consistent. I think I need more time to think it through.
It’s difficult to have a debate about rational immigration policy when the OP dismisses all the rational immigration policy positions that currently exist. The left is not calling for open borders, and the right is not calling for closed borders (with exceptions on both sides, but generally people in power do not hold either position). The rational position that most left leaning politicians have put forth is a path to citizenship for people that currently are not here legally, but would like to be citizens. Totally rational, totally a mainstream position. The Dream Act was a compromise, a pledge not to deport certain undocumented people, with the hope that eventually we could get them legal status. Again, totally rational, totally mainstream.
Why try to reinvent the wheel, why not just debate current actual policy?
Anyway, to answer the OP:
[ul]
[li]The vast majority of refugees should be accepted, quickly, and given settlement and plenty of support - assuming that they’re not terrorists, nor are they posing as refugees when they actually aren’t;[/li][li]The H1B income requirements ought to be significantly lowered - the Congressional proposed $130,000 requirement is far too high. Make it something like $45,000.[/li][li]People coming from a list of nations designated as US-friendly (Poland, Israel, etc.) should be given higher priority over those who aren’t - unless those coming from US-hostile nations are doing so because of facing persecution or whatnot at home (i.e., Christians in Iran or Saudi Arabia, Ukrainians in Russia-dominated east Ukraine) [/li][li]Deporting all 11 million illegal immigrants would be nearly impossible. Just make them pay a heavy fine (perhaps six figures), over a long period of time, as part of a path to citizenship.[/li][li]The border wall should be built, but with many “refuge stations” where people seeking amnesty can be given temporary shelter until their legal status is determined. Yes, these would be accused of being like concentration camps, since they’re holding a lot of people, but they would be very nice and comfy places. No cages.[/li][li]The path to U.S. citizenship should be shorter. Having to wait decades is a farce. If you make the path to legal citizenship immensely difficult, it’s no surprise that people want to come in illegally. It is also unfair to those who stood in line the proper way.[/li][/ul]
I think you missed the point of the OP. He states precisely what you just said - that the left does ***not ***stand for open borders and the right does ***not ***stand for closed borders.
This has been my position as well with respect to “Sanctuary Cities”. I understand and am sympathetic to the sentiment but I think it serves to create more nationally divisive issues than it solves. There has to be one federal policy that is consistently applied in California and Mississippi.
Too late to edit, but there ought to also be a “fast-track” in immigration and citizenship - indeed, perhaps even akin to a rubber stamp - for any immigrants who are super-educated (i.e., neurosurgeons, Fields Medal winners, scientists with vast research in some particular field) and also the super-wealthy. The latter may be a rather craven move, but if a foreign tycoon wants to come to America and fork out many millions of dollars in tax revenue to Uncle Sam as a citizen, all for the best.
I think this can quickly get into parts of economics and markets discussions that are very far from immigration policy. But it’s my understanding that H1B visas are granted to skilled (IT) technical labor. You don’t have any worries that skilled labor from abroad will undermine domestic skilled labor rates if employers can replace one skilled US citizen for the price of 3 H1B employees? I understand outsourcing is a thing but it’s a bit of a different thing than bringing in labor force at one third the price.
So, if we are going to accept as a given the amnesty of ~12 million folks then, if I were to set the rules, I’d do the following.
Economic Migration
Close the borders to any new immigrants until a verification and enforcement method was adopted nationwide. We can’t be having these every other decade citizenship lotteries that would encourage further illegal migration.
Establish a limit on a per country or a per continent or per some other geographical region for yearly acceptance.
1/2 of that number would be reserved for highly qualified people. The other 1/2 would be basically a lotto.
Might need to figure out a way to end birthright citizenship.
The number for obtaining citizenship in 2018 was ~750,000. Let’s double it to 1.5 million for the total slots for economic migration.
Asylum Migration
This I think we need to handle via international treaty and agreement. Different circumstances require different solutions.
Whatever the plan or policy is ask yourself how is it going to handle mass migration from the consequences of sea level rise and climate change?
If we eliminate the ridiculous proposition that millions of illegal immigrants need to be ejected from the country, the job of LEO to assist in finding and capturing the handful of violent offenders identified by the FEDs should be a drop in the bucket.
Is that true though? Are wages being artificially propped up by H1B visa programs? Or is it more a matter of local economy and standard/cost of living? This may be worthy of a discussion of its own.
Local LEO should be dealing with violent offenders, whatever their immigration status.
They should not, IMHO, be used in enforcing immigration or other federal laws. This is a drain on local resources, and creates unnecessary distrust in any immigrant communities.
I don’t know, I was just basing it off what you said. If an employer can get 3 employees for the price of 1, then that is a net gain for our economy. This is similar to the automation thread. If an employer makes a machine that makes one worker do the work of 3, that should not be prohibited, as it is a benefit to everyone except as a short term detriment to those whose jobs are displaced. I see little difference between cutting costs with automation or with immigration.
I don’t favor open borders or closed borders. But I think we should have a much looser immigration system than we now have. This country was build by immigrants and made stronger by immigrants; as far as I can see, immigrants are good for America.
We should open up paths for ordinary people in Mexico and other countries to legally immigrate to the United States. I feel that the best way to fight illegal immigration is to offer an alternative of legal immigration. Not to everyone, but it should be pretty broad.
And we shouldn’t base on immigration policy on what country a person is coming from. The only thing that matters if where he’s going to. If somebody wants to come to America and become an American, it doesn’t matter if they were born in Canada or Mexico or England or China or Nigeria.
We should enforce laws on illegal immigration at an appropriate level for the threat involved. If somebody enters America illegally and commits crimes here, then he will be arrested by the police like any other criminal and we can deport him as part of his sentence. But if somebody enters America illegally, gets a job and lives peacefully without breaking any laws, then we shouldn’t waste a lot of effort into tracking him down. Use those resources to chase down more serious criminals. If we happen to catch somebody like this, treat it as a minor crime like a traffic offense; fine the guy and let him go.
Explain to me what standard you envision for determining which countries, continents, or geographical regions are good sources for immigrants and which countries are bad sources for immigrants.
I think all we need to do is write into law that any time an illegal immigrant is found in the country, if they are found to be employed then their employer will need to provide evidence that they carried out due diligence in attempting to confirm the person’s status, or face arrest. Given that apparently illegal immigration is a matter of national security, the charge for employers who are illegally providing succor for the invaders shall be Treason.
Is this a one-shot, or an ongoing policy? That is, from now on anyone who can get across the border can stay permanently, or amnesty and then treat future illegal immigrants differently?
We should totally revamp the legal economic immigration process. We should severely curtail any guest worker program so that they are only used for very specialized and highly paid skillsets. If other people want to come over to work temporarily, we should let them as long as there are enough employers, but only on condition that they do become citizens and remain here, rather than going back with their money and skills.
With regards to refugees, I’m, not sure what to do. Maybe we should have a mega-powered UNHCR which would determine how many worldwide refugees there are and allocates a refugee quota based on GDP and population and countries that do not meet this can subsidize the countries that do. I’d bet America would fall behind on this, but then we could basically pay off southeast Europe for being swamped with refugees and thus hopefully reduce the resentment of the refugees there.