That is part of the US Constitution, the 14th .
About 30 do:
We should essentially have a statute of limitations for entering the country illegally, just as we do for many other crimes.
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Perhaps there could be a gradual “buy-in” for immigrant workers. When they have paid more than a set amount of taxes over a set amount of time they would become eligible for gradually increasing amounts of food assistance, health care, subsidized housing, and perhaps some cash for families with young children.
After say, 10 years (3, 7, 15?) of paying taxes they become fully vested and receive the same level of benefits as U.S. citizens. You could spice it up by offering avenues to become vested more quickly in return for say, being a volunteer firefighter or teaching English to other immigrants
OK, not entirely thought out, but:
Anyone who either has employment lined up paying at least the median wage for the job in the part of the country in which they’ll be working, and/or has family members already established in the country who are willing to support them if necessary, can come in on a 5 year visa: provided that they show up at an entry station for inspection, have no convictions for violent crime, and there’s no evidence they’re intending to commit any or to attempt to induce others to do so. (Appeals process is available for persons with such convictions so that exceptions can be made for, for instance, people convicted of a fight many years previously, or convicted of an action that was self defense or committed under duress, or were falsely convicted.)
Anyone who is applying to enter as a refugee can do so even if they don’t have the employment/family members lined up; but they in that case will have to provide evidence that they’re in danger if they can’t come in, as well as to be checked as above for history of violence or attempting to induce others to be violent. If they don’t already know someone who will take them in, they should be willing to go to communities that have support systems set up for them and, if able to do so, to take work there.
Enough people will be hired to do the screening so that waits at entry stations will in most circumstances not be more than a few days, and decent housing, food, and medical care will be provided to those who are waiting. If there’s reasonable suspicion of need for additional checks, such people can be held somewhat longer while those checks are accomplished, but the wait should still be reasonable, and any extended hold time should require a judge’s approval. People will not be separated unwillingly from those they entered with, whether or not there’s a legal family relationship, unless there’s evidence that one or more of a group entering together are in danger from the others. Anyone with serious contagious disease may be held in suitable facilities until the disease is under control and/or they’ve been trained in how not to spread it.
Anyone who does try to circumvent the legal entry process will be arrested, held and investigated for possible charges of terrorism [ETA and investigation of possible trafficking, etcetera], and then either charged with actual crimes (other than attempting to enter) or deported. This will be much easier when such people aren’t hidden among hordes of others who are just trying to get work and/or get out of danger and/or be able to live with their parents or grandchildren or marriage partners or whatever.
People who have been illegally in the USA can also apply for legal entry. They have to go through the screening process, and pay a fine for illegal entry; though the fine can be waived for people brought in by others when they were children. This is a temporary possibility, but will need to remain in effect for some years, both because it’ll take quite a while to get everyone processed and because at first I expect some people will be understandably unwilling to come out of legal hiding before they’re sure that it actually has become possible to become legal residents.
During those five years of the first visa immigrants have to not commit any violent crimes or any serious felonies; to have been working most of the time if work is available that they’re capable of doing (though they can change jobs if the new job also meets the median-wage-for-the-area requirement); and if under, say, age 60 should show evidence they know or are trying to learn English – as this is much harder for some people than for others, evidence of effort, such as showing up at ASL classes, should be sufficient. Such classes shall be made available, and shall include in their instruction basics of USA social structures and laws. Such instruction shall also be made available in other languages. (The English requirement isn’t because there’s anything all that special about English; it’s to some extent because it’s easier if people can communicate with each other so some common language is a good idea, but also to limit exploitation because in the process of learning English people can also learn how to report exploitation and that they can get help to avoid it.)
People who meet the requirements can at that point get either an extended work visa for another five years at the same terms (if they don’t want USA citizenship) or can apply for citizenship and go through that process.
As we need people with a wide range of abilities, there will be no quotas by type of work. As we need people with a wide range of abilities, and in the interests of humanitarian fairness, and in the interest of our not being seen as essentially inimical to people from some parts of the world (it being likely to come back and bite us in the long run if we are so seen as inimical), there will be no quotas by place of origin. As we have no religious test for holding public office, and this fact is IMO an essential part of what it means to be the USA, there will be no religious test for entry.
If it turns out that we do need a quota for total number of immigrants, this number will be adjusted every five years, and worked out by a commission made up of people with relevant training and of multiple backgrounds who will consider both the short term and the long term likely economic and social impacts when spread over the country as a whole. Said commission shall be required to provide a number on schedule; must set it by agreement of at least 3/4 of its members; and must not have more than 50% members of any political affiliation. Other than the political affiliation of being part of the USA, that is.
– Birthright citizenship is IMO essential, because without it, what happens is that a permanent underclass develops, made up of people who have never lived anywhere else and whose parents or even grandparents or further ancestors may never have lived anywhere else, and who effectively are given no home anywhere in the world, even if they technically have citizenship in some country they’ve never actually been part of. This is not only very bad for those in this position, it’s also bad for everyone in the areas which they’re living in, partly because such groups form an exploitable labor force the availability of which reduces labor treatment standards for everyone, but also because people who are refused any proper stake in society have far less incentive to behave properly in it.
Sure- if that’s how you want to word it.
I think it is good to have both a system where people who don’t have their paperwork right (which may be their own fault or not) can be regularized by showing that someone will be willing to hire them and fulfilling other conditions (time limits, showing that the person has skills which aren’t easy to find for that particular location, etc.), and one where immigrants can go to the police if they’re being attacked by criminals, whether this attack is telling them that they have to work under the table/overstay visas/overrun work permits, human trafficking of any kind, sexual attacks, robbery, whatever. When even people who have been naturalized for decades are terrified of the police, that’s not good at all.
Syphoning out the best and brightest won’t help in elevating those other places out of their problems. Brain Drain has been a serious problem for the (not) developing world for decades.
Accepting that economic migration is a perfectly fine thing to do can help emigrants’ countries of origin, though. People who emigrate, make enough money to open up a business Back Home and return, are a big boost in multiple ways: immediate economic boost, but also helping others navigate emigration (including telling stories with the good, the bad and the ugly, so those leaving will have a better idea of where to and why), bringing in new ideas… And people who send money back home also help, if those receiving the money use it wisely (I know several women who meant to do the “return” thing until they discovered what their relatives back home were doing with the remittances, at which point they grabbed their kids and brought them with).
Believe me, I know all that, I’ve been an emigrant for over a decade and sending remittances back home ever since.
I personally know several other people who left my country, and many more anecdotally; from my observations the overall effect of people leaving is detrimental to the development of their country of origin.
For instance, where I come from its a contentious issue when college graduates (that benefited from free education up to university level) leave to work abroad since the investment made by the country ends up, in essence, subsidizing First World countries.
I’m not against people moving into other countries for labour, but every time I read discussions like this one the overall underlying tone I pick up is how to exploit a resource, a kinder version of old colonial attitudes, suggested by the frequency of the argument about the usefulness of immigrants to provide services for the local population, as in the first part of the post I quoted before.
What I hardly ever see is discussion on how to avoid the situation of large number of migrants moving across borders. For example agricultural subsidies by developed countries are a major factor in putting people in undeveloped ones under economic stress; it’s hardly an example of enlightened politics when the farm hand that is allowed to work in the US as a migrant worker has to do so because the economic policies of that same country created the need to leave their country in the first place, that is to say, being driven into poverty and then used as cheap labour, is not exactly nice.
I agree with you, but I don’t know if there’s any reasonable solution to the problem. Country A invests a huge amount of money into the upbringing and education of a young person who then moves to Country B in his 20’s. How should Country B compensate Country A? Country B could institute government-to-government remittances, but that’s not going to be very popular with the Country B natives. Country B could mandate immigrants make payments to their home countries, but enforcing that’s going to require administration and would act as a disincentive to immigration. There’s foreign aid, educational exchange and support, and government support of multi-national education systems, but those are all drops in the bucket.
Not sure I can agree that everyone who is here illegally gets to remain, as it’s a bit unfair to the people who are waiting patiently through a huge backlog to immigrate by the rules. But, maybe it won’t matter as my thoughts on a rational policy might render it somewhat moot.
Basically, I think there are several key issues with our current policies towards immigration. One has more to do with work Visa’s. IMHO, we don’t issue enough of them. Clearly, there is work that needs to be done, and there are workers ready and willing to do it south of the border. We should loosen up work allowances for people who don’t want to necessarily become US citizens but who just want work. That way, a majority of folks who are here illegally could be here legally.
In addition, there is as noted a huge backlog of folks trying to immigrate to the US and become US citizens. We need a better process for this. IMHO, on the one hand we should open up the slots and refine the process. It’s too slow, too cumbersome and there is too much red tape. On the other hand, we should be able to be more selective for immigrants in today’s day and age. Many other countries have fairly stiff criteria for who they allow in. I think we should continue with the policy of allowing in people who have a family connection, but the majority I’d say they need to be bringing critical skills or large investments to become citizens. As I said, this is something that many other countries do, and there is no reason the US couldn’t do it (we actually DO this, to an extent, but I’m saying we open things up while refining our criteria). We will still allow those seeking asylum, of course, and this process too needs better refinement.
IOW, we need to make the whole process more coherent and less of a huge, ridiculous burden of bureaucracy and red tape. Currently, the US brings in around a million immigrants a year. That’s definitely a lot, but it’s not more than we can handle and we don’t have ‘too many already’. But the backlog, each year, is something like 7-10 million…which, in effect, means the waiting list is 7-10 years or more. That is, frankly, ridiculous. Couple that with the tightening border restrictions which have trapped many migrant workers who just came here for the work and would have just gone home (except now if they go home they don’t know if they can come back) and you have a perfect storm of fuck up. Instead, open up the work program systems (we had these in the past and they worked well for migrant workers) for those who just want to come here to work and go home, and open or loosen things up so they can do so. Open up the number of slots per year, and clear out some of the more egregious red tape and bureaucratic horseshit on legal immigration, but for those who don’t have family in the US tighten up our requirements for those seeking entrance. Asylum seekers should probably be handled a lot better, streamlining the process and handling of those who are fleeing bad situations back home…something like the decompression facilities we used in the past to acclimate people to the US, teach them what they need to know and how the system works, training, whatever, as well as good medical care and decent food.
Oh, and if it were me, I’d start to look into the US doing a lot more in Central and South America wrt manufacturing. We could do what China is doing, which is to shift it’s manufacturing to neighboring countries. We never have put a lot of investment or time into the region, except in agriculture, and it was never a top down effort, rather it was an each company for itself doing whatever it wanted and exploiting as much as it could. Instead, I’d like to see a more coherent plan to invest in the region, to build supply and logistic chains there, and to move a lot of our manufacturing there. It will have a two fold benefit. We will get cheap goods with smaller logistics chains to bring them here and we will get increasingly wealthy neighbors…neighbors who would then be in a position to increasingly buy our goods and services. It’s a win/win, and not in the Chinese sense of the term (which translates from Mandarin as we win and everyone else loses :p).
Those are my thoughts on a more rational plan, FWIW.
How do you get past the fact that every day they are here, they are violating that same crime?
Please submit your workable solution for removing 11.5M people.
We should change the law, or if not, then ignore this, because the vast majority of these folks are decent, hardworking people who contribute to their community and would make wonderful Americans.
Why? Who would want to deport 11 million people (most of them are surely working)? I can almost guarantee you there are very few people who really want all those workers gone. Not Republicans, not Democrats.
What I want done is for them to go through the proper channels. With that many people here illegally, the US hasn’t suffered any catastrophic losses, but they do need to be documented. That number alone shows that the current work Visa program probably includes those who come over illegally into whatever calculations they use for yearly work visas.
The allowance for work visas currently is not all that high. I used to offer visas for some of my general labor (@$600/pp) , I have no idea how high it is now but given the choice, they would have rather come over illegally and paid a coyote in the thousands of dollars. Why? I don’t really know.
I don’t really disagree with this but getting documented is a first step. Figuring out that they jumped the line, those people are probably not going to be received well by the others who have stood in line and those STILL standing in line to get in though.
Then why raise the point of them ‘daily breaking the law’?
No controversy here. Letting them stay certainly implies changing their status to legal residents.
Well, for a start, delaying their eligibility for full citizenship status may be a reasonable way to address that.
Maybe I’m missing something, but why is that our problem or obligation? I’m not saying we should go recruit people to come live in the US or in some way actively entice them, but if they want to come here, and they’re the best and brightest, we should welcome them.
It isn’t even any sort of problem…it’s a feature. And one we have and should continue to take advantage of. If highly skilled people can’t find good work in their home countries, by all means they should be able to take their skills to some place where they can get what they want. And I think the US should be such a place.