IMMIGRATION

Illegal immigration is an emotional issue because it makes Americans feel violated, like a robber has broken into our house. The way we deal with this issue is to think about what motivates people to come to this country. The two primary motivations we see are the desire for a better economic life and the ability to let there children grow up as American citizens. The way to avoid those motivations is to cut them off at the root.

The first motivation is economic. The way we eliminate hiring of illegal immigrants is to provide a severe penalty for those that hire them but with a safe harbor provisions to make it easy to comply with the law. We know that the most likely way to trace individuals is with a social security number. If we provided an on-line history of the prior five years social security earnings the employer could verify that data against the employment application. In addition the social security administration could alert all employers where they receive double payments for the same number. This could allow investigation into potential stolen numbers. Currently most employers either ignore the law or do there required investigation but then the government turns a blind eye. The government has an incentive to ignore illegal contributions for benefits that they know they will not need to pay out so they can help keep the current system solvent.

It is far too easy for the Federal government to collect revenue with no expense while the State and Local governments pay out benefits for which they receive no compensation. To break this cycle we need to have the government start putting the rights of citizen’s first and not economic greed.

A good guest worker program will allow employers to sponsor brining in workers for specific needs, but they would be economically liable for there leaving at the end of the period. If the employer posted a $10,000 bond for workers that did not leave at the end of 3 years, then the employer would have an incentive to make sure that there was compliance with the law.

The second change is we should only allow children of citizens be allowed to have automatic citizenship. If the parents cannot demonstrate valid citizenship then the children will be denied citizenship. This eliminates one of the primary reasons for immigration.

The current approach of letting poor immigrants in while simultaneously limiting access by well educated immigrants is upside down. We should be encouraging well trained immigrants and discouraging the un-educated. This bias against the well educated is rooted in a “slave” mentality of believing that we need lots of low wage workers wile protecting our college bound. Wealth, the engine that drives economic growth, is a result of the creation of new goods and services. Those are not created primarily by the poor but instead by the well educated. If we are to increase wealth in this country we need to have the types of individuals that will be willing to relocate to pursue there dreams.

Building a fence, while politically popular is just a boondoggle. We should use the best surveillance and protection we can, we should not believe that this will stop immigration – only stopping the reasons that immigrants come here will we stop the flow.