Bearne wrote:
Quote:
4) And what should be done about illegals? I think a few things.
First, I think that everyone who can prove that they were brought here illegally as a minor should have the ability to spend, say, two years either in the military or in a service program like AmeriCorp, and be granted a green card at the end of it. If this has been the only home you know and you didn't bring yourself here, tossing back to a country where you may not even know the native language or have any relatives that you've met before is cruel. Give them a chance to show they want to be here.
Second, I think that with a nation of over 300 million people across 50 states and a handful of territories, some form of national ID card is the only logical solution. Drivers licenses don't really do the trick. If I have a Virginia license, how is an employer in Colorado supposed to know what it should look like? And not everyone drives.
So I think that, yeah, if you're genuinely serious about illegal immigration, you have to admit that there should be a new National ID card. And that involves admitting that the IRS, Homeland Security, etc., will be able to track you. Set a deadline for everyone to get one, and give employers like a month after that deadline to run everyone's new number through the database. And then send mail to everyone's home address telling them what employer(s) are recording them as employees.
Seriously - we're collectively going to have to decide with trusting the Federal government with a national ID program and more effectively fighting illegal immigration, or leaving the ID structure where it is and accepting that a certain % of our population is here illegally. One or the other, with the size of our country, we can't have both.
Third, we need some sort of guest worker program. There is temporary unskilled labor demand in excess of supply and there always will be. Automatically enroll people who are in the program in a wait list for a green card, and allow them to legally build up credits in Social Security and Medicare. Only allow people to enroll from a consulate or embassy, so they have to leave first in order to get back in the right way. Let, say, 10% of the wait list per year who have a clean record in on a green card, so that people know that it is a legit path, and allow them to apply for citizenship after, say, two years. Vest them in their social benefits once they get their green card.
Fourth, assign a National ID # to every citizen at birth or adoption, and have that, as well as the National ID #s or passport #s of the parents attached to the birth records. Starting about five years after Nat ID is implemented, require not only the birth / adoption records to enroll in public school, but also the school to physically examine the parents' IDs against the records.
Yes, I realize that will have the effect of kicking out minor US citizens whose parents aren't cleared to be here legally. If that makes me a dick, oh well. Let them move back when they're 18 and apply for familial naturalization at that point.
Fifth, enforce the national ID and guest worker rules with schools and employers vigorously. Everyone on the books needs to have a valid National ID # or a valid guest worker #. Without that, it all falls apart. Our problem isn't really the physical ease of crossing the border, it's lax enforcement and employers willing to look the other way. A wall across the desert isn't going to come close to fixing that.
Great thoughts Bearne, thanks for taking the time to put that together. I can agree with much of what you say, but I am concerned with the last portion about law enforcement. You support strong penalties for employers as a means to remove the potential hiring pool and thus reduce the incentive of illegals to come over.
The problem there is two fold, first, law enforcement has a hard time with mandates like this. We have laws to prevent stealing cars, but I wouldn't leave my car unlocked at the mall. Secondly, and most importantly, we cannot remove the incentive to come to America, it is an impossibility. The only way to accomplish that is for the originating countries to improve their own standard of livings to a degree on par with what can be achieved here, and that is mostly out of our hands. What you would create is a risk vs reward play where if employers are harshly punished for hiring illegals, they would simply pay the illegals even less. Since their risk to hire went up, the reward for getting away with it would need to increase commensurately by paying even lower wages. This would exacerbate the problem as immigrants would get paid even less, and therefore need to work more to get by. Local (legal) workers would be competing with this even lower wage pool of workers, and the businesses that do get caught would be punished into bankruptcy, but new businesses would pop in right behind them. I have a feeling you believe the biggest culprits of our problem are fortune 500 companies with thousands of employers. I believe the biggest problem is a hundred thousand businesses with under a dozen employees.
I really like your thought process though, and just because I don’t see a way to implement it successfully doesn’t make it a bad idea. Maybe someone else can figure out the how to part eventually. Until then, I think the best defense we have is to physically stop the border crossings, and as fruitless as that may seem, I can’t see a better way atm.
), but they're worth about $5k. It might even be closer to the beach. Send me a PM Khan if you're interested, he just might sell it to you. 
Too bad I hardly come by any more. I had two people let me know about this thread and I was SO looking forward to some good contention from Khan.
