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It pains me to say it, but we can't. That's the realpolitik situation we find ourselves in.
We cannot round them all up and send them home. There are not enough planes, trains and automobiles to haul 20 million people out of the country. Even if we could, imagine the humanitarian nightmare it would cause. It would make the Trail of Tears look like an Easter parade.
In light of the hysteria the recent Arizona law has caused, imagine what it would do to our society (and our nation's image) to see footage of tearful families being dragged from their homes and forcibly expelled from The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
So Here is My Solution
Step 1: Secure the Damned Border!
The border is still leaking, and unscrupulous business owners are still hiring illegal immigrants and paying them slave-labor wages. Controlling traffic in and out is a logical first step.
Step 2: Stand and Be Counted!
To proceed to a solution, we must first know who is here, how many, and where. We should offer illegal immigrants a deal: Pop your head up and be counted. In exchange we will give you documentation that allows you to work here, for say 5 years. We may eventually ask you to leave or to go to the back of the line, but if you self-identify and have no criminal record, you've got a clean shot.
Step 3: Mandatory Worker Verification
Part and parcel of securing the border is putting an iron-clad worker verification law in place that harshly punishes the unscrupulous bastards who hire illegal immigrants. Documented foreigners would be eligible to work, but no longer subject to employer abuse.
To proceed to a solution, we must first know who is here, how many, and where. We should offer illegal immigrants a deal: Pop your head up and be counted. In exchange we will give you documentation that allows you to work here, for say 5 years. We may eventually ask you to leave or to go to the back of the line, but if you self-identify and have no criminal record, you've got a clean shot.
Step 3: Mandatory Worker Verification
Part and parcel of securing the border is putting an iron-clad worker verification law in place that harshly punishes the unscrupulous bastards who hire illegal immigrants. Documented foreigners would be eligible to work, but no longer subject to employer abuse.
Step 4: End Birthright Citizenship
Some believe this would require a constitutional amendment, but George Will isn't so sure:
Appropriately, in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his "own will without the action or assent of the United States." And "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent."Step 5: Provide visas and citizenship opportunities based on the needs of the country
... this decision "seemed to establish" that U.S. citizenship is "a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States."
So: "This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the nation illegal."
Yes, this would include "amnesty" for some with a stable history of work and home ownership. But we should not indiscriminately hand out citizenship. Some merely want to be able to legally come in and out of the country to work and visit family. They should be issued visas, not given citizenship.
Steps 1, 3 and 4 will guard against this happening again, since barriers are in place and the major magnets of illegal job opportunities and birthright citizenship have been removed.
The Easy Way: Self Deportation
For my friends who disagree and just want them gone, we could implement steps 1 and 3. Seal the border and bar them from working, and most would self-deport.
Further Reading: RCP - Michael Barone
10 comments:
I still think we should just engage in one last bout of empire building and simply take Mexico. Seize the country and make it ours. Tax the snot outta the touristy stuff and the coastal real estate. And milk the abundant labor pool by migrating more of the stuff we farm out to Asian countries down south.
"We cannot round them all up and send them home. There are not enough planes, trains and automobiles to haul 20 million people out of the country"
Yes we can and have before;
http://christopher-conservativeperspective.blogspot.com/2010/05/three-presidents-deportation-of.html
We have to plug the hole, first. Stop the flow of illegal immigrants, then get to work finding a way to get the ones left here out of here.
Is that going to be painful, to them and to us? You bet. But it is pain they have inflicted on us and pain we have inflicted on ourselves.
So we must bear the pain and get the job done, or else we will cease to be what we should be as a nation.
Christopher: Point taken on the historical facts.
I can't argue with that, other than your Operation Wetback numbers are way too high. 12 million is bogus.
There are no verifiable numbers, but it resulted in over 1 million being deported or leaving voluntarily.
They did it in a different time and without CNN and MSNBC cameras. There was overwhelming support for it in California and Arizona. The political situation is vastly different today.
The larger lesson we should gain from this is that for every person physically deported, 10 more left voluntarily (self-deported).
This goes back to my last paragraph. It feels good to thump our chests and make broad statements, but I would rather deal in the realm of practicality.
nice when illegals have their boot on our neck eh..sick! HAVE A MEANINGFUL Memorial Day weekend my friend!!..:)
When and if people start talking about it more seriously and loudly as not political but rather economical mass deportation will be very PC and be seen as short term cost to an ever-increasing lon-term economic disaster.
Times change, people do not. When faced with facts the political lanscape changes when people learn the true cost of anything, including illegal immigration.
Immediately deport ANYONE with a criminal history (if you could verify it), but I'm also open to creating your path for self deportation.
Oh, and in case anyone missed this yesterday, Doug Ross does a fantastic job of adding up the phenomenal cost of illegal immigration. It's a must read
Unfortunately, too many people see that we cannot deport them all, therefore conclude that the only other alternative is to do nothing.
Moderation in all things. If we start doing what we can, many more will convince themselves that it is not worth the risk of staying and will self deport.
It still won't get rid of them all, but it's a start.
Proof: That's what I'm trying to say. Right and left have cooperated to create a false dichotomy: Deport them all or give them all amnesty.
Take a few positive, humane steps and we're most of the way there.
The other common trap we all fall into is believing in magic bullets (there are none), and thinking a problem will ever be "solved."
It takes work and constant vigilance.
If we stopped educating them for free, if we stopped giving them free or low income housing, if we stopped giving them food stamps and medical care,if we stop grant automatic citizenship to their spawn, maybe they will deport themselves. If they don't, and if they start stealing to meet their needs, then those are the ones that deport by force if necessary. As long as our government keeps giving them aid and comfort, they will stay.
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