My passion for this issue stems from a concern for the struggle that illegal immigrants face in this country along with foresight on how this problem grows over time. It’s National Security Debt. And this is a bipartisan argument for resolving this mess now.
So … Thirty-Five Pages on Illegal Immigration …
In 10,000 words, I’m going to provide you with the realest summary of why it’s a painful issue for everyone involved. You’ll be able to empathize with what illegal immigrants are going through in this country. I’m going to try to describe what that’s like, but I don’t actually know any illegal immigrants, so you’ll have to forgive me for that. And as much as you can try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you’ll never truly know how that feels until you’re there.
Illegal Immigration is Going to Hurt, Whether You Are:
★ From A Family with Four Hundred Year Old Roots in America
★ The Child of Immigrant Parents Who Struggled to Get Here
★ Part of a Family Who Illegally Crossed into America Chasing Opportunity
I challenge you to read this and retain the opinion that someone with my opinions is short-sighted on this issue or that I don’t know my stuff or that I don’t care.
Illegal immigration is a serious long-term issue. Not to be alarmist, but it’s a bit of a powder keg. The further we let it go on, the worse it gets. Regardless of who’s side you’re on, you need to hear me out. The truth is, there aren’t “sides” on this issue; it is painful for everyone involved.
First of all, if you strongly disagree with this article, then I want you to reach out to me. But I also want you to read Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It’s free. It’s short. Read one with some commentary or something. You can probably read it in an hour or two. Read that and then tell me about how I’m wrong.
Illegal Immigration is Painful for Everyone
★ Citizens Since or Before the Baby Boomer Generation
★ Citizens Since or After Generation X
★ Immigrants on Visa
★ Illegal Immigrants
★ This Issue Makes America Vulnerable
Why is it Challenging?
★ The Debate Isn’t Structured Properly
★ The Pros Don’t Outweigh the Cons
★ A Disorganized Approach is Detrimental
★ Lackluster Solutions
★ Amnesty is Difficult to Structure Properly
★ Lack of Standard Identification
★ Proclamation of Amnesty is Essentially Advertisement for Citizenship
★ Massive Deportations
★ Future Consequences of Inaction and Poor Policy!
★ Long-Term Ethnic Tension is Social Agony
★ Simultaneous Tensions Between Multiple Ethnicities is a Disaster
Why Is It A Problem?
★ National Security
Other Problems Related to Illegal Immigration
★ Lost Jobs
★ Unpaid Income Tax
★ Lack of Employment Rights
★ Cultural Isolation
★ Policies as Response Encourage More Isolation
★ Unintended Free Market Response to Policy Response
★ Disparity in Education and Government Services
★ Identification and Proof of Citizenship
★ Burden of Cost is On Taxpayers
★ Fractured Families
★ Can’t Announce Policy Changes
★ Stifled Policy Debate
Goals For an Ideal Policy
★ Stop Illegal Immigration
★ Mitigate Long-Term Social and Cultural Problems
★ Robust and Well-Thought Out
★ Equitable and Fair
★ Efficient with Clear Long-Term Goals
★ We Stick To It
What are the Answers?
★ Transitionary Program
★ The Wall
★ Address Foreign ID Card Standards
★ Economic Policy
★ Attention and Compromise from Both Parties
Illegal Immigration Indicates a Failure of Border Security
Furthermore, I’ll elaborate on how illegal immigration contributes to other problems the country is facing. It’s an indication of a failure of border security. I’ll discuss the challenges facing a resolution of illegal immigration. These include challenges that are cultural, financial, strategic or political. For example, publicly announcing the policy details will change behavior. If we say “Free amnesty! Citizenship for anyone for three months,” what do you think that will do? People might rush the border.
We can’t solve this problem until we prevent people from entering the country illegally
Amnesty doesn’t exactly solve the problem, by the way. People can still come here illegally, so what does that do anyways? The debate on this issue is ridiculous. This is why we need a wall. I hate the !@#$ing wall, but we need it. The wall is mostly a symbol, by the way. I don’t care what the !@#$ it is, so long as it means that the number of people crossing the border slows to a trickle.
Illegal Immigration is Painful for Everyone
Illegal immigration is an issue where everyone is affected, regardless of how it personally affects you. It’s an issue where everyone should want to pursue policy changes for their own benefit. Instead, the debate in this country frames the discussion in terms of race and ethnicity. This is counterproductive because there are domestic policy changes would would be beneficial for everyone, even the people here illegally! And my motivation for writing this is partly derived from my concern for the problems they face.
In an oversimplification, I’m going to divide families and people living in America into four classes of citizenship. There are those who have been citizens since the Baby Boomer generation or before. Next, there are American families who have been citizens since or after Generation X. These are more recent immigrants. Third, there are immigrants working or studying in the country on a visa. I would include those staying on an expired visa in this class. Finally, there are illegal immigrants, who entered the country illegally.
Again, an oversimplification, but our domestic policies towards illegal immigration affect each set differently.
Why draw this distinction between families who have been here since the sixties and those who are more recent immigrants? Aren’t we all equally US Citizens? In the eyes of the law, yes. For all intensive purposes, yes. I’m not arguing some people are more American and others are less American. However, this issue is nuanced in regard to various demographics.
Citizens Since or Before the Baby Boomer Generation
These are families that have been in America for around three or more generations. These families have deeper roots and are well connected in their local communities. This means they have well-established support networks to lean on when things go wrong. They probably have a few dozen family members they could rely on possibly in their own city. There is no language barrier.
This group of people essentially wants the same things as others, but in a different way, as they’ve benefitted from our society and its systems for generations. Obviously some people in society face more challenges than others and have differing viewpoints as to how and why those problems exist. But, if they believe in the American Dream, then they want to offer others the chance to partake in the system they see as beneficial.
However, they still want strong immigration policy. They don’t want that system to be threatened by massive numbers of undocumented immigrants bypassing those immigration procedures. if members of this group of people understood the true long-term threat this posed, they would be angry about it. Again, this issue is a problem precisely because it’s subtle and long-term.
Citizens Since or After Generation X
Families and people who have became citizens in the past generation or two are going to feel differently on this issue. I think we also need to recognize that almost every family in America is a family of immigrants, in one way or another. For some who are more recent, they might not have such extensive roots. When things go wrong, it might be harder for them to reach out. Language can sometimes present a barrier for first generation citizens, but that’s eased over time. Still, it can present challenges, making it harder to reach out. Or they can become isolated.
Also, these more recent immigrants are going to view this issue differently. For people who saved and worked hard to get here and the worked hard to settle here, having tons of people just walk in to receive amnesty a few generations later might rub them the wrong way. Also, fairly strict and equally enforced immigration policy means that we know a bit about the people who are coming here and we’re making sure those who do can help us continue to make America greater.
Illegal immigration isn’t going to be as emotionally relevant to non-hispanic ethnicities. They’re not going to identify as personally to the issue. They just aren’t. We have to take this into account in a respectful, emotionally intelligent way. To stifle all discussion here leads us to inaction and that makes the eventual resolution of the problem more painful.
If hispanic residents are feeling the effects ethnic discrimination, that’s going to exacerbate tension hispanic communities with both legal and illegal residents. When they are citizens and have been, how do you think that’s going to make these people feel? Remember, these are people who worked hard to find a way to get here. they came to america for a reason, even though it was tough. If effects from such treatment are serious, that further isolates families who would probably otherwise be very patriotic!
Immigrants on Visa
Aside from illegal immigrants, legal immigrants working or studying on a visa might be the least integrated people. Further still, a resident on visa who’s not planning on staying might not be trying to establish as many connections. This grouping of American residents should include people who are here because they overstayed their visa or whatever. I don’t know why. Just because.
These immigrants help strengthen our economy and fill in gaps for skills we lack. If you’re willing to move across the world, you’re willing to work hard. Yes, even if you are an illegal immigrant. If you decide there’s somewhere with better opportunity and you pick yourself and your family up and you move across the world, you are willing to make sacrifices and you’re willing to work hard.
And these immigrants help contribute to diverse culture. I’ve linked several times to this article on diversity as a strength. I also rediscovered this post titled The Unknown - Monumental Accidents I wrote in May and it’s actually better. It’s part of the Facets of Greatness series, but also has a section on how diversity strengthens America.
The most important point to emphacize here is: these immigrants respected the law and procedures when they applied for the opportunity to come here. I don’t think they are too happy about those who didn’t. They are not going to be very happy about discrimination and tension stirred up as a result of illegal immigration. They might not have the same opinion on the cause of that and there’s never any excuse for such discrimination, but that shit hurts and now these legal immigrants are feeling it too!
I’ve Been There, Too … Well Kinda
I’ve been in similar positions, where I moved to a place specifically because I didn’t know anyone and I wanted a fresh start. I went through some serious problems, partially because I’m a bit quite. It was tough being alone and I know that there weren’t many people who wanted me to succeed.
There were other times when I was in a new place and I met some really amazing people. and they knew I had just moved a dozen or more hours away from home, where I didn’t know anyone. And instead of waiting for me to make the first move, they worked hard to make me feel comfortable. They made sure I was included and wanted to get to know me. I’ll never forget what that feels like and I’ve been there several times too. In fact, these people are everywhere, but there aren’t nearly enough of them.
Which Experience Would You Prefer? What Do You Value?
And so, which experience would you prefer? If we could make one or the other experience happen more often in this country, which should it be? Obviously, the kind of experience where we connect with other people. Again and again, I stress that isolating people is bad. That’s a really, really bad thing. We need to encourage connection. We need to fight terror with love. Those damned souls who lead terror organizations know how to stir up people to fight with lies and deception, especially those who wouldn’t otherwise pick up guns if they knew the whole story! So we should help people, but at the same time, we don’t want to just let such radicalizing forces into our own country!
I’d Love to Live in Japan
And I can’t imagine what it’d be like to move somewhere where I’m just learning the language. I want to move to Japan sometime. That’d be awesome and the language immersion would be great for me. I really like the culture. And the food, 美味しい！ And the cosplayers’ scene! lulz
Illegal Immigrants
Illegal immigrants are perhaps the worst off in this whole situation. Accuse me of racism if you want, but it’s actually empathy with this group of people that encourages me to seek resolution as soon as possible. Because, no matter how you slice it, inaction on this issue is going to cause worse problems for this group of people. Regardless of how you feel on solutions to this issue, resolving it as soon as possible is in their best interest.
No, That Issue Is Not to Be Used as a Political Tool
So … yeh … keep going with those accusations. Because they’re not true and I’m like rubber: it will end up sticking to you. Many of my enemies know these accusations are not true, but if they can get it to stick, it’s just so effective at disempowering political opposition. And that’s what makes me so mad. That’s a sensitive issue. It’s not to be used as a political tool. If you do, you are the worst and, if you do portray someone in this light falsely for political gain, you do not care about the issue. So just stop acting like you care. It really makes me mad.
If you read this article, you’ll understand, but I’m doing you a favor honestly. Because the more I convince you to dig deeper with your delusional arguments, the more the situation will eventually swing in my favor… People will understand that I care. And they will come together. And we will conquer this shit.
Again, these people are the worst off in this situation. The policies at the state and federal level seek to punish employers for hiring illegal immigrants. This makes sense, but it has the unintended consequence of making things tough for people who just wanted a better life. And, they were willing to risk themselves and their families to seek out the American Dream! Again, I don’t care who you are or how you got here: if you relocated your family across the world because you thought it’d lead to better lives, you’re willing to work hard.
By Definition, They Are Criminals
I do kinda care how you got here because if you came here illegally, you broke the law getting here and you are breaking the law by being here. btw, illegal immigrants are criminals, by definition But this statement doesn’t actually make any judgements about their character. By definition someone labelled as an “illegal immigrant” must have committed the crime of entering the country illegally. That’s it. Why is that controversial? Please, accept reality here. This is serious and we need to handle it. There are solutions, lets make them happen so we can move on.
But it’s tough out there for people who are here illegally, so I empathize with your situation. Most of these people are of good character and only came here for one of the following reasons. They were fleeing hard circumstances in latin america, south america or elsewhere. Or they wanted to pursue the american dream for themselves or their children. We spend so much effort and money exporting the American Dream, but we’re going to get mad when people want in on that?
Unfortunately, the effects from illegal immigration affect people differently along generational and ethnic lines. Hispanic families who’ve been here since the sixties may feel much differently about policies than those who immigrated here in the nineties. But both families may feel the effects of misappropriated prejudice … as if prejudice could ever be properly appropriated.
As more people illegally cross into America, the effects of this issue and those nuanced responses to it become more pronounced. It stirs up tensions in America along ethnic boundaries, causing people who are long-time US citizens to get hurt for no good reason at all. Our own citizens are redirecting the tension on themselves, further straining tensions along ethnic boundaries.
This Issue Makes America Vulnerable
A third party can approach this issue in an obtuse manner to demoralize us, using it as rhetoric against America. When it’s career suicide to mistakenly state a single politically incorrect phrase, the discussion stagnates on this issue and others. There’s a good reason for strong response to insensitive and politically incorrect statements. But, in a democracy, silencing that discussion can enable internal and external factions to stifle change. It prevents America from responding to America’s problems.
For illegal immigration, lack of dialogue here means failure to act on an issue that should be simple to fix. Over the course of decades, this leads to serious problems. In and of itself, the issue isn’t that big of a deal. Downstream, inaction with this specific issue intensifies problems described later on. Those downstream problems are issues that foreign powers can subtly use to further demoralize and destabilize America by highlighting ethnic tensions.
Read Diversity is America’s Strength
Why is it Challenging?
Why is it such a hard problem to tackle? Honestly, America has way bigger problems at the moment. Yet, the more time passes, the harder this becomes to resolve. The solutions will be more expensive and tensions will be higher, stagnating policy change.
The Debate Isn’t Structured Properly
The illegal immigration debate in America is messy. The PC police prevent people from making specific statements. Without those statements you can’t complete a coherent arguement to relay to the public. Without the public being aware of how this problem impacts us in 2025, if unmitigated, then we can’t move forward on it in a democracy.
For the most part, it’s great that people are restrained from making statements that could lead to ethnic tension. However, that’s not the case if blacklisting specific propositions of an argument restrains us from implementing the right public policy. This is especially true when inaction otherwise leads to a drastically worse situation.
The Pros Don’t Outweigh the Cons
There just aren’t enough perceived benefits to justify the cost in political capital from either side. We were entirely focused on health care from 2008 through 2014. Since Ferguson, everyone’s been focused on the BlackLivesMatter protests and mounting tensions between countries. And 2016 has been completely defined news so tragically shocking and weird that I question the nature of reality every single day. I’m pretty smart. If I can’t figure out what the fuck is going on…
Basically, combined with ever-restrictive, silently pervasive filter bubbles in social media, this atmosphere in the media furthers an already languishing debate. On illegal immigration. On any issue. This trend has fully materialized in the past few months. We’ll never get anywhere with this debate. People don’t understand that the problem gets worse as time goes on.
But yet, AFAIK, democrats want to trade respect for law and immigration procedures for a dozen million new votes via amnesty, without building a wall. How’s that gonna work? Oh… more votes. I get it.
However, if being “tolerant” means tiptoeing around immigration and if it’s racist to say that there are people in this country who came here illegally, how the !@#$ are we going to resolve these problems? And if you supposedly stand opposed to intolerance and racism, I hate to tell you, but your inaction here is going to make those problems worse!
The lack of incentive to solve is precisely why illegal immigration is so dangerous. It’s subtle. It wasn’t addressed in the late nineties and it was basically a hot potato in the aughties.
A Disorganized Approach is Detrimental
Any concerted strategy for solving the problem requires some element of secrecy to be effectively implemented to prevent any unintended response. This necessitates circumventing the democratic process in Congress, not to pass laws, but for discussion. If you can’t openly discuss something or suggest tactics because of it, then it’s hard to put it into action in a democratic system.
Lack of discussion means that if the strategy changes from year to year and from term to term, our people and their representatives aren’t going to be as aware of policy decisions. Because of that, they are likely to change fairly quickly.
I’m sure that most of our congressmen and their staff are well-informed on the issue of immigration. I’m sure they know the specifics of these policies. They get into their position because: they’re good at making just decisions; they’re good at working a network of information gathering to facilitate those decisions; and they know how to work with other people and balance interests. It’s not like they believe it’s not important. However, it’s generally true of any secret policy that it’s a harder to discuss particular details or future policy decisions.
Lack of discussion presents challenges in maintaining a coordinated, coherent strategy. If it’s more challenging to coordinate how the strategy changes from term to term – because of secrecy – then can we be sure that certain long-term tactics are properly executed and certain long-term objectives are met?
Lackluster Solutions
There aren’t any great answers and no one wants to let us hurt anyone’s feelings. The southern border with mexico is huge. It’s hard to justify the expense of a wall, but for that we need to think outside the box.
Amnesty is Difficult to Structure Properly
Amnesty’s a legal nightmare and possibly a policy quagmire. Depending on how something like that is implemented, it will be a bureaucratic mess creating another government agency that persists for decades and steadily grows.
Have you ever seen a federal bureaucracy on a hunger strike? Neither have I! They just feed themselves. End of year budget’s like a shell game to justify increases, year after year.
Further to the point, some amnesty implementations completely disregard legitimate immigration procedures and respect for the law. What signal does that send to the people who dreamed big and worked hard to get here?
Lack of Standard Identification
This is a national security mess. How does one prove identity? How do we know you are who you say you are. All that talk about Real ID and then we just hand ID’s out to anyone that walks in. Basically, you just pick yours up at Kroger.
No Photo ID? No documents? How are you going to handle those situations? I’m sure that someone has thought about this way more than I have.
Proclamation of Amnesty is Essentially Advertisement for Citizenship
This is one of those apsects that makes this problem so difficult to resolve. You can’t announce amnesty or anything like it, until we’ve fixed the root problem. Doing so would be irresponsible. There won’t be a massive rush for the border, but the numbers will increase, especially depending on the particular details.
The proclamation of an amnesty program is tantamount to advertising free citizenship for anyone who can make it in in time. And there is no way to implement amnesty in enough time to avoid a massive influx of illegal immigration. You can’t just snap your fingers. That kind of stuff takes time! Most of the progress could occur in about five years, but there’s no way we could complete something like this in ten years. I don’t think.
Some illegal immigrants are great people and I think we should figure out a way to provide some means of getting citizenship. Somehow. This is discussed more, later on.
Massive Deportations
Does anyone really want to talk about this? No. I don’t. But seriously, what are we going to do? Again, inaction makes the problem worse. And the people in this country don’t get that. They’re so afraid to hurt someone’s feelings by saying the wrong thing that they’d rather knowingly let the whole damn thing become a powder keg by 2025.
And think about it, most of the policies that people have supported up to now haven’t stopped the influx of immigrants. Massive deportation may work, but is equally riddled with problems. How do we identify people in a fair way that prevents us from discriminating? Obviously, there’s a risk for racism and painful discrimination! We have to get the right people on board, so we’re not mistakenly hurting our own citizens here. And, to some degree, we may be able to mitigate this risk with technology.
Future Consequences of Inaction and Poor Policy!
With each year that passes, the consequences of inaction become increasingly severe, including long-lasting cultural problems!
E.G. You put up a forcefield and stop people from entering the country. You then grant everyone amnesty. Ok, problem solved, right? WRONG!! Now you have a dozen million people, potentially bitter, who lack the same level of education. They don’t have resumes and they don’t have very much money either.
So, have you actually thought out how these policies will play out? OK, so then, aside from national security, what is the single, worst aspect of illegal immigration? It is the cultural isolation. The de facto consequences here might as well be segregation. And we absolutely can not have a segment of our population, long deprived of education and employment opportunities, who is isolated along mostly ethnic boundaries!
Long-term Ethnic Tension is Agony
I cannot emphasize this enough. That kind of crap ferments longstanding ethnic tension. The kind of problems that cannot simply be resolved. And yet, our inaction is going to further contribute to this? Tearing down the real segregation was bad enough. Five decades later and we’re still dealing with long-term cultural problems from that. And … we want another source of problems like that? Hell no!
Read Diversity is America’s Strength. The section on Embracing Diversity from the Facets of Greatness series is better though.
Simultaneous Tensions Between Multiple Ethnicities is a Disaster
These past two years, the nation has been intensely focused on ethnic tensions, originally stemming from the Ferguson protests. The attention there was entirely warranted by the way, even though it’s getting way out of hand! I can’t believe what happened in Dallas!
So there are major ethnic tensions in the African American community. That’s not what I’m writing about, but regardless of how you feel about them, what happens when you add growing ethnic tension in the Hispanic community stemming from illegal immigration? At the same time?! That combination could fracture this country!
We really have to stop and ask ourselves: what sacrifices are we going to make to ensure this country doesn’t fall apart!
Again, you need to read my article Diversity is America’s Strength. I was dead serious when I said that “America is a microcosm of the world, with respect to ethnic issues and diversity!” What happens here is indicitive to how things will play out in the rest of the world by 2050. If we can’t make it work here, in America, with 300 million people and plenty of wealth, how can we expect to make peace amoung nations work across the globe?
Why Is It A Problem?
So, why should you care about illegal immigration? Why is it a problem? Why is it your problem?
It’s an issue that’s felt differently for different groups of people, but if you care about problems stemming from ethnic tensions, then you would want to resolve this earlier than later. That’s because every year there’s a larger population of undocumented immigrants. And the larger the disparity there is between legal and illegal populations, the larger the ethnic tension there will be. There are eleven million people in the United States illegally. That’s about 3% of the US population. If instead, there were 20 million people, then that approaches 5% or 6%, if you measure against US population at that time. So, we already have to deal with about 1 in 50 people. Think about the situation and how it affects internal issues when we have to worry about 1 in 20 people!
So again, if you care about fallout from ethnic tension, then you’ll want to do something about it sooner than later. I’m tired of explaining myself on what should be a minor issue.
National Security
Far and beyond, the biggest problem here is national security. You just can’t. Not in the 21st century. Not in America. We have millions of people crossing the border? And we’re paying to deal with the consequences of it? In political capital? In government resources? In terms of the growing strife amoung our people? And we don’t know who these people are? That’s just a giant red flag!
We’re worried about Al Qaeda … but eleven million people just walked on in? Man, that’s eleven million chances for some terrible organization to have already snuck someone in. It wouldn’t surprise me if Homeland Security hasn’t already identified dozens of people who have done just that.
And then to lambast the Republican nominee for pointing this out because he’s worried that eleven million undocumented immigrants might contain people who cause problems or are just flat out enemies of the state? Yeh, there is a better way to word the things he said. It’s pretty terrible to make those statements, but my counterpoint is that you can’t even make statements tangential to my point that eleven million people could contain enemies of the state.
Am I crazy here? I mean I don’t want to open a pandora’s box of racism because it’s horrible. But we can’t even manage our own damn country because we’re worried about hurting people’s feelings. My feelings are going to get pretty hurt if ethnic tensions spread to combine with others and cause our country to suffer serious consequences. And we could have stopped it, but didn’t because we might hurt someone’s feelings.
I’d like to distance myself from the way Donald Trump said what he did, but it’s important to note the none of the eleven million individuals who illegally crossed the border came here because they wanted to surprise hundreds of Americans with giftboxes, filled with candy and a bottle of wine. They came here out of self-interest. So, they’re getting what they want, giving us a headache with all the stifled discussion and then possibly contributing to a perfect storm of ethnic conflict by 2030.
And we can’t talk about it, but Democrats can all but openly talk about using this population for more votes. What the fuck?! If you really cared, you’d be talking more about the challenges this population will face once they get their ID card and citizenship. Gotta get their vote and public support first, eh?
Just so I got this right, let me recap. There’s water in the cargo hold, we can’t talk about the leak and you’d like us to take on some more water – and possibly some suicide bombers – just so you can get a stronger grip on the ship’s wheel? I don’t think so. We’re going to solve the problem at it’s root. We’re going to do so responsibly. It’s going to happen, starting now because otherwise it’s going get messier and uglier and nobody wants that! And you’re going to help or you’re going to GTFO.
Basically, it’s a national security problem in many ways.
<a name=”problems-related-to-illegal-immigration”
Problems Related to Illegal Immigration
Lost Jobs
Let me just get this out of the way because I’m going to torch this straw man. The jobs that are being taken are really the least of our concerns. If our concern is lost jobs, we should be more concerned about those sent overseas.
Yes, it may disproportionately affect some industries. It’s partially because these industries are vulnerable to it in that the structure of their finances lends itself to easily dispensing cash illegally.
… And they say I’m a business failure. Ha!
Unpaid Income Tax
Illegal immigrants don’t pay income taxes. They don’t make very much money, especially since state and federal laws are cracking down against businesses who are caught hiring them.
Their labor isn’t quantified by businesses in the same way as other contractors or employees would be. This encourages sketchy book keeping practices to hide payments. That’s just bad business. Any accounting system which needs to account for swapping money between accounts and withdrawing cash for payment becomes necessarily more complex, which makes it easier to cover other illegal behavior.
And I believe cooking the books is a separate crime itself. Now you have two criminals: the illegal immigrant and the person who hired them.
Lack of Employment Rights
Illegal immigrants don’t have employment rights. This can lead to tension. They can’t expect contracts to be enforced and I imagine moot contracts leads to unclear statements of work and/or service level agreements. The lack of clearly stated requirements for work leads to disputes where, basically, they have to do what someone says or they don’t get paid.
There’s no authority in their employment environment that they can rely on to provide fair arbitration in case of a dispute. They can’t\ receive worker’s comp or protection from OSHA. Any injury on the job could result in major legal consequences for both the person and their employer. After an accident requiring hospitalization, employee health and safety should be the number one priority. Instead, both parties here have an incentive to handle the situation to protect their own interests. I imagine that leading to seriously fucked up situations where someone is injured and loses future income, while simultaneously dealing with an angry employer and potential legal consequences.
These and other situations lead to increased tension, risk and abuse in illegal employment agreements, where they have no options for recompense. Ask any union member whether they’d work without oversight from OSHA or Worker’s Comp. What would they say if you told them you heard of a guy who got fired for breaking his arm, who never got paid and received delayed medical care.
If you’re on the left and it doesn’t concern you that, in our ambivalence, we have created a situation where there are people out there who are not covered by protection of rights as an employee, you should be livid!
Cultural Isolation
Let me start out by saying that the situation as it is now is moving towards one frighteningly similar to segregation under Jim Crow laws! Again, there are people out there who should be livid. We understand the damage done by cultural isolation, right? Good. Let’s fix this shit and bring people together. Otherwise, our inaction implies that we are implicit in creating a situation that may lead to long-term issues along ethnic lines.
Since they can’t get into trouble that results in legal action, these people will become culturally isolated from the rest of America. They would almost have to live in the shadows. They couldn’t easily apply for a bank account. They would use mostly cash, which can be risky. They could receive payments through someone else, which would make payments a bit simpler and easier to mask for businesses…
I’ve never actually met someone I know to be an illegal immigrant. And I think that’s a bad sign because three percent of our population – 11 million residents – is illegal. That means, if I was in New York, DC or Dallas, I should be able to walk around crowded city blocks and three out of every one hundred people I see is living here without a visa and without citizenship. I wouldn’t try to point people out, of course. And yet, I’ve never “met” someone who’s here illegally. Strange, n’est-ce pas? We all must walk by these people every day, but I’ve never met one. Either I’m missing something or this cultural isolation is really bad.
Hey, how ‘bout them Yankees? Nice weather, right? By the way, do you got a green card, esse?
Legitimacy of residency – that’s not something I’d imagine someone would tell you right off the bat. So I hope this doesn’t sound insensitive.
Policies as Response Encourage More Isolation
The domestic policies meant to stem the demand for cheap labor from illegal immigrants end up creating more problems. It’s not because the policies are flawed. These are just common sense policies: business can’t hire employees that aren’t paid minimum wage, aren’t guaranteed employment rights and are here illegally.
These policies tough on both employee and employer. This compels businesses to turn over their books when under suspicion.
These actually stoke the flames because now you have a slice of the population who is essentially backed into a corner and is being starved out. These policies are necessary, but risk serious consequences of backlash from legal and illegal immigrants of various ethnicities.
Unintended Free Market Response to Policy Response
Illegal immigrants seeking a living wage and trying to feed their families are committing crimes by working. Employers hiring illegal immigrants are committing several crimes by employing them, including cooking their books. There are no social programs in place for this major chunk of our population. No safety net. There is no social security in place, in the truest sense of the term.
Eleven million. That’s 3% of our population with no options for stability and nowhere to go, when things get tough. Further, people who knowingly support illegal immigrants without reporting them could be committing a crime if they did so. I’d feel horrible if I was compelled to rat someone out like that and ended up splitting up a family.
What do people do, who hit hard times? They usually try to make ends meet. Sometimes, this means they turn to crime or drugs to make money … by the way, how many politicians out there would openly state their views on anything? I mean that’s politics. And so, yeh, I’m saying that when things get tough, these policies could cause illegal immigrants to resort to crime, like any other person whose family is hungry. This is an example of a statement that can’t be used as component of an argument.
No, instead a politician would decide it’s not worth mentioning something offensive. Especially in a case like this, where not drawing attention to it shields the public from thinking about it and, in the end, provides reasons to arrest illegal immigrants who resort to crime to feed themselves when they can’t find work. Why would you risk the offensive statement here?
Just think about that for a minute.
Disparity in Education and Government Services
Their children may or may not have access to education, depending on circumstance. This could contribute to idle, under-educated youth. What does that contribute to?
When we do solve this issue, these children will suffer lasting consequences, as they won’t easily conform to others of the same age in the education system.
Disparity in education is a major source of long-term consequences. A certain fraction of new citizens who, if granted amnesty, may feel ashamed to admit to receiving amnesty, for fear of judgement and for fear of being labeled as someone who is less capable in the workplace. This could result from a lack of education or a perceived lack of education, both of which result from a complete failure to provide an adequate amnesty process.
A process which transitions illegal immigrants to citizens which does not help bridge that gap is a failure out of the gate. You might as well retire that horse. You might celebrate your victory on illegal immigration and pat yourself on the back … but guess what? You just created a source of long-term tension along ethnic lines. That’s like sellin someone a car without an engine. Thanks a lot.
Identification and Proof of Citizenship
There’s no assurance that these immigrants have valid identification, contributing to national security and operational problems. I don’t want to elaborate too much here, but we’re asking for it. There is major potential for abuse of ICE procedures here. If we do need to deport someone, where do we send them? It’s possible to manipulate the system into basically getting a free plane ticket anywhere they want.
Burden of Cost is On Taxpayers
The burden of cost to monitor and deport is placed on taxpayers, but we can’t be sure that there’s a coherent strategy for actual resolution. This results in the formation of a bureaucracy, whose budget from year-to-year actually requires maintainence of the problem … to some extent, anyways. And because ICE needs congressional and executive oversight, it also requires establishing reports demonstrating reasonable progress.
It’s necessary to provide visibility here and reports summarize ICE’s operations. However, the incentives for each party here do not line up properly. There’s major overhang with regard to enforcing immigration, as in incentives driving each party’s behavior line up like a wobbly jenga tower. This is just the politics of business between a unit of an organization that reports to a unit that reviews their actions, so it’s not entirely unexpected. Yet, I think we need to make sure that we don’t end up with these zombie bureaucracies that seek nominal progress. We need policy and organizations that solve problems so we can move on. When possible. That is not always possible.
Fractured Families
The current situation and the implementation of policy risks fracturing families. This is agonizing and it’s made worse to some degree by inaction, when the discussion to construct a coherent policy never really occured at all. Not to the necessary extent.
We have to be careful and tactful when developing and implementing policy to address this because we absolutely do not want to cause this pain. If it happens, we may have just caused excruciating pain that will last for generations. And even if we disregard how it makes others feel – which is horrible – then even still, every single time it happens, it may create problems we have to deal with for generations.
Some of the other policies in this country are fracturing families by the way, which makes me !@#$’ing livid. I don’t want to look under the rug right now. That’s generally valuable advice by the way: do not, under any circumstance, look under that !@#$’ing rug. Everyone’s got one and it’s there for a reason. You can walk on it. You can set your table on it and that works pretty good. I wouldn’t recommend moving it. But under no circumstance should you ever attempt to look under it.
Can’t Announce Policy Changes
If amnesty is announced, we can be sure that there will be a surge of people, the degree of which can’t be known. We can’t make suggestions without causing significant changes in behavior and we really need to understand how our discussion affects that. Whenever we do decide on something, we have to be careful as to how we present it and announce it. And it’s going to change how each of those four classes perceive our immigration policy, in addition to people outside the country.
Stifled Policy Debate
So to have a viable strategy here requires secrecy. If our strategy is disorganized then none of our congressmen know the goals we are pushing towards with resolving illegal immigration, how can they know how to react and how to discuss it?
Furthermore, we can’t have a completely open debate here. For the most part, we can explain many of the options, but we also risk signalling to people and losing advantage. The PC Police also scare us into inaction by rasing the spectre of racism.
Goals For an Ideal Policy
Stop Illegal Immigration
First of all, the number one priority is to make it harder for people to cross the border. If we can’t stop that, then there’s not much else that matters.
Mitigate Long-Term Social and Cultural Problems
Second goal is to mitigate the accumulation of long-term social and cultural problems. By cultural problems, I mean we have to guard against promoting isolation of a community
Social problems include situations where citizens receive amnesty, but are shut out of services afterwards. Or where citizens aren’t adequately prepared for the workforce. It absolutely must account for the disparity in education & employability. Mandatory. If we don’t help them, they would become dependent on welfare, so we’re going to pay for it one way or another. It would be wise to do it in a way that gives us the benefit of having planned for it and offered it. Another social problem is family. We don’t want to mess with someone’s family because that’s going to be a hardship they’ll remember and tell their kids.
Robust and Well-Thought Out
There are eleven million undocumented immigrants in the country. There are going to be problems with some cases, but we don’t want to create more problems, especially long-term problems. Policies and procedures should favor the state, in general, and should be designed to prevent circumvention of measures. If someone can’t handle that, then it sounds like they might have general problems dealing with rules and laws.
Remember, these are people that came here illegally in the first place. They shouldn’t be here, but they are. We need to figure out who is staying and who is leaving. Some of the people who came here could have been approved for citizenship, but others may have been denied or were denied.
Whatever our rules are, we want people who want to comply. We don’t want people who don’t want to comply. Sorry. This is our country and we don’t actually have to do anything except put you on a 20 hour bus ride to Tijuana.
Equitable and Fair
It should be fair to everyone. For illegal immigrants. For legal citizens and immigrants too. I’m sure there’s some people in Washington that could figure what fair means exactly, but this is also a chance to show how America deals with these things.
Yeh, we’ve got first world problems. Illegal immigration is kind of a first world problem. Some countries have to figure out how to keep people in. But, we respect human rights and we can show that. Every crisis is an opportunity.
Efficient with Clear Long-Term Goals
Why should we spend so much money on residents who came here illegally? That’s pretty crazy. Whatever our policy ends up being – and I have ideas to implement – we need to make sure it doesn’t drag out like the War on Drugs or something. And, hell no, we cannot have a War on Illegal Immigration. That’s a PR nightmare.
Example goals: transitions ~20-50% of existing illegal immigrants to citizenship over 5 years through a two-year program; deports 95% of remaining illegal immigrants over 10 years who didn’t transition to full citizens.
We Stick To It
We’re going to pick a horse and we’re going to stick to it. Flux in policy here is very expensive, moreso than usual.
What are the Answers?
The answers to these problems are what is really important. If we can’t find that, then it doesn’t matter how much we talk about it.
Some of these won’t appeal to conservatives because … the government needs to finance some of it. That’s fuels part of their refusal to accept amnesty. My response: examine the long-term consequences of prolonging inaction or implementing ineffective policies. Those are both going to be incredibly expensive. Somehow, somebody’s gotta spend some money. It’s frustrating, I know, but if there’s a better answer, I’d love to hear it.
Transitionary Program
We need a program to transition people to citizenship. I don’t really want to call it amnesty though. That makes them sound like political prisoners or something. That’s crazy.
If there is some transitionary amnesty program, it should be something that is appealing for undocumented immigrants to apply for, yet something that is also fair to those who are here legally. We need to communicate the benefits clearly and it motivate them to work with us. Right now, there’s not much incentive for undocumented immigrants to walk in an ICE office. Why not? What is going to make them do that?
There need to be multiple channels like this and each one should include some educational component. Like a G.E.D. requirement or something. Obviously, something like national guard service wouldn’t work for everyone … And are these people we want to train and give guns? But for some people, that might work well.
Whatever it is, it should be a little risky. Like “i dont know if i can do that, but if i work hard, then maybe.” It should be challenging, like military service would be challenging. Because, whatever the goals are for transitions to citizenship, we want to identify the people who will help us make America great again. Put the others on a bus to Tijuana. It should act as an implicit filter, so that the people who have qualities that contribute to society stay, but we really don’t want to think about it that way.
The Wall
We need a wall to stop it from getting worse. I don’t know if that means we should have a literal wall because that might not be as effective as it needs to be.
Address Foreign ID Card Standards
We can stress the importance of being able to identify citizens to pressure Latin America and other regions to adopt more stringent identification requirements. In general, this should help fight terrorism.
Economic Policy
This won’t be as effective, but it will help us resolve our problems from another angle. Instead of fighting demand for labor within our own country, we can figure out how to work with the Mexican government to boost border security and develop economic incentives so that there are more jobs there. Obviously, we need to focus on ourselves first. That’s partly why this is frustrating because we have to focus on figuring out what to do with people who just walked in.
The solution starts with economic and politic partnerships with Mexico. This is already to our advantage because, quite frankly, Mexico is closer to us than China. So this provides us with an economic mechanism for foreign policy that we can use for some leverage and hopefully address multiple problems at once. We need work with mexico to establish mutually beneficial policies which create opportunities there. And NO, we are not going to do this with tariffs. That puts the power in politicians hands to make or break businesses and why the !@#$ would we hand that kind of power to Washington?! What?!
So, I don’t know how were going to do it, but I do know that we are going to re-industrialize! It’s honestly not that great of a tool because we can’t expect to dictate how businesses will invest and construct their supply chains. Also, if our supply chains have multiple dependencies that require parts and subparts to circle the world like Magellan, that doesn’t help anybody. Chinese businesses would still have the advantage because all in all, it’s going to be cheaper for them. They’ve already got the industrial infrastructure for everything and => OH YEH! WE DON’T HAVE THAT ANYMORE!
Rearchitecting supply chains and building new infrastructure is a major cost for American companies and may simply cause us to cut ourselves out of the loop, if it renders some unable to compete. Or if it renders any marginal number of companies significantly at disadvantage for competition. However, there are other major economic changes coming our way that are going to rewrite the textbooks and we cannot let these slip through our fingers.
However, one hand washes the other and the more we can help Mexico develop, the better off we all are I think. Whatever policy we undertake here needs to factor in strengthening our relationship with mexico. Microsoft manufactured the original xbox in Guadalajara, for example. So the more products like that which are manufactured closer to home, the better, but America first.
I’m not sure why Mexico hasn’t developed faster with higher economic indicators. Transporting products from Mexico should be cheaper. Right now, the transportation channels available to push products out of Mexico and into America and global markets are suboptimal, I think? This is speculation really, as I’ve neither been to Mexico or actually left the country. I don’t actually have much knowledge on the specifics, so I’m just making inferences from a few key pieces of information. From what I know, I’m tending towards thinking that Mexico needs more robust transportation infrastructure.
Mexican authorities need to be more involved in stemming the flow of immigrants across the border. They need to be more aware of people who arrive in cities acting as staging points to cross the border. I’m sure they police this to some degree. But our policy needs to involve Mexican authorities, so we can use it as a two-way tool for foreign policy. With continued demonstrated traction towards solving this problem, we encourage policies that push both our countries forward together. Obviously, it’s not so simple. Examples include cooperation on shared infrastructure projects or encouragement of manufacturing opportunities.
Attention and Compromise from Both Parties
Finally, solving this problem requires attention and compromise from both parties. The longer we wait, the worse it gets and the more negativity it generates. While we need some form of amnesty, the implementation of such a policy has its own problems. Mostly it’s difficult to determine & specify what is fair, efficient and just, legally and logistically. This is especially when requirements and process must remain secret.
But we have to solve the problem and we need to start now. With every crisis comes opportunity and hopefully that opportunity is used as a chance for America to show the world yet again how it handles such a situation.