Immigration Reform and Illegal Immigration

Jeb Bush speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference stated, “Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans.” Where this may be backed by statistics it is of no importance in addressing illegal immigration. Nobody has been arguing against overhauling the current Immigration Laws in order to allow faster approval for those who wish to immigrate to the United States and meet the criteria we set. The current backlog where it takes on average a decade or more in order to obtain approval to enter the United States does nobody any measure of service. Much of this obstruction to legal immigration is very likely a reason behind some measure of those who simply choose to enter the United States illegally or by any visa they can obtain and then simply not leave when it expires. But Jeb Bush’s argument that immigrants create more businesses than native born Americans does not apply to illegal immigrants and as such is not a pertinent argument for granting amnesty to twelve to fifteen million illegal immigrants. There are great doubts that illegal immigrants are responsible for starting even a paltry dozen businesses as getting licensing and all the other required approvals to start a business is not something an illegal immigrant is likely to apply for as it would really be drawing way too much attentions and inspection by government agencies. Let’s say this and say it loud enough that all these politicians who constantly insist on making references to the great contributions made by legal immigrants and then try to pass off that the illegal immigrants would be just as productive if only they were made legal. Anybody who has attained the permits and gone through the entire gambit of government hoops and hurdles has shown simply through such perseverance that they are very likely to have the drive to succeed at any venture they may take on which would translate to their greater propensity for starting a business and making it an unadulterated success. On the other hand, an illegal immigrant has entered the United States through an illegal act and has shown a disregard for the rule of law and actually following rules and keeping the obligations expected of a legal immigrant which are not exactly the most desirable traits for somebody who is starting a business.

 

The truth of what is going to be implemented under the title of Comprehensive Immigration Reform is really a mistitled piece of legislation. The three areas which make up a comprehensive overhaul of the mess which is immigration law and the illegal component of immigrations would require enforcement of the border, streamlining and simplification of immigration law and lastly some form of either amnesty, path to citizenship or deportment for as many illegal immigrants as possible in a continuing effort to locate them. Everybody very probably will agree that we should commit to streamlining and simplification of immigration law and border enforcement. Where there is a great deal of disagreement and debate is what path we should take in dealing with the twelve to twenty million illegal immigrants currently thought to be within the United States. If one wishes to be technical about enforcement they would demand that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) put forth whatever efforts were required to locate and deport every single illegal immigrant no matter how long it would take. The only debate that people in this group might have is whether or not local and state law enforcement officers should be included in the search and detention of illegals in order to assist ICE and how much leeway should be allowed if their assistance is desirable. Then there is the debate for the more lenient who believe that the vast majority of the illegal immigrants deserve to be allowed to remain and become citizens. The question here is whether these illegal immigrants deserve blanket amnesty or should be required to go through a procedure in order to attain citizenship and exactly what such a path to citizenship should be required. The one requirement that those who would prefer deportation of all or the vast majority of illegal immigrants would likely demand that there be no possibility for blanket amnesty but that there should be an arduous and intricate set of requirements and some monetary fee imposed in order for any illegal immigrant to attain citizenship. It is also likely that other than those for blanket amnesty would also desire that any illegal immigrant who has a felony record be deported or passed through some very serious and in depth assessment before being rewarded with a chance for citizenship.

 

The considerations over how to treat the existing illegal immigrants should not be undertaken before the border has been hermetically sealed. The reason should be obvious even to the most casual of observers, but just in case, closing the border first and preventing any further increase to the numbers of illegal immigrants, and especially if amnesty is still being considered is absolutely necessary to prevent a flood of new illegal immigrants attempting to gain entry and try to utilize the amnesty system to gain citizenship. Should amnesty be granted it must be the absolute amnesty ever granted and the amnesty offer should have a set time limit after which the offer be withdrawn. There should be a path necessitating each undocumented immigrant to perform certain actions, meet certain specific requirements and possibly pay back taxes and/or pay a processing fee or fine for having broken United States immigration laws. No matter what is chosen as the way the illegal immigrants will be handled, the offer should require voluntary reporting within ninety days or some similar period after which any illegal immigrant caught will not be offered any deal and will be deported. As far as closing the border to future illegal immigration, this should be done with the utmost intentions and seriousness.  A double or even triple fence completed with raked sand between the fences which will immediately show any crossing making detection of trespass readily detectable should be erected. There should be sensors placed liberally throughout the border areas which are capable of detecting tunneling and there should be randomly scheduled ground-penetrating-radar sweeps conducted along the borders so that no matter how deep any tunnels are excavated they will be detected. And as the final deterrent that will demonstrate that the United States border is most definitively to be inviolate, place the United States Army and Marines stationed on the borders. This could be easily accomplished simply by placing every Infantryman and Marine on the border for six months immediately after they have completed their basic training. The ranking NCOs and Officer Corps would be chosen to assure that these troops have absorbed their training and understand military rules and discipline which was intended to be imparted by their basic training. This would benefit the newly trained troops as they would get practical experience utilizing the tactics and disciplines of their initial training by carrying out a set of tasked missions before they might be required to be placed in a far more hostile environment. This is not an unusual manner in border enforcement as it is the method used by many countries, if not most countries. By utilizing well trained Military troops the Border Patrol Forces would be freed to operate and man border crossings and free others up for ICE enforcement as well as allowing for increased border enforcement at our ports, airfields, and other entry points for cargo and people. Also, finally the Immigration and Custom Services would have sufficient personnel freed up to actually monitor those here on student visas, temporary work visas, visitor’s visas or other limited term visas such that we no longer have foreigners overstaying their visas or violating the limitations of their visas such as the thousands of people with student visas who never reported to the school in which they were presumably to be registered with. But since for disparate reasons both parties appear to have a fairly large percentage of politicians who desire and approve of allowing illegal immigrants to violate the laws of the land we can expect the final solutions they implement will have two very distinct properties, first they will have either straight amnesty or unenforced minor requirements defining the path to citizenship and second there will be no honest intent to seal the borders to the extent that it will either be unimplemented or not even defined by the bill and promising to address the border at a later date, a date that will never arrive. My bet is those who honestly care about immigration already know who the miscreants are that will refuse to serve their country and protect the Constitution that sit in Congress. My question is will those who know reveal these traitors and make sure they do not get reelected and no longer cross into the floor of the House of Representatives or the Senate.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Republicans and the Empty Promise Syndrome

First off we need to define the Empty Promise Syndrome, sometimes called the Wimpy argument quoting the Popeye cartoon character who was always offering to “Pay you next Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Those cartoons must have had many Republican politicians earning money on the side as extras on the set as Wimpy never seemed to have any shortage of hamburgers to gulp down. To trace the beginning of the Empty Promise Syndrome infecting Republican politicians we need to go all the way back to 1986 of the Reagan Presidency and the Immigration Reform Bill which legalized at a minimum the three-million illegal aliens residing throughout the United States while promising to address and provide for a system of border enforcement which would make the borders of the United States virtually impenetrable. Currently there exist an estimated eleven- million to possibly over eighteen-million illegal aliens, the euphemistically denoted undocumented workers, citizens without papers, undocumented aliens, and any other of a half dozen terms which dance around but would never use such a harsh and loaded term as illegal. Somehow the agreement to grant citizenship today and impose enforcement tomorrow never quite delivered when tomorrow rolled around, a lot like Wimpy who can never be found on Tuesdays. But there are so many other examples that we had best stick to the two latest in the series.

 

If we were to remember back to just before Thanksgiving and on close to Christmas and then New Years the news reports were all buzzing about some looming doomsday threat called the Fiscal Cliff. The Republicans demanded spending cuts which would be at least equal to any tax increases. They would have preferred, or so they claimed, to have far more of the deficit cut by spending cuts than relying on tax increases. President Obama was insistent that the deficit reduction be levied completely by increased taxes on the rich as they had to be made to pay their fair share. With what were defined in perfect threats from on high was this sequester which would cut spending severely without any concerns for what was necessity and what was less vital and would destroy uncountable programs for the poor, the elderly, the children, the ecology, the Earth, the whatever you cared about and especially the military while ending the great recovery we have been experiencing (though many myself included are loathe to see any solid signs of this recovery unless that is what higher grocery prices are now called). In the end, President Wimpy offered spending cuts by March 1 for taxes on the rich today and the Republicans gave Obama everything he requested and set a new sequester date to force spending cuts as promised.

 

Well, here we are fast approaching March 1 and President Obama is demanding changes in the code resulting in more tax revenue and attempting to reduce spending cuts in any programs or departments with possible exceptions of certain areas the President finds unnecessary such as the Military. It is likely that President Obama would gladly put off any spending cuts forever and simply rearrange the tax codes and eliminate deductable items or at least reduce them or cap them all in order to cut the deficit without cutting spending. Actually, the President has even proposed that his adjustments to tax deductions and the tax codes will produce so much deficit reduction that he will even be able to propose additional spending with the extra funds his accounting has predicted. If the Republicans allow the President to fiddle with the tax code and tax deductions in lieu of the spending cuts promised at the end of last year’s Fiscal Cliff negotiations, they will have forfeited the collateral supposedly granted them of tax increases on the wealthy then for spending cuts and only spending cuts now. This simply means that if the President insists on increasing tax revenues instead of more spending cuts the Republicans should stand loudly upon the promise by the President that this would be the time for spending cuts and only spending cuts. Force the argument to be either the President reaches an agreement on spending cuts or President Obama will be responsible for the sequestration cuts when they occur. Force the choice on President Obama and the Democrats by passing a spending cuts bill which delivers what was promised and announce that the House of Representatives has met their responsibility and produced legislation for rational and safe spending cuts to reduce the deficit and that it is now left to the Democrat controlled Senate and the President to meet their obligations and keep their promises. After all, it is not like the across the board cuts required by the sequestration alternative would actually be anywhere near as debilitating as has been expressed by the fear mongering going on in some of the media and the White House.

 

Then there is another repeat performance being played out in Congress and that is once again immigration reform. This is forming up to be a complete and exact repeat of what occurred during the second half of President Reagan’s time in the White House and many of the exact same players are simply dusting off their old scripts and adjusting a few numbers and going through the same motions using the same terms and offering the same old lies as promises. As the old adage says, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” There is absolutely no reason for the Republicans, and any Democrats who actually care about the rule of law and the safety of the United States, allowing any form of amnesty or forgiveness and allowances to remain inside the borders, let alone working, for the approximately eleven million illegal aliens until there exist in place solid and uncompromising enforcement procedures that include security controls, observation abilities, formidable border barrier systems, and every possible technique applied and utilized to prevent any further illegal infiltrations. There can be no allowance of we will secure the border next Tuesday for total amnesty, or whatever sly and misleading name it be given, today. That was the basic promise which was never intended to be kept in 1986 and will likely be the offer given once again with every single amount of deceit included today.

 

There is one large and very unfortunate problem with the above. The truth be told there are many Republican who desire the lie of enforcement later for allowance and a path to citizenship today as that way they can unfurl the banner of supporting a closed border while not actually getting a closed border. Both sides, the Democrats in order to gather more voters for their candidates and the Republicans to provide less expensive labor for certain industries and businesses, honestly work together to guarantee that those they allowed into the United States are rewarded every so many years with citizenship and at the same time keep the border porous letting in the next wave of voters and workers enter the United States illegally to the benefit of both sides coffers and votes for reelection. One should not be too surprised then when once again we will witness a deceitful front played by those for whom taking a strong stand against illegal immigration and its effects upon the United States once again feign disgust when their votes allowing for immediate forgiveness in any form for the illegal immigrants currently in the country allowing them to remain, keep their jobs, and eventually gain an easy path to full citizenship while enforcement of our laws and control of the border are put aside to be addressed later. Of course later never comes as it is always now and later is, well, later. Do not expect this round to result in anything which falls far from the indecency pulled over on the American people in 1986 when Reagan allowed amnesty on the promise of future enforcement. We are still waiting for that later enforcement and who knows which later will arrive first; the last one or the one we can expect in the near future when the grand immigration compromise is announced with great fanfare and applause all around. My bet is neither enforcement will materialize before the Congress and some future President assure us that these thirty-some-million undocumented citizens will be the last and by allowing them legalization and documentation it will facilitate their soon enforcing our laws and border, and then there will be three soon to come promises.

 

Beyond the Cusp