I’m about 65% of the way through my paternity leave. Being home and running all over the house a lot drives me to keep the radio going all day. I actually have 3-4 going at the same time so as I go room to room, I can still hear what’s being talked about.
Illegal immigration is still a topic of discussion considering the Presidential Primary races. There are a lot of ideas, and some are common sense, but most (if not all) miss the whole picture. Hannity loves to argue with Geraldo, who rhetorically loves to ask how we are supposed to send 12 million people home logistically. Here is my plan, which actually involves minimal effort by law enforcement:
- First of all, build the d***ed fence! This is just common freaking sense. It should be taller than most consumer-grade ladders, and like a fence around a garden, it should go deep enough to make tunneling difficult or impossible.
- Second (and last) of all, take away the incentive for being here. Do so with the following policies:
- Make jobs scarce. This will require a complete overhaul of the verification process that determines if a person can legally work here. Currently, an employer cannot verify employment eligibility until after a person is hired. To do so beforehand is considered a violation of privacy. However, if the employer finds that the person is here illegally, they can be prosecuted for hiring them. It kind of takes away the incentive to do the verification.
There is no need for a national ID card. We already have them, they’re called passports. Only citizens can get them. Non-citizens here legally have green cards and work visas. Those should have photos on them and all should be accessible to verify legitimacy. Every passport has a number, an employer should be able to enter a number on a government site and get a photo on their screen. Access to this verification should require at the very least a taxpayer ID.
Once it’s easy for employers to screen their hires, there should be a minimum 180 day jail sentence for every illegal that is hired, as there will be no excuse that the person had forged documents that looked very real.
- Make welfare scarce. No non-citizen, legal or illegal, should be getting welfare benefits of any kind. If they want government handouts, they should be going to Europe, not America. I have heard too many stories of illegals coming here and living off of generous welfare benefits while sending the money they earned from their ill-gotten jobs home to their families. Five years in America doing day-labor can give a man enough money to retire in Mexico with the standard of living he is used to there. It shouldn’t be easy for him to do that.
Here in Minnesota, we have some of the most generous welfare in the country. County governments actually post fliers in Texas telling border jumpers of the benefits available in the Northland. Any state or county facilitating this kind of abuse should be stripped of all federal funding. That includes school and highway funding. Government workers at any level caught abusing the system should be prosecuted and sentenced to a minimum of five years for every illegal immigrant assisted with no possibility of parole.
- End birth-right citizenship – a.k.a. “anchor baby syndrome”. An illegal immigrant should not be allowed to stay indefinitely because she made it across the border before giving birth. Citizenship should only be automatic for the children of citizens.
- Deport known illegals. If an illegal immigrant shows up at a hospital looking for treatment of any kind, he should be put in leg irons and given the treatment he needs, but should only be allowed to leave the hospital in the process of being deported.
If an illegal shows up to enroll his kid in spanish-immersion school, he and the kid should be immediately arrested and deported.
If an illegal immigrant is arrested for any reason, he should serve his time and then be deported immediately upon release. Special prisons should be set up for illegal immigrants and hard labor should be a part of their sentence.
- Detain border jumpers. Detention camps should be set up near the southern border especially for border jumpers. Anyone caught crossing illegally should be held int he camp for a minimum of 90 days before being deported. This will eliminate the catch and release game that jumpers play with the border guard. No longer will someone be caught and returned to Mexico on the same day just to try again the next day.
These camps can be relatively nice. I’m not calling for harsh treatment here. I am only advocating that an illegal be held so as to prevent them from making any kind of income, on either side of the border, for long enough to make the risk outweigh the possible reward.
- Make jobs scarce. This will require a complete overhaul of the verification process that determines if a person can legally work here. Currently, an employer cannot verify employment eligibility until after a person is hired. To do so beforehand is considered a violation of privacy. However, if the employer finds that the person is here illegally, they can be prosecuted for hiring them. It kind of takes away the incentive to do the verification.
Making it harder to get in, and very difficult to make any money if they do get in will do 90% of the work for us. If illegals can’t make any money here, they will leave on their own accord and deportation will be unnecessary. The number that would need to be rounded up would drop from 12 million to closer to a half million or less.
The last thing we should do is maintain the status quo, or force the states to handle the problem. It drives me crazy that one of the few things that the Federal Government is charged with doing under the Constitution, it ignores, while everything it is forbidden from getting involved in and is left to the States, it gets involved in.