What characterizes the mainstream pro-legal/anti-illegal immigration movement? The views of extremists on both sides of the immigration issue are seen as xenophobic, bigoted, racist, or nativist but mainstream pro-legals worry that the rule of law, fundamental to all civilized societies, is being undermined by our permissive policies toward illegal aliens and visa overstays. They worry that our culture, flag, laws, language and society are being weakened by the invasion of illegal aliens and by the acceptance of too many legal immigrants. The essential truth of this concern is largely undeniable. This is a positive and legitimate concern and an important element of the pro-legal position regarding immigration, of all kinds.
The defense of one's culture and language is a natural reaction to the onslaught of those who seek the benefits of the American democracy and economy but who wish to maintain their own failed cultures. Many of the foreigner-born are failing to integrate into our society and assimilate culturally and linguistically.
There are those among us who give a higher priority to the interests of the illegal aliens than they do to the national interest and the desires of their fellow citizens. Some consider this to be evidence of disloyalty, or foreign allegiances.
U.S. customs officers fail to stop thousands of undocumented workers at airports and other legal entry points. Those they apprehend from south of the border are simply escorted back across the border with no other penalty. No wonder a high percentage of them violate the border in a different vehicle on the very same day. Almost 100% of those who wish to head North are ultimately successful. Stopping them is near impossible as long as the current high volume of vehicular and pedestrian traffic is allowed to continue. There should be no cross border work commuters and all trailers of goods should be hitched to American tractors at the border.
Hundreds of thousands of other illegals enter the U.S. between the regular ports of entry, leaving in their wake discarded clothing, dirty diapers, plastic containers and all manner of other trash. The estimated 13 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States clearly demonstrate that physical barriers and more border patrol agents have not and will not be able to stop the influx of aliens that are having a negative effect on our health care system, hospitals, social services and the economy, in general, by lowering wages for all. Among them are those that commit crimes, such as murder, and those that will commit terrorist acts.
Therefore, the physical barriers and increased staffing at the borders must be buttressed with major disincentives for the illegals themselves and their employers. One such disincentive is the roundup and involuntary, expeditious, repatriation of the illegals, with the admonition that if they return they will face jail time. We must require the mandatory use by employers of work status E-verification for all employees, not just the new hires.
If employers were required to provide full family health care insurance for all foreign workers in their employ, they would soon begin to have second thoughts about the hiring of such workers At present, this health care burden is shifted to the taxpaying public. Some would have us believe that the illegals avoid hospitals and emergency rooms like the plague but a visit any time of day or night to one of these facilities in Texas, California or elsewhere would prove otherwise. Free medical care attracts the illegals like flies to buttermilk.
Employers who hire illegals must be severely penalized with fines and jail time. However, the illegals are also culpable and must face the consequences.
Some of those who favor mass legalization believe it is not feasible to repatriate millions of illegal aliens. That view is based on the faulty assumptions that all of these aliens must be deported overnight and that such an undertaking would be prohibitively expensive. A stepped up policy of systematic repatriation with the cost being born by the illegals, their employers and/ or their homeland governments is feasible if placed in the hands of private enterprise. If there is a dollar to be made, we would see quick and effective action. Even a vice president knows the value of a dollar. The employees of private contractors could be trained by and under the initial supervision of ICE to make sure the human rights to which illegals are entitled are not trampled upon. But the proceedings before immigration judges must be expedited, the bases for appeal must be narrowly defined, and the time frame for such appeals limited to one week. This solves the problem of extended periods of detention for individuals and families.
The bottom line is that there is a solution to the immigration problem if we have the fortitude to implement it. Once these measures are in place we can consider what the actual labor needs of the U.S. are, and structure programs to meet those needs, legally and in a measured way.
