Arizona's Immigration Mess

[invisionary]

...is a mess we all share. I'm pretty sure everyone on both sides of the aisle agree on this. And... that the government at all levels is getting it ass-backwards.

It's quite simple to say that if we were able to effectively control immigration and eliminate the illegal parts we'd restore jobs to people legally here. But that's not so. The jobs that illegals are filling are ones that lawful residents would never take, as a rule. When was the last time you heard of an illegal immigrant getting a white-collar job? I haven't.

This is a trap for illegals that is not only a severe breach of human rights, but bad for our economy as a whole. What happens when someone is brought into the country illegally is that all other laws suddenly no longer apply. Taxes aren't paid, working conditions are terrible, and if anyone ever gets the idea to rat ICE would be at their door, putting them in a prison system more cruel than the criminal one we have now (and giving Guantanamo Bay a run for its money), and ignominiously deporting them.

The root of the problem is the employers who do this to make a profit. They are skipping out on taxes and creating blights on our communities and give nothing in return for this - not even the benefits of a functional economy. Yes, what would happen if we eliminated illegal immigration would be the jobs would set up elsewhere. But these jobs are doing our economy no good, and if they were set up as imports we would be able to levy them appropriately, and not have the ill effects that come from having illegals in our country. These people result in burdens on our communal resources (use of roads and utilities, public health measures, etc.) without making any contribution, as well as not being able to more effectively contribute because they do not have access to things like education. They're trapped.

I believe that long prison sentences are in order for the people who intentionally harbor illegal immigrants for the purpose of cheap, inhumane labor. We also have to make a choice, and I'm neutral on this one because there's good arguments on both sides - we need to open our borders and allow people to come in legally, or we need to find a way to lock down. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Best blog entry I've read about it yet: http://odogoddess.dreamwidth.org/37539.html

Also- personally, I prefer the term "undocumented immigrants" rather than calling people illegal. A person cannot be illegal, by definition, but they can be undocumented. (Can you tell i was a philosophy major who worked her way through school in libraries?)

[hatman]

You make a good point. Take away the incentives, and you change the game. A much more sensible, effective, and enforceable approach. Actually upholding the law as it exists. What a concept.

As for our borders... this country was built by immigrants and their descendants. Closing our borders would betray the founding spirit of the whole country. It would also hurt our international standing, quite possibly even our trade relationships. And, I think, hurt our culture, which is already too isolationist and jingoistic, a consequence of our international prominence, size (comparable to the whole of Europe), and few neighbors. We'd also be turning away good people. People who could add to the country. People who would benefit from the shelter of our borders. A closed system can only feed on itself. Besides, our borders are huge. How are we supposed to effectively close them down?

On the other hand, opening them wide would flood us. Possibly endanger us. We've already got more people than we can really take care of. Open borders would bring in not only everyone who tries to get over the wall or onto our shores, but everyone who was deterred by our defensive measures. And it would be a huge security risk.

As with most things, going to either extreme is a poor long-term choice. We need to let people in. In controlled numbers. With security in place. As ever... we won't find a perfect real-world system, but we can try to come up with something that works reasonably well. And try to improve it as we go.

ETA: Interesting bipartisan proposal from Chuck Schumer and Lindsay Graham. (At least, that was Graham's position a month ago. His position now is a little different... Politics. Gotta love it.)

[perquisitor_omnia]

I believe in the moderate approach as well, if an immigrant can contribute in some meaningful way to society, or is associated with someone who can (it would really suck if they had to leave their S.O.'s behind) I think they should be allowed to stay, and if they got here by illegal means, but that was the ONLY law they broke (besides not paying taxes, etc. which they couldn't do anyway) they should be offered a not to difficult path to citizenship or at least some form of legal permission to stay in the country.

Open the borders willy-nilly would be a disaster, our security measures are woefully bad as it is, I can only imagine worse! However, closing them would mean that there would be large number of jobs that would go unfilled, or they would move outside our borders. As for the companies that employ illegals knowingly and to exploit, they should be punished, as well as everyone in the company that had knowledge of the act and didn't report it to the proper authority.

They also need to severely clean up the act of the Immigration Service, cause from everything I have heard from people, the internet, and my friends that belong to the suspicious-group-of-the-month club its an atrocious mess. When my born in the United States to US Citizens and Navy veteran parents gets deported to Mexico for looking too "Hispanic" whatever that means (her father is from Mexico) you know it's bad.

In summary, I feel we would be best served by cleaning up the existing system and adding as little new legislation as possible to fix whatever injustice and errors remain.