Let’s get down to brass tacks. How would YOU solve illegal immigration?

[tjwash]

Solutions only please? This is such an emotionally charged subject, that every thread I have seen on the subject tends to turn into a flame fest, and I would actually welcome some real solutions that could be realistically implemented.

There’s a reason why H.R. 4437, was sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, and passed Congress on Dec.17th of 2005, with 92 percent of Republicans for, and 82 percent of Democrats against. It does absolutely nothing to strengthen the borders, and curb the flow of illegal immigration. There is nothing in the law that punishes for-profit businesses that continue to exploit illegal migrant labor as a device to drive down wages, and break unions, such as Farms, Hotels, or Restaurants. What it DOES however, is make any church or non-profit organization guilty of committing a federal offense, if they give any assistance whatsoever to illegal immigrants. It makes no difference if the organization in question, has any knowledge the status of the person they are helping or not. This can be for doing something as innocuous as driving a neighbor to the grocery store. So this affects all of us, not just illegal aliens.

The penalties include fines, jail time, and property seizure.

These are my three solutions for starters. These are going to be focusing on Mexico, as I am from San Diego, and the bulk of illegal labor here is from south of our border. In a sense, you could say that I live on the “front lines” here, and this is from my perspective.

We have an abundance of extremely intelligent and thoughtful people here at DU, and I am positive that we could come up with a lot more ideas that have a sane, “common sense” approach to the problem.

Solution 1) Make it our top priority to take on the people that profit from illegal labor, and that give the people that constantly cross the borders illegally, the incentive to do so in the first place. Make the penalties so severe on businesses that exploit migrant labor that it would be to their detriment to do so.

The current problem is that the new law proposes the same approach that another miserable failure of federal legislation, known as the “war on drugs” does. It goes after the “dime bag” or “street level” dealers, where they arrest one, and there are ten in the shadows ready to take their place. They don’t go after the money laundering bankers, and the import-export “businessmen” that control the flow into the country, and profit immensely from it.


Solution 2) Work to form an alliance with our border neighbors, and make them responsible for their citizens that cross into the United States. Make sure that it is absolutely NOT worth their while to allow their people to flow into the United States and work.

What exactly has Mexico done to help us curb the flow of illegal human traffic from their country? Take it a step further, and ask WHY would Mexico want to do anything in the first place? Their current situation is of tremendous benefit to them.. The Mexican government at present, is a corrupt oligarchy, with no middle class. Their people can come over here, work, and then ship US dollars back and place them into the Mexican economy. They are currently able to kill two birds with one stone with the way things are. They have 11 million less people to burden down their own economic system, and the incoming US dollars bolster it at the same time. This segues into:

Solution 3) Seize any money that comes from the US, into Mexico, if is a result of illegally earned capital, and place it back into our economy. Make Mexico responsible for any cost to do so. Severely fine the companies that hire the illegal labor here, and place it into the US economy as well.

If we make it to where it is not worth the while of these ruthless companies that use illegal labor to tear apart unions, and drive down wages while Mexico turns a blind eye to this whole mess, because it equally benefits them, it will start to change.


That’s my three. I would love to see some open discussions, and some real solutions to the problems from the DU world.

[valerief]

1. Make Mexico a U.S. state, n/t

[Inland]

2. I'm not sure everyone sees a problem to be solved.

I do, but you're going to get a lot of answers of "make it all legal" or "do nothing."

[tjwash]

7. well...

...make it all legal is just not going to work. Just the fact that there is a massive hemorrhage of free money from the US to Mexico, courtesy of the ones who employ undocumented labor, is not doing our economy any good, and needs to be addressed.

And we have already been doing nothing, and it's a mess.

[BOSSHOG]

3. We have more control of those

hire than those who are getting hired. Mexicans cross the border because they know they can get paid for work. I suggest we concentrate our efforts on those who are doing the paying. Laws are already in place but they are not being enforced. Those who hire illegals to work in their farms should be encouraged to hire Americans to do that labor (then we will prove or disprove the notion that Americans won't do certain jobs.) I did those kinds of jobs when I was in High School 35 years ago and I believe I'm better off because of it.

[trixie]

4. Whether you see it as a problem or not

Making businesses that recruit, transport and house migrant workers, responsible for the laws they break is the only way to combat the influx. Putting the complete onus on the migrant worker is unfair and immoral.

[Ian David]

5. Give Texas back to Mexico

Texas Democrats can move to Massachusetts, where the weather in 20 years will be very much like what weather in Texas is like now.

They will be expected to bring mechanical bulls and chili recipes.

[400Years]

6. There is no problem to solve.

Now if you want to talk about repealing NAFTA....

[tjwash]

10. NAFTA is an absolute disaster.

I mean, come on Rush Limpballs was for it.

Multinational corporations were the only true winners under it. American corporations took advantage of Mexico’s low wages, lax environmental laws, and the government’s reluctance to cooperate in settling labor disputes. In addition, The North American Development Bank made it next to impossible for many small border towns, especially in Mexico, to qualify for assistance.

We got screwed because it required that the United States open its borders to allow imports immediately, while allowing transitional periods for Canada and Mexico, they allowed multinational companies to avoid United States tariffs and standards by establishing operations Mexico, then exporting to the United States free of charge to sell at Walmart.

The Mexican government then turned around and reneged on environmental and health improvements. Out of the (only) 16 of 98 promised public utility projects were approved in Mexico for financing just one was completed, forty percent of the Mexican population in the border area had no sewers or drinkable water, and around 400,000 people on the United States side had the same fate.

And here in San Diego we got the fun of the untreated sewage that was dumped into the ocean only a few miles from shore. I could start an entire thread on all that is wrong with NAFTA and CAFTA, but let's just suffice to say I am against it one hundred percent.

[400Years]

11. that's my point, its not an immigration problem its a NAFTA problem

[leftstreet]

8. There are some great conversations on this CNN transcript

From a "panel" discussion on the Lou Dobbs Tonight program. Much more at link, and worth the read.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/04/ldt.01.html

RANDI RHODES, HOST, AIR AMERICA'S "THE RANDI RHODES SHOW": Well, you know, the House bill is so brutal -- that's why you're seeing all of these incredible protests and so, you know, I don't think that the protests are so much a reaction to the Senate program, which obviously I'm not completely for it. Unless they tie it to minimum wage and health security, it's just a slave society that they're creating.So, it's a difficult problem, it's complex, but the whole idea of not tying any of this to minimum wage and some sort of health insurance is going to kill the middle class, Lou. That's what it's going to do. It creates an entire slave, sharecropper, indentured servant -- whatever you want to call it.

STEVE COCHRAN, HOST, WGN'S "THE STEVE COCHRAN SHOW": I just think we're not dealing with reality here. And I think you can't count on a government that's let the illegal alien problem get out of hand over the last 10 years any more than you can count on the folks who are here illegally -- knowingly illegally -- to show up to get on a bus to go back to a country they wanted to leave in the first place. So I think it's a three-step process: I think, one, you got to spend the money to secure the borders -- that's job one; you got to stop playing footsie with President Fox and tell him to get serious about helping us with border security the same way he does with the southeastern border of his own country; and then the final thing is to crack down on employers who are knowingly employing illegal aliens.

DOBBS: One of the principle objections I have to the Sensenbrenner legislation -- not because it's draconian in terms of border security, because frankly it doesn't even go far enough in that area -- but the idea of criminalizing illegal aliens, making it a felony for illegal aliens to cross that border, I think, is unfair and unrealistic and doesn't really solve the issue. What I think would -- and it's interesting that our Congress, Bob Pickett, hasn't followed up on this -- why not make it a felony for illegal employers who hire illegal aliens?

[Dhalgren]

9. I would do it with four broad steps.

1. Make the hiring of illegal immigrants a severe felony and enforce the law.

2. Grant complete amnesty for all current illegals who have held a job in the US for more than 3 months. Fast track them for citizenship.

3. Make illegal entry into this country a second-strike felony. The first time caught, the illegal would be finger-printed, photographed, and "put in the database". They would then be returned to their home country. The second time caught they would go to jail.

4. Make legal immigration more accessible to the common foreigner. "All men (and women) are created equal" goes for every person in the world, not just the US.

[harlinchi]

12. Yours and the Original poster's solutions are in sync with mine!

I mean the ideas I would propose. I posted something to this effect on a different topic. The people aren't the criminals! The ones who hire them are.

Confiscate!

[matcom]

13. I'm "solving" it by learning fluent Spanish

waiting for my Rosetta Stone cd's to arrive any day now.

seriously. my salary should be worth double when i'm fluent

[leftofthedial]

14. Open the borders

all the borders

outlaw capitalism

[Dhalgren]

18. Actually, I like your solution best!

:applause: :hi:

[XemaSab]

15. My unpopular suggestions:

Make it a crime to hire illegals.

Build a wall from Texas to the Pacific. Use modern technology to keep people out.

Support infrastucture and other development plans within Mexico.

Support a living wage in Mexico.

[tjwash]

16. Well, on your first one...

...it already is a crime to hire undocumented workers. You may mean actually enforce the current law on the books, and none of this "wink wink nudge nudge" under the table, here's your bribe for looking the other way crap that is currently the norm.

Three and four are good, I like them, but that corrupt system currently in place in Mexico is going to make it difficult. Take care of those two though, and you would not need the the second one, which is actually pretty unfeasible. Would it be called "the great wall of America." Would we be able to see it from space? Knowing our current system, it would probably be built by the same people that it is designed to keep out.

[Johonny]

22. # 1

Seems like the only real solution. Real enforcement and real penalties would severely effect illegal immigration.

[Zookeeper]

28. I question the effectiveness of a wall...

A (former) friend of mine had an employee who was living and working here illegally. The employee took a few days off from work, so he could go up to the Canadian border and smuggle his mother into the U.S. She was from Mexico and flew to Canada.

If employers are willing to hire citizens of another country to work here illegally, they will find a way into the U.S.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Emma Lazarus had a real solution.

The New Colossus

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

[mwooldri]

19. Ok, shoot me down in flames for this one....

... I have a few radical steps that would help (but not cure) illegal immigration.

1) Change citizenship so that being born on US soil alone doesn't give you US citizenship, you have to have at least one parent who is a citizen, either by birth (again because one of their parents was a citizen) or by naturalization.

2) Expand the scope and the definition of the H-1B visa program. Use that program as the basis for the guest worker program instead, and allow the visas to be renewed indefinitely.

3) Make it easy and empower appropriately a government department to check employers for hiring legal employees, and if they are hiring illegals then the companies get fined to the point that it becomes uneconomical for them to hire the illegal. e.g. a fine of $10,000 per illegally hired employee, and $25 an hour fine for every extra hour the employee works after the initial citation. It shouldn't be up to one government department to report to what was the INS and leave it to them to eject the illegal immigrant out of the country. That same department that does the reporting should have the power to levy fines on the spot to the employers that are breaking the law.

4) The illegal workers that are already here working for an employer should be able to get a visa through the expanded H-1B program to cover themselves and their family. However for those people who are applying retroactively there should be an endorsement placed on their visa that effectively puts them at the back of the queue for getting a regular immigrant visa or even citizenship (say 10 years for a 'green card', 15 years for 'citizenship'). But if they work with the same employer for 10 years, or a variety of H-1B endorsing employers for 10 years then they can get their 'green card'.

5a) I bet some illegal immigrants even come into the country and make it on their own without an employer - become self employed. Some kind of amnesty should be made for them, hey they've done more than a lot of Americans have done and got some part of the American Dream. Work with them, maybe make them an employer! Sorry I can't think specifically as to what to do.

5) Expand resources to combat people trafficking - so that youung children don't get caught up in the sex-slave trade (tempted with a good job in the USA but found out that they're effectively imprisoned and forced to have sex repeatedly).

6) I hate to say this, but after all of these easings have been made place - for those who have entered the country illegally and have not claimed asylum - yes there should be toughening up. I don't necessarily state that it should be made a felon but if you have entered the country without a welcome - not even with a tourist visa - then you should be put into jail for a week or two and then some kind of arrangements should be made to repatriate you to your country of origin.

7) Having a fence up between the USA and Mexico isn't necessarily a 'bad thing' IMO but to make it the same way like the Iron Curtain is.

Hopefully a few mix of 'carrot' and 'stick' approaches would work to ease the illegal immigrant problem.

Regards, Mark - a legal immigrant btw, and somewhat against the new immigration bill because if I leave my Green Card at home and I get stopped by a police officer, technically I could be arrested with a felony - and any felony revokes my Green Card status... and I get to go home to England. Admittedly I have an advantage - English accent, blonde hair, blue eyes, very fair skin... so I might be able to wangle my way out of it... but technically I'd be committing a felony every time I stepped out of the house without my Green Card. Right now if I don't have it it's a misdemeanour.

Mark.

[Ksec]

20. Make the employers responsible for the health care, food, shelter,

and overall lifestyle of anyone here illegally.

The way you beat these pricks who are profitting by exploiting people is to get into their wallets.

If you get caught employing an illegal, you become responsible for this illegal. You take all financial responsibility for whatever he needs for the next ten years , or until he becomes a full fledged citizen.

[kentuck]

21. If they don't break our laws, then they should be considered legal...

But pass the word to Vicente Fox, if they break our laws, then we drop them off at their door. Otherwise, if they use our schools, our hospitals, our health clinics, etc, sign them up as US citizens with the same rights and same responsibilities. The only disqualifier would be if they break our laws.
Since they are already here, we should accept them.

[Elwood P Dowd]

24. That's an absurd idea.

We don't know the background on millions of these people. Plus, it would just open the floodgates when word spread south of the border.
Also, what about the millions of immigrants that played by the rules, waited their turn, and became citizens after years of hard work and sacrifice? Read Thom Hartman's article.....

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0329-21.htm

But there is nothing compassionate about driving down the wages of any nation's middle class. It's the most cynical, self-serving, greedy, and sociopathic behavior you'll see from our "conservatives."

There is nothing compassionate about being the national enabler of a dysfunctional oligarchy like Mexico. An illegal workforce in the US sending an estimated $17 billion to Mexico every year - second only in national income to that country's oil revenues - supports an antidemocratic, anti-worker, hyperconservative administration there that gleefully ships out of that nation the "troublesome" Mexican citizens - those lowest on the economic food-chain and thus most likely to present "labor unrest" - to the USA. Mexico (and other "sending nations") need not deal with their own social and economic problems so long as we're willing to solve them for them - at the expense of our middle class. Democracy in Central and South America be damned - there are profits to be made for Wal-Mart!

Similarly, there is nothing compassionate about handing higher profits (through a larger and thus cheaper work force) to the CEOs of America's largest corporations and our now-experiencing-record-profits construction and agriculture industries.

What about caring for people in need? Isn't that the universal religious/ethical value? Of course.

A few years ago, when my family and I were visiting Europe, one of our children fell sick. A doctor came to the home of the people we were staying with, visited our child at 11 pm on a weeknight, left behind a course of antibiotics, and charged nothing. It was paid for by that nation's universal health care system. We should offer the same to any human being in need of medical care - a universal human right - in the United States.

But if I'd applied to that nation I was visiting for a monthly unemployment or retirement check, I would have been laughed out of the local government office. And if I'd been caught working there, I would have been deported within a week. Caring for people in crisis/need is very different from giving a job or a monthly welfare check to non-citizens. No nation - even those in Central and South America - will do that. And neither should the United States.

[kentuck]

27. The genie is already out of the bottle...

These people are not going to give themselves up...If we're serious about this problem, then we need to guard our borders. But for those that are already here, if they are law-abiding, they should qualify for citizenship, in my humble opinion. If they break the laws, murder, robbery, drug-dealing, etc, then they should be deported. Why is that so absurd?

[Zookeeper]

30. The problem with automatically legalizing citizens of another...

country who have broken the law by illegally crossing a border (amnesty, in other words), is that it is a giant green light to anyone else who wants to come here. The message would be: We have laws, you can break them and eventually we'll make you a citizen anyway.

The last time amnesty was granted to people here illegally, it was supposed to stop the problem.

Employers need to be held responsible and punished.

[kentuck]

32. Ordinarily, that would be true...

but these folks are already here. Yes, they broke the immigration laws but they were enticed to break them by the lax border security. We need to fix that and go from there, in my opinion. But the ones here now should have to pay taxes and be subject to all other responsibilities of citizenship.

[JStuart]

23. ok

wall, fines for employers, amnesty for current citizens granting "residency" with NO path to citizenship. Rescind "born in USA=Citizen"

[benburch]

36. Thanks for that General Jeb Stuart.

You don't like dark skinned people any more in this incarnation, either, obviously.

[bush_is_wacko]

25. 1)Repeal NAFTA 2)Start actually prosecuting employers for

the multitude of laws they are breaking.

3) Increase the minimum wage by $4.00 an hour.

4) Tax the hell out of employers that move jobs out of this country. (If they want to run a factory in China, let them live under Chinese rule!)

The fact of the matter is that if those four things are done there will no longer be jobs for illegals in this country.

Americans will fight so feircely for the jobs that illegals are currently doing there will be no need for border control.

It is time this country weed out employers that take advantage of workers. If they can't sustain their business by paying a REAL working wage they don't belong in business!

[mb7588a]

26. global living wage, signed onto by every country,

in treaty form. Adjustable for each country so you can 'LIVE' anywhere and be comfortable.

Give the 11million a path to citizenship.

Oh if only it was as easy as it should be!

[The2ndWheel]

29. Take down the exploitative economic systems that rule our lives

Not sure how you do that, but it's as likely as prosecuting or taxing these corporations on a global scale when they make the frikkin' rules.

[lovuian]

31. I would first imprison Vincente Fox for being a terrible

dictator not taking care of his people and until Mexizo helps its people have better lives which is the plight of most South American countries then you will have people trying for a better life in America...

We have to close our borders and need to hire at least 90,000
border agents

I don't believe making these people felons

I do believe in making it a felony for hiring them


And those people who have been here and taking good care of themselves with jobs and paying healthcare can get amnesty after
4 years...

Thats my thought... But latin America need to bring their people life standards up rather than letting them live in poverty...

[in_cog_ni_to]

33. Spend millions, if necessary, BILLIONS on immigration agents

to be posted in EVERY border state, in every town and when a farmer/corporation is caught with illegal immigrants in his employ, fine THEM $100,000 per illegal immigrant and give a MANDATORY 1 year in jail.

Want to see it all end in a day? MAKE THE PEOPLE WHO HIRE THEM PAY.

[lovuian]

34. I like it Incognito

this is where the Democrats need to get their act straight

[NNN0LHI]

35. We don't do anything until the Democrats get back some control in Congress

I don't trust the Republicans on anything else. So why would I trust their judgment on this issue?

Don

[leftstreet]

39. Apparently, some people aren't waiting...

[republicansarewhores]

37. Start forcing businesses and corporations to pay a realistic living wage..

...Attracting American workers and drying up the pool of work illegals gravitate towards because no Americans can afford to take such jobs.

Hold corporations accountable for hiring illegals (and also avoiding the payment of SS and other taxes to the Federal government.)

Everyone bitches and moans illegals don't pay taxes.

How can you afford to pay taxes on less than minimum wage when the businesses hiring illegals are gettign away with worse.

It's scapegoating the victims, not the criminals.

The problem begins with the businesses gaining from the illegal problem, not the illegals crossing the border.



RAW

[Geek_Girl]

38. This is what I would do

I would:

Secure the borders as best possible

Grant amnesty to all the illegal Aliens from Mexico and South America currently living and working in the US.

Close all the loop holes that allow small and large business to hire illegal Aliens.

Increase the penalties for hiring illegals.

Change immigration laws to make it easier for Mexican and South American workers to attain jobs legally either through visas or guess worker permits.

Increase minimum wage.