How to solve the Immigration problem 9/3/12
For the first time,
illegal immigrants outnumbered legal ones. The number of illegal immigrants
peaked at an estimated 11.9 million in 2008. Illegal immigrants are growing at
a rate of ½ million per year, one third is from those with legal visa that
overstay their visit and become illegal.
Note:
In the context of this article, the use of illegal and undocumented should be
construed as the same. Due to the nature of the hidden culture of undocumented
immigrants, dollar amounts are estimates and not exact.
The political landscape seems to
complicate the murky issue of immigration as the presidential candidates
stammer around with weak proposals. But when one steps back and looks at the
facts, a clearer solvable picture emerges.
There are two basic views regarding undocumented immigrants: A concern for
oppression of immigrants and a concern for the safety of U.S. citizens. The
common denominator between the two views is the horrendous amount of dollars
being wasted in the process. I will lay out the recent history of the issues
and dissect the facts for a meaningful conclusion.
President Bush proposed amnesty
to 3 million undocumented immigrants and allowed them to be in a guest worker
program for 3 years. After that they must be required to return home. With that
plan they would be a guest - then not a
guest after the 3 years. He also offered the idea that they could become
legal after registering as temporary workers. They would receive amnesty, get
fined and have other sanctions applied, then be able to achieve citizenship. Both
of Bush’s ideas went no-where in Congress.
President Obama’s solution is
just as impractical. The initiative allowed illegal immigrant children
temporary citizenship for two years. But after the second year, they would be
illegal again. Between the two presidents, both offered a temporary solution,
but nothing permanent.
Not unlike president Bush, Mitt
Romney’s had the idea of self deportation. Common sense tells us that no
illegal immigrant would willingly deport themselves back to a condition worse
than the one they already are in.
Let’s take a look at the advantages
of keeping undocumented immigrants in the U.S. verses returning them to their
place of origin.
Keep
the Undocumented Immigrants:
It would be impractical to remove millions of illegal immigrants,
therefore they should stay. Estimates to remove illegals are estimated to
cost over $200 billion.
Immigrants help the economy by contributing less expensive labor for
work not favorable to U.S. citizens. Economists generally believe that when averaged over the whole economy,
the effect is a small net positive.
The social security system benefits from the influx of money from
illegal aliens. Total taxes from
illegals are estimated at $17 billion.
Federal immigration law says illegals are only committing a civil
offense not a crime. This is true. A crime is something committed against
the state or society as a whole, but immigration law does not see this as such.
However, if your smuggling aliens or it’s your second time crossing after deportation,
it’s a crime. It is more accurate to say
undocumented immigrants have broken the law and must be held accountable for
their civil offense.
Return
the Undocumented Immigrants:
Millions of illegals steal social security numbers from U.S. citizens
to keep their jobs. Each year,
for example, the U.S. Social Security Administration maintains roughly $6
billion to $7 billion of Social Security contributions in an "earnings
suspense file" - an account for W-2 tax forms that cannot be matched to
the correct Social Security number. Social security number theft could
be a plus to the owner of the number, but it could also mean that the owner has
to resolve a debt or bankruptcy from the illegal user affecting the owner’s
credit. Misuse of the social security numbers cost taxpayers over 4 billion
annually.
Illegal immigrants enter the U.S. quickly, while legal immigrants have
to wait years to enter the U.S. Currently, there are over 7 million in the
queue for citizenship and undocumented workers slow the process.
Illegals take jobs from U.S. citizens. ¾ million American workers are
displaced yearly at a cost of 4.3 billion per year. Experts believe cheap labor
also depresses the wages and working conditions of the working poor.
Illegal immigrants burden the health care system with free services. Educating the additional 28 million children
in public primary and secondary schools, providing free medical services through
Medicaid (over 300,000 children are born to illegals each year allowing
automatic welfare from birthright citizenship), and incarceration for illegal
criminals — costs the U.S. over $36 billion.
Drugs and criminals are mixing with the flow of illegal immigration.
At least 10% of the prison population are illegal immigrants. This would
translate into roughly 1 million per day to house them. House Judiciary Committee by DHS found illegals commited nearly 2,000
DUI (11.9%), over 1,400 drug violations (8.8%), and more than 1,000 major
criminal offenses and violent crimes (6.9%), including murder, assault,
battery, rape, kidnapping, child molestation, domestic abuse, lynching,
stalking, and torture and include 19 murders, 3 attempted murders, and 142 sex
crimes.
Money sent back to their place of origin and does not help the U.S.
economy. $25 billion dollars of remittances bypass the U.S. economy, the
proportion of that from illegals is estimated at $5 billion.
Unwinding the Data
Lets deal with points made for keeping undocumented
immigrants. The first obvious issue is deportation. At $200 billion and more,
it would be ambitious at the least and ridiculous at the most to try and return
all undocumented immigrants to their place of origin. Even if all were
deported, it wouldn’t stop the flow back in. Therefore, that is off the table.
So what do we do with 11 million illegals? Simple, keep them…unless they have committed
a crime, which would move the issue from a civil offense to a criminal offense.
I will discuss how shortly. The second issue is the amount of income
generated by illegals. A first glance it looks to be a boon to the economy,
but the other side of the coin shows the negative aspect to it. There are billions
of dollars lost from stolen social security numbers, from undocumented
immigrant criminals, from displaced American workers, and from a burdened
healthcare system and education system. All this has costs the U.S. over $36
billion annually (2008 figures). Illegal
immigrant income minus illegal immigrant expenses equals a $20 billion loss to
the U.S. taxpayer (these 2008 figures are estimated to more than triple
this year).
The dilemma is that the U.S. can’t afford to deport the
millions of undocumented immigrants from its borders, and yet the U.S. can’t
afford to keep the illegals operating in the system as is.
The
Solution.
My solution is to make the illegals legal, by way of a permanent business work visa. They
would not be U.S. citizens.
This would resolve
three things. First, it would free up immigration to focus on more pressing
illegal activity, second, it would save the U.S. billions not having to return
the illegals to their place of origin, and third, it would give dignity to the
immigrants that wish to stay.
Many would say that they would get a free pass. I agree that
no one should get a free pass. The legal document for immigrants would be for
work – and only work. The U.S. Department of Labor can coordinate with the
immigration department and businesses to match work needed with existing and
future immigrants. This would give the immigrant a document, enabling him/her
the ability to work and live with their dependants in the U.S. As a side note, the DOL should revamp its
whole system to be an efficient employment matching entity for ALL U.S.
citizens and immigrants…connecting the employee to available and suitable jobs.
The catch for businesses is this: If they truly assert Americans won’t work for
them and feel they must instead invite immigrants to work for them, health care
and their children’s educational needs should be provided by the business, not
the U.S. taxpayer.
Additionally, a
business work visa would also reduce the burden of processing immigrants taking
the standard path to citizenship. If an immigrant holds a job in the U.S. for 15
years without committing a crime, they should be automatically enlisted into a
path for citizenship if they so desire. Another
point - no children born in the U.S. should be automatically granted
citizenship unless their parents are citizens. The reason for this is
twofold. First, it keeps families together by solidifying their country of
origin, and second, it thwarts any attempt by immigrants wishing to take
advantage of the generosity of the U.S. Medicaid system by using their child as
a source of income. This also doesn’t snub the immigrants trying to achieve
citizenship through regular channels. If the children have lived in the U.S.
for 15 years, they too can apply for citizenship.
Border security should modify its current hunt for
undocumented immigrants and criminals to hunting for criminals, as well as
processing undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S. for work. I envision a
large employment center strategically located at each border state receiving
and matching the worker with employers desperate to get their product out.
With this plan in place, it’s a win win. All working immigrants
and their dependants in the U.S. can hold their head high and come out from the
shadows. Employers can be open and confident about their employees. Billions of
dollars will not be wasted trying to return hardworking immigrants (without a
criminal record), and billions of dollars will not be wasted hunting down immigrants
just wanting a better life for them and their children.
Sources: The Center for Immigration Studies, Don
Huddle’s “The Net Costs of Immigration,” the INS Statistics Division. House Judiciary Committee by DHS
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