When I travel outside the country on business, it’s always interesting to me to see the procedures for coming back into the United States. By far, the United States has a more rigorous bureaucracy at immigration control than other countries. For US citizens, it’s not too bad. But I have noticed that we put foreign visitors through quite a lengthy process to let them in. Foreign visitors have to fill out paper work saying where they are gong, where they are staying, how long they are going to be in the country, etc. We also require them to give us finger prints and submit to being photographed. And then of course they are subject to the additional bureaucracy that everyone, citizens and non-citizens have to go through, customs inspections, etc.
That’s the process I think of every time I hear people talking about immigration reform in the United States. We talk about giving amnesty to illegal aliens and letting them stay in the United States simply by virtue of the fact that they successfully snuck in, bypassing our border security. If we’re going to do that, why do we even bother imposing immigration controls at our airports and sea ports? If we’re going to give amnesty to illegal immigrants, why do we even bother with passports?
If it’s important that we photograph and fingerprint every non-citizen coming into the United States via an airport, then why isn’t it equally important that we photograph and fingerprint every non-citizen coming into the country by foot? Or put it another way, suppose a non-citizen arrived into the JFK airport and when he got off the plane, he somehow managed to bypass all the immigration security and get into New York city without having to go through any of the usual immigration checks. Would you be in favor of granting this guy citizenship? Would you want him arrested and sent back home? Or at bar minimum, would you want to at least haul him back to immigration control and make him go through the same process everyone else does?
Suppose this guy who snuck past airport security lives in NYC for a couple of years, working odd jobs at employers who don’t do background checks. Suppose he falls in love. Suppose he has a kid. Do these things grant him the right to expect citizenship? I don’t think so.
So that puts me into the “border security first” camp on the immigration reform. That is issue number one for me. Yes it’s partly driven by a fear of bad guys in black hats getting into the country planning nefarious terrorist schemes. But that’s only part of the issue. The biggest part of the issue is that I expect everyone to have to go through the same process for coming into the United States regardless of where/how they are crossing the border. It’s simply a matter of fairness. It bugs the hell out of me that we would set up a system in which people who break the law are rewarded with any kind of legal status. In every other criminal activity, when we catch the criminal and convict the criminal, we take away the criminal’s rights, not give them more.
So count me as a hard core supporters of enforcing physical border security and as a hard core supporter for requiring everyone to go through the same process when coming into the country. This is especially true for people who want to come to the country to live permanently and who want to become US citizens.
I part company with the “border security first” folks in that I’m also in favor of a very liberal policy about letting folks into the country. I am not afraid of the country being flooded by immigrants. I’m not afraid of other ethnic cultures establishing themselves in the US. I actually kinda like it. Immigrants energize the country in countless little ways just by trying to make a better life. I too sometimes worry about our social support system being over burdened with floods of penniless, lost, scared economic and political refugees. But this is a manageable problem. With the help of both government and private organizations, such as faith based charities and other sorts of charitable organizations, we can collectively handle the integration of struggling immigrants into the country.
But this is all the more reason, to strictly enforce border security, so that we know who is coming in, so that we know what they need, so that we can use the border crossing as a point of contact for helping those who need it. And, frankly, we can also use border security for what it’s supposed to be for, which is a control point for intercepting known criminals and people on the run from the law in their home countries.
As part of a liberal immigration policy, I would support multiple types of programs for folks. I fully support all of the various types of guest worker programs in which citizens of other countries work and live here for extended periods of time but without being part of a process to eventually become citizens. As I understand these programs today, they are primarily targeted to high skilled workers who already have sponsorships from employers, but I don’t see why the guest worker concept can’t be extended to all types of workers.
And what of the people who have already snuck into the country and have been living here? I feel sorry for them, I really do. It’s really sad for people whose lives have been so full of hardship that they risked everything to get into the US. It’s heart breaking to have to uproot them again and send them back. But these folks are simply the most visible folks in a sad situation. The folks we don’t see are the ones who are equally desperate to get into the United States and who are nonetheless following the law, following the rules and procedures for getting in the right way. To let illegal immigrants stay in this country and to confer on them legal status, is simply unfair to all of the law abiding people still trying to get in. So although it’s going to be heart wrenching to send illegal immigrants back to their home country, it’s the only fair and just thing to do. It’s the only policy that’s fair and just to everybody.
Would you mind asking yourself why is this people risking everything to come to a place where they are going to be underclass human beings?
I’d love to know what answer you come up with,it seems to me you are not closed minded as all the people who critizice all efforts to remedy the problem but offer not any solution.
Thank you.
I don’t have my facts on hand, but I believe the great majority of illegal immigrants here came through the border legally – on a visitor or student visa, or from a country that doesn’t require a visa to enter – and overstayed their visas or time here. So it seems to me that while we may want more secure border for many reasons, just checking people as they come in doesn’t make much difference in how long they stay.
(jc in dc)
i: The statistics for immigration are notoriously hard to come by but it is fairly certain that those overstaying legally-obtained visas do not constitute the “great majority” of the illegals in the country. This article from the Institute for Immigration Studies has figures ranging from 30 to 40 percent which seems to fall in the typical range of such estimates.
Of course, forty percent of a big number is also a big number and my quibble doesn’t conflict with your observation that exit verification for those entering the country on temporary visas would be a significant step towards controlling illegal immigration.
Jeez, but it is hard to find a minute these days to argue with a friend. I am rather late in pointing out that, while I am in perfect agreement with most of your argument here, there are one or two bits on which we disagree and, sadly, they may turn out to be the pivots on which our arguments will turn, placing us in the end on opposite sides of the issue.
I, too, support much stronger enforcement of our southern border. And like you, I part company with most of the “enforcement-first” types in that I think that immigration is on balance a good thing — but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing and that is where we are right now.
Where we disagree is on the issue of mass deportations which you see as “the only fair and just thing to do” and I see as neither fair nor just nor desirable nor politically possible. In terms of your argument, I mostly disagree with your last paragraph but there are a few sentences here and there, where you are setting up for your argument in the last paragraph, with which I also take issue.
My argument is based on the legal truism stating that “Justice delayed is justice denied.” With the exception of a very few very serious crimes — murder, treason, rape, etc. — most laws have the concept of a statute of limitations. If you steal some money and elude capture for the requisite number of years the law will automatically forgive you. People change over time and it is both sensible and fair that your recent activities should weigh more than something you did when you were a kid.
I think it is immanently fair for people sneaking across the border to be shot at, rounded up, roughed up, hauled back to border and launched back into Mexico with a big US GI boot mark on their behinds — provided this is all done with dispatch. But, if they are let in with a shaken finger and a wink, if they then live in the country for years, working hard, building a life and a place in their community, raising a family that is more American than Mexican… if they do all that I think it is monstrously unfair to take that away for a years-old misdemeanor.
As to this not being fair to, say, people from the Sudan who would love to come to the US but can’t because they can’t get a visa and the Atlantic is harder to swim than the Rio Grande, I guess it isn’t fair. But life isn’t fair. They should have exactly the same right to be shot at crossing the Rio Grande — and to be rounded up an booted back into Mexico — as anyone else. It’s not the job of the US government to arrange for them to get into Mexico.
I understand that the group to whom you feel an “amnesty” would be unfair is those who follow the rules, and I see your point. But I’m afraid I have enough of the anarchist in me to see an element of enterprise in swimming that river and evading the border patrol to try to make a better life for yourself and your family. And those poor Mexicans who don’t swim the river may be exhibiting higher ethical standards than their wetback neighbors — or they may just be apathetic and lazy.