There was an article in the local paper yesterday about immigration, which started by stating that consensus seems to have been reached that any reform must include a stipulation that, “If unauthorized immigrants in the United States are allowed to stay, they must go to the back of the line.”
I recall hearing Obama say that repeatedly, that those who came here illegally must pay a fine and “go to the back of the line” and thinking at the time, as I did when reading this article, “What does that really mean?”
The article goes into great detail about what it takes to enter the line and the length of time that persons from various countries must spend there, but what neither the article or Obama mentions or seems to comprehend is that the line forms outside of this country. To put it another way, people in the line are outside waiting to get in so how do people already here, illegally, go to the back of that line without leaving the country?
That’s sort of like telling a line of people outside a movie theater waiting to buy tickets see a movie that a group of people walking past them are going to be allowed to wait in line to buy tickets while in the theater watching the movie because they were caught stealing money. “Commit a crime and you, too, can watch the movie while waiting to buy movie tickets.” There may be some planet where that is logical, but…
I would name the local paper, by the way, but it doesn’t seem to know what its own name is. It used to be the Union-Tribune, but the only thing it goes by now is U-T, which is a logo, not a name. I’m not calling an entity by its stupid logo.
Here's a concept: make them legal in some way (temporary resident alien, renewable every 3-5 yrs or something) and make everything else not right away.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this will be a method so they are legalized and "get out of the shadows", but not have the perks that people that followed the rules get, ie. a permanent residence card, apply for citizenship in 5 yrs, etc.
That way they get their cake, and wait for the icing after the cake buyers get theirs.
I know that idea may rankle some people, like the hardliners, but as a practical matter we can't deport several million illegals. Never mind that this breaks up families, etc.
I know you could deport the illegal parents and the tecnically illegal kids who know nothing but America. Or deport the illegal parents and leave the american citizen minors behind. Oh wait, who's the guardian for them? Can you deport a minor american citizen?
immigration reform is a complicated issue with multiple beginnings and complications. I don't believe there is a one size fits all solution, nor one that everyone will be happy with. There will have to be compromise and no one will get exactly what they want and insisting on it will only stall and delay any reform.
Border security is virtually a joke here in the US. I'm more concerned about gangs, drug smuggling (and othe smuggling), safety & security than illegals.. that would be a byproduct of bettter border security.
And illegal immigrants tend to be low skilled labor that takes away jobs from the teenagers, college students, lower skilled US citizens. The kind of jobs I got as a teenager I don't know if they can be gotten now. Maybe they have to be savvier.
Okay, I wrote that before reading the article, which actually said a similiar case of what I did about a minimalist sort of documentation. The article was not bad or anything, I think the question rasied was where is the line to stand in, and does it have to be here or outside?
ReplyDeleteAs far as "the end of the line" goes, you could make a minimal temporary documentation with anything extra TBD, a lot easier than deporting everyone and starting them over from scratch literally outside.
That would perhaps be closer in the movie analogy of letting those people see only previews until the outside line gets all the way through, then they can see the full show.
Of course the outside line never goes away entirely, so you'd have to merge it somehow.
I still think that any illegal person or activist risk overplaying their hand by demanding anything, much less citizenship. I think that some sort of basic documentation is a starting point and the rest is gravy. Currently, they don't have anything.
Another problem is that there will be a lot more people appplying for this temporary card (or whatever it ends up being) than are really eligible, whatever the eligibility req's are. And it sets a precendent (again) like the one back in 1986.
Remember that none of this does anything to secure the border, over which they just come back along with all the other ones that are coming. Which is a separate issue anyway.
1) what do you do with the ones that are already here? and to keep it from expanding legally or otherwise.
2) what do you do to control entry in the first place? physical egress and resaon for coming here.
3) being legal here does not have to mean citizenship or a path to get there.