Mr. Bush and congress have apparently begun a new push for what they call real immigration reform. While their positions still are far apart, they are much closer than they were originally. The plans I’ve seen have many major flaws as yet, but parts of them might be workable with some tweaking.
The article on CNN today explains the changes congress is proposing:
“The plan would grant work visas to undocumented immigrants but require them to return home and pay hefty fines to become legal U.S. residents. They could apply for three-year work visas, dubbed "Z" visas, which would be renewable indefinitely but cost $3,500 each time.
The undocumented workers would have legal status with the visas, but to become legal permanent residents with a green card, they'd have to return to their home country, apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.
That's far more restrictive than the bipartisan bill the Senate approved last year.
So far, Bush has only gotten part of what he wants -- border legislation. He signed a bill last October authorizing 700 additional miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.”
While this is better than the Senate bill from last year, it’s still far from ideal and does not take into account many factors that will steeply escalate the cost to the American taxpayer. The one thing I see in it that I do like is that the so-called “touchback” provision that was being floated recently is modified. Before all an illegal immigrant would have to do is step across the border and back across to fulfill the requirement that they leave the country. Now they have to go home and apply and pay a fine.
The White House has also suggests that we “redirect as many as 50,000 visas that take into account factors such as an immigrant's education, training, and language skills as well as the employment needs of the country.” This is a small step in the right direction, but it needs to be many more than the proposed 50,000. Currently most visas are granted because the applicant has a family member who is already here legally. It does not take education, language skills, or employability into account.
People who support unrestricted legal immigration are fond of pointing out that the United States is a nation of immigrants and that many people’s parents and grandparents came to this country as immigrants. This argument simply is not valid today. Fifty or a hundred years ago education was not as critical a success factor as it is today. It was entirely possible to own a home and raise a family on the salary of a janitor or some other low-skilled laborer with only one adult in the family working. This is not possible today. Also, those coming here from other countries then generally had learning the language as a top priority, which is also different from many of today’s illegal immigrants who expect those here to learn their languages as opposed to them learning ours.
A recent report on immigration says that each illegal immigrant family costs the country $2700/year above and beyond what it contributes back in taxes. In 2002 cost was $10.4 billion a year. Two-thirds of illegal immigrants today lack a high school education. If granted amnesty, the report estimates that the cost of providing social services, would increase to $7,700 per year per family for a cost of $29 billion because while tax payments would rise by 77% the drain on social programs would rise by 118%. It is important to consider too that these costs are predicated on 2002 costs.
Another important factor to consider when addressing the drain on social programs is that legal immigrants sign up their children at a much greater rate to programs such as Medicaid than do illegals (even if their children are legal) out of fear of being caught and deported. These will rise dramatically when the illegals can legally apply to these programs.
You can read the entire report here:
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscal.html
Some other factors to consider in regard to this new push for “comprehensive” immigration reform is that it’s been tried before and the government is amazingly adept at conveniently “forgetting” clauses in the law that require strict enforcement of laws against hiring illegals, stringent border security, a non-forgeable identification card for legal immigrants, and other such tightening of the laws. Just as with the H-1B visa program which is approving visas at a rate four times that authorized by congress, this new amnesty measure is sure to be abused as there is no will to enforce the other more stringent clauses in the law. Mr. Reagan’s famous amnesty program proves this clearly. There were many parts of that law that were simply ignored, such as enforcing the rules against hiring illegals, once the amnesty was granted.
Without a real commitment to stringent enforcement, this bill will do nothing but flood the country with millions of illegal immigrants who are under-educated and who cannot or will not assimilate as did the other waves of immigrants to this country. Remember too that gang members, crooks, drug runners, and other criminals will not register. Given the costs and the requirements that the illegal return to their own country to apply for the new Z visa, it’s not hard to predict that the majority of illegals here at the moment will not register to become legal either. Thus we will simply be beginning another cycle leading to another big amnesty bill, with no real progress being made toward really securing our borders.
The key to solving this problem, no matter where we come down on the amnesty portion, is stringent enforcement of our existing immigration laws. It is only when we dry up the jobs for illegals and inpose severe penalties for those who break the laws (illegals and employers alike) that we stand any chance at all of actually solving this problems. Mr. Reagan proved that just granting blanket amnesty and turning a blind eye to the other provisions just perpetuates the problem.
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