Solving The Illegal Alien Aspect Of Immigration

Lee P. Butler

‘If we build the fence, they won’t come.’

That is the thought of many in America who want desperately to find a solution to stopping the flood of illegal aliens streaming across our southern border creating a tremendous national security threat, while their infiltration of American society drains our social resources.

On the other side of the debate, that in all honesty shouldn’t be a debate, the argument has been postulated that although the fact that thousands of illegal aliens are crossing the border almost daily does present a national security threat, building a fence would be nothing more than xenophobic manipulation.

After all, the more than 12 million illegal aliens in the Hispanic community in this country are only here to find a better life for themselves and their families and contribute to society by providing cheap labor for essential services while they pay sales taxes.

Of course, as several polls indicate, most Americans believe the aspects of a national security threat and the drain on societal resources supersede those supposed benefits.

Which is one of the reasons President Bush first introduced the idea of a ‘guest worker’ program. He wanted to balance the two factions by providing documentation for Mexican workers so we’d know and regulate who and where these people are, while preventing illegal aliens from getting permanent residency through amnesty ahead of immigrants who came here along legal channels.

When the House of Representatives passed legislation that strengthened and added more harsh penalties for enforcement of existing illegal immigration laws, the Hispanic community, led by a concerted collaboration of Hispanic media outlets, took to the streets of cities across America in protest.

The sight of thousands of protestors, many of whom carried Mexican flags and displayed signs declaring the United States had ‘stolen’ their land from them, scared Senators into creating their own immigration legislation. It institutes financial punishment, then assimilation by asking illegal aliens to learn English as they get in the back of the naturalization line.

The reality is that many in the illegal alien community have no intention of ever becoming American citizens, they just want to exist here because they have access to goods and services that they can’t get in their own country.

Plus, Mexico wants them here because they don’t want the financial burden that offering those goods and services in that country would be on the Mexican economy. Making America pay for those benefits creates a win-win situation for Mexico.

And therein lies the solution to this problem.

The physicality of a fence on the border seems rational on the surface and could even be effective in the immediacy of the issue, but as history has repeatedly proven, as time goes by it will lose it’s efficiency.

You can’t put a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches. At first it may feel better, but eventually it will turn into a gnarly, painful scar.

The fence that is needed should be one that exists in virtually and consists of processes ripe with restrictions and sanctions against the ideological mindsets that are contributing to the existence of the problem.

Since America is the great melting pot of world societies and is desirous of having a fluid, yet comprehensive immigration policy, the heart of any reform has to specifically address the illegal alien situation between Mexico and America and reality dictates that northern bordering Canada be included.

The virtual fence has to be erected so that it divides the countries and deals with each side individually and specifically addresses the problems created on both sides and includes provisions directed towards the illegal community that currently exists in this country.

First, Mexico is intentionally exacerbating the problem by promising to work with America, but not only does nothing it promises but has actually been shown to assist the illegal movement of their people into this country and openly says that it benefits America for them to do so.

NAFTA was passed by Congress and President Clinton to specifically help Mexico create jobs and raise the economic status of the Mexican people, yet the illegal infiltration of people from Mexico into this country has increased since its passage.

Mexico should be penalized utilizing that trade agreement if they don’t start immediately a proactive measure to stop the physical migration of their people across the border that would include military force if necessary.

They should also start a comprehensive system, in conjunction with the United States, in Mexico through which the people of Mexico can be processed there to take part in the ‘guest worker’ program supported by President Bush.

That would create a legal; and possibly physical, channel starting in Mexico and ending in the United States that can be better controlled and monitored by the two countries to prevent abuses while allowing for a more fluid and productive system.

Next, the United States has to change the part of its immigration policy that gives American citizenship to any baby born in this country. Children born to parents of immigrants who followed the proper procedures should be granted that status. Children born of illegal aliens should not, but should be allowed to follow through on the naturalization process to attain American citizenship status.

Accompanying that should be a policy whereby any illegal alien who signs up for or receives social services, including health related concerns such as pregnancy, are automatically placed after treatment in the system for extradition.

This would be designed to move those people back to their country of origin where they can then be processed through the legal immigration channel.

Give amnesty to all employers who have hired illegal aliens, but upon the date of passage of that legislation, those employers have to give up those employees to be processed for the ‘guest worker’ program. All forms of taxation should immediately start being deducted from the worker's pay and minimum wage enforced.

A transfer tax of at least 35 percent should be imposed on the billions; that's billions with a B, of dollars a year that is sent to Mexico from America. In excess of 50 billion dollars, that money constitutes a substantial portion of Mexico’s national economy and is being directed away from the American economy that helped generate the income with little or no taxation.

That revenue would help absorb the total cost of social services that have suddenly skyrocketed across the country from the influx of illegal aliens and are bankrupting local and state governments. It will also fund the continuance of those services as America accepts the incorporation of those people in this country.

Finally, to remove the political nuance that has had the tendency to motivate political machinations in Congress, any person who qualifies as an illegal alien in the ‘guest worker’ program will forever be denied the ability to vote in this country.

Unless they go back to their country of origin and follow the mandates of our immigration policy to incorporate themselves in the United States as an American citizen the same way millions of other immigrants have done legally for centuries.

With those things in place, a true comprehensive plan would emerge to deal with the illegal immigration problem and would effectively stultify the exodus of illegal aliens at the border so the actual national security threat that exists could be better addressed.

The implementation of a virtual wall, not a physical one, will ease the human, economic, and political detriment that muddies the objectivity of this issue.

The question is, is there anyone in Congress who is willing to lead the charge for this comprehensive reform to solve the illegal alien aspect of immigration?