Currently, we have a huge problem with illegal immigration, and the issue has become highly politicized. This is my simple proposal to solve the problem.
Background
Let me be clear on one thing first. This has nothing to do with race. I am not racist towards hispanics or anyone else. Quite the contrary; I lived in Uruguay for two years, and I absolutely love the people and culture there. In some ways, I love it there more than here, just because of the openness and friendliness of the communities and people there. The illegal immigration is not an issue of race, it is an issue of the rule of law and equal protection under the law.
Principle 5 says, "If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it." We have immigration laws for various reasons in this country, and I'm not going to go into all of them right now. However, one important reason is that unlimited immigration would overwhelm the country's labor markets and its physical and social infrastructure. Immigration law helps throttle immigration back to a level that we can safely absorb.
Our current situation is that few people respect immigration law, and that's because they have a stake in it being ignored. Illegal immigrants naturally have a stake in it, because they get to come and live here, make good wages while avoiding taxes on them, and support their family at a level they could not achieve in their home country. Foreign governments have a stake in it, because their citizens that are here illegally send money back to their families, effectively siphoning money from the American economy and injecting it into their own. Many politicians have a stake in it because they fear the backlash their constituents, that may either be illegal immigrants or American citizens of foreign origin that sympathize with them. Many business have a stake in it because they benefit from the cheaper labor that illegal immigration can provide them.
Proposal
First of all, we have to close the border. There should be a fence wherever illegal crossings are occurring, and we need to empower local and state governments and police forces to enforce immigration law. If we lack the funding to do so, we need to get it from somewhere. More on that later.
Second of all, we need cooperation from our neighbors in enforcing immigration. A border involves two nations, and enforcement of the laws governing its crossing should not be a unilateral undertaking. But other nations have no incentive to do so, how do we get them to agree?
Simple.
Third, fund our revamped immigration enforcement by billing foreign governments of deported aliens for the tax-funded services they made use of while illegally in the country. These would include: the costs of deporting them; health care services, including Medicare, Medicaid, and other such programs; police protection; infrastructure maintenance; public education; unemployement benefits and other government entitlement programs; and so on.
I think sending the bill to other governments would both help us recoup our costs in enforcing our border, and at the same time encourage them to help us stop illegal immigration. Will they want to pay? Of course not. Can we make them? Well, yes. We're the United States of America. Who is going to stop us, the UN?
Please feel free to comment on my proposal. Right now its just an idea, but I would love to improve it to the point we could make it part of political platforms and produce a bill to implement it.
