Opinion: How to Fix The Illegal Immigration Mess

There really is a way to fix this problem, but it probably will never happen. It won't happen because there are too many powerful forces who actually WANT more illegal aliens here. 

And to be more specific... I am talking about the following special interests:

• Labor intensive businesses who want cheap labor (like agriculture, construction, food service, and hospitality)
• The Democrat Party who sees immigrants as part of their voting base. Their hope is to bring in as many as possible, then grant amnesty so they can vote for their candidates.
• The Republican Party who also wants cheap labor help their business elements, especially those that are fighting unionizing efforts.
• The Catholic Church for whom these people represent the only real growth they had lately. These are the people who fill their pews and have become their most devout new members.
• The Hispanic Community in America, even those who are here legally, see this as a fast way to bring friends and relatives here to join them. Virtually 100% of these people want "immigration reform" which means amnesty, and this group is our largest minority now.

I say these are powerful groups because the vast majority of ordinary people, whenever they are polled, say they want illegal immigration stopped. And despite decades of debating this problem it just keeps getting worse. This tells us that these special interests are getting their way in preventing the routine enforcement of our law.

It is also important to remember that all politicians, whether they are Republican or Democrats, are whores, who will do anything they can to win votes. And they love having it both ways, so they will go "on record" voting for tough immigration laws but then never provide adequate funding to actually enforce the law properly. 

A good example of this is how they vote for a border fence, then don't vote enough funds to actually build it.

So while we all generally agree that legal immigration is a good thing, and illegal immigration is a bad thing, we can't agree on a solution to this problem. One side refuses any type of amnesty for those already here, and the other doesn't seem to want any sort of restrictions on immigration.

So how can we fix this mess?

The very first step is to reach a national consensus on what we actually want. This means we might even have to have a national plebiscite on the matter. We need to agree on how many immigrants we want admitted every year. And once we do that, we need to adjust our immigration quotas accordingly, then simply rigorously enforce the law that exists.

The key here is we must bring these people in legally and process them properly. The current free for all system must end. Unless we enforce our own laws, we will have no control over the number of immigrants flooding our labor markets, whether we are admitting criminals, or whether we are introducing diseases that were previously under control.  (if your ancestors came here through Ellis Island, then they were probably screened for TB and Influenza.)

Personally, I feel our immigration quotas are much too low. We actually need these people to come here, and by so many of them being illegals we are making assimilation more difficult for them. And that lack of assimilation is a problem that will come back to haunt us. We could end up like France or Germany in that regard, and that just isn't a good place to be.

We need these people because our birthrate is too low. Our children have children much later than we did, and they have fewer children.  And abortion has become widespread and commonplace.

The net result of this is that the ONLY real population growth we have is through immigration.

Without it we could have a negative population growth like Italy, Spain or Greece. And the net result of negative population growth is bankruptcy due to a shrinking tax base.

That last point is beyond dispute. If you WANT all these generous government benefits to continue, then you need a LARGER taxpaying workforce, and not a smaller one. This is just simple math, and not politics.


The solution to this problem is:

1. Decide what you want to do
2. Raise or lower the immigration quotas accordingly
3. Enforce the Law rigorously

This solution is so simple that it probably will never happen. The problem doesn't exist because the issue is impossible to solve, it exists because we lack the will to fix it. Once we find the will, it can be fixed.

And no matter what you do, you really do have to make some sort of provision for "those who are already here" because mass deportations would just not be acceptable. 

Politically, I am what you might call an arch conservative, but I will promise you that America can not "round them up and ship them out." It just will never happen. We have to legalize those who are good citizens (which means almost all of them) then deport those who aren't, then slam the door shut and really mean it this time. We also need to raise our quotas to match what we actually want to come in every year, and not to what the special interests want.