Jun 10 2005
People Taking On Illegal Immigration
I have not started a category yet on illegal immigration, but it is time. I have felt the illegal immigration issue was best addressed by adjusting our current policies to reality. That means the reality of illegal immigration is driven by people filling jobs here and the reality that we need to crack down and get handle on this. I want to address an article today, but I would like to give my context first.
Illegal immigration is illegal, but is it reckless driving illegal or attempted murder illegal. For honest hard working people I tend to lean towards the former. For criminals I tend to lean well beyond the latter and want them kicked out immediately. For terrorists, they are in a class of their own since the release is problematic, so something harsher should befall them.
Now we need to recognize we need to track everyone who comes into the country -whether we find them at the boarder or already inside. Why are border requirements disappear inside our interior is beyond me. We need a scale of response depending on the level of illegality/risk. We must recall that there is massive legal immigration across our southern border. I do not recall the ratio of migrant workers that are legal vs. illegal, but it was a small percentage (maybe 20%) more illegals overflowing the quota for legal migrant workers.
So, if we adjust the number of allowed workers we address the larger pool. But adjusting a number does not help one bit with tracking and identifying criminals and terrorists. Which is what I think is at the heart of the Bush plan. He wants to expand the legal immigration level to meet low wage/skill labor demands here, allow up to three years to perform this legal migrant work, but have complete documentation on the worker.
To make this work we need to get serious and crack down. I do not think exporting massive amounts of people will help one bit identify well meaning cheaters of the system from the dangerous ones. It will drive them deeper. So I support registration as a way to avoid fines, jail time and/or deportation. Give people grace time to register and they should take it. And if most do that shrinks the size of the pool of people we need to address. After the grace period a worker who has no criminal background and is supporting family here (mitigating circumstances allowed in determining punishments at all levels) and who is picked up gets misdemeanor level fines. Repeat offenders rapidly graduate to deportation. Those who can provide leads to others breaking the law can get reduced sentences. This is normal. Corporations will need to be brought into this too, but first the US will need an information bank or service available for companies to verify papers or status.
That means ANYTIME an illegal alien is picked up he gets registered and dealt with legally. Focusing on this will start to ’round up’ what we need, which is information on aliens and working out the balance between labor needs and rushes at our borders.
OK, lots of background. But think about how this community is dealing with the problem given the context I just laid out.
NEW IPSWICH, N.H. — The police chief of this tiny whitewashed New England town has crafted his own border-control policy — he has charged illegal immigrants from Mexico with trespassing in New Hampshire.
The novel legal strategy has made a minor celebrity of W. Garrett Chamberlain. The 36-year-old police chief hops to his feet and deposits a pile of letters on his desk, from Alaskans and Californians, Border Patrol agents and soldiers in Iraq, all applauding his initiative. Fox News commentators have called, too, seeking his views on national immigration policy.
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His officers had discovered illegal immigrants several times, but immigration agents declined to detain them.
That last line is the problem. They should be detained until they get fully registered. If they check out as employed and hard working (which means they are filling a labor need) with no criminal record they get a fine like in traffic court (where there are lots of illegal immigrants, btw) but 24 month probation for their legal status to work here.
If they have a criminal record, repeat offender, etc they are jailed or deported. How hard is this? We do not round up massive amounts of people. Sadly, we round them up everyday for illegal actions – we just don’t take actions to fix the situation.
Given the number (and sometimes nature) of illegals crossing, should private vigilante groups like the “Coyotes” be allowed to use their own methods of preventing aliens crossing or should it be left solely to the local, state, federal govt. to deal with? I have heard opinions both for and against these groups for reasons including the violation immgrant/human rights (not that they should be subject to citizen protection or anything like that) and these groups are necessary because, like a business, some things the govt. has to leave to the private sector. I would imagine, inlight of Chief Chamberlin’s reponses and solutions, these groups might gain a bit of stardom as well, if not already in the local communties.
I think the need for private groups would be eliminated when illegal aliens who are caught up in or normal judicial system we do what I laid out. This would motivate many to register for work permits and leverage the state and local law enforcement resources.
Citizen groups could still help out monitoring the boarder, but also would monitor the progress and implementation of the registration and probation status.