So, the latest brouhaha whipped up by the media and certain one-issue zealots is over illegal immigration. It's been going on at a fever pitch all decade, but suddenly we must do something about it chop chop.
The issue is one which divides the Republican party, as it pits two of their core constituencies against each other: the xenophobes and the business lobby. Big businesses want dirt-cheap labor that has no recourse to governmental intermediation, and the xenophobes fear that their nation is being overrun by outsiders. There isn't much of a middle ground.
Perhaps surprisingly, I come down on the side of the xenophobes. Illegal immigration is a massive contributor to the death of the American lower middle class. Time was there were well-paying jobs for Americans in the construction industry, in the meat-packing industry, in factory work and in restaurants and in janitorial services. Those are all gone now, "insourced" as it were to largely illegal labor. The much bandied-about phrase "jobs Americans won't do" is the purest form of bullshit: Americans are hard-working and dedicated people who will do any job that will pay a wage they can live on.
This is not to say that I'm anti-immigration. I'm against illegal immigration. Our immigration policies are inappropriate and in need of review, but at this time in history we cannot allow everyone who wants to move here to move here; if we ought to allow more immigrants or change our country-of-origin discrimination, that should be done within the law.
So that's my position. Anyway, the illegal immigration debate is a funny one to me, because if we want to curtail illegal immigration there's a simple and very effective way to do it. Prosecute everyone who hires illegal immigrants.
I don't mean pass laws against hiring illegal immigrants, or creating stiffer penalties for those who do. I mean actually go out and throw people in jail. Lots of people. What most people, and almost all conservatives, consistently fail to understand is that more laws or stiffer penalties are irrelevant when it comes to changing behavior. What matters is whether or not the malefactors think they will get caught. If we vigorously enforced policies against hiring illegal immigrants, with stiff enough penalties - say a year in jail and/or a $50,000 fine per hire - then illegal immigration would dry to a trickle.
You'll always get some illegal immigration. Somewhere in the world people are going to be living in such intolerable situations that they will come here (or anywhere) regardless of what awaits them. But the millions of people flooding to this country, mostly from latin America, are coming here not because it's horrible where they come from but because there are jobs here for them. Jobs that are better than the jobs at home. You kill those jobs, you stop the torrent. Period.
So, my proposal: mandatory one year jail time and/or $50,000 fine per hire for anyone hiring illegal immigrants. Five thousand new inspectors performing random inspections of businesses, starting with those suspected of hiring illegal immigrants. And - and here's the kicker - a $1,000 reward, and a bus ride home, to any illegal immigrant who turns in their employer, at any time. Including when they just got fired.
Sure, there's legal boilerplate to be hammered out; what constitutes a "sufficient effort" to determine an employee's legal status, for instance. Setting up an easily readable national database of valid employment identification. But you understand the gist of it: laws with sufficient teeth and substantial enforcement.
No border fences. No massive round-ups. No draconian cuts in social services - say, denying illegal immigrants emergency room care. The immigrants are here because the jobs are. Eliminate the jobs, and they'll go home.
Of course, the reality of the current situation is that there are already twelve million (more or less) illegal immgrants here, and large sectors of the economy already depend on them. This is not something that can be ignored when implementing this sort of plan.
Well, if we need the labor of these people - and in the short run at least we do, it would be foolish as well as exceedingly difficult and costly to just run them all out - then we need to make that labor legal. And so, in concert with the vigorous enforcement of employment laws, I also propose the "Eleven Month Plan".
In short, we issue work visas that last for eleven months. After a transition period, the eleven month visas will only be able to be obtained in foreign countries. I am thinking, obviously, of Mexico in particular, but certainly in other countries as well. The holder works in the States for eleven months and then must return to their country of origin and remain there for at least one month.
A foreign citizen applies for and recieves an eleven month visa. They can now work in the United States for any employer for eleven months, and then they must turn in the visa back where they obtained it, and are not eligible to get another one for a month. After that month is over, they can get another eleven month visa and head back to work.
Obviously there must be a path to citizenship here. Eleven month visas can act as a part of a residency requirement, for instance - seven or ten years, with a clean record, and an EMV holder can become an American citizen.
There is lots of room for debate about how many EMVs to issue. When the program is implemented, current illegals living in the United States will need to be able to get EMVs - I'm sorry if that's morally odious but it's only realistic, as I say you can't simply run out twelve million people - but after the first year EMVs will no longer be available within the United States. People who get their EMV here during that time will have to pick a foreign location where they will turn in their EMV, and from which they can get it back after the mandatory month off. Given that most illegal immigrants maintain family in their home country, most of them will have no trouble choosing a place to turn in their EMV and spend their month.
How many EMVs to issue? I don't know. Three million? Five? Ten? I would suggest that choosing a large number initially - even up to fifteen or twenty million - and allowing all those who have EMVs to be automatically eligible to renew them in the future (barring criminal behavior) would nonetheless reduce the foreign worker population over time. Since sneaking in without an EMV would not enable a person to get a job, the amount of EMVs issued in the future can be restricted to those already eligible for them, or expanded if American business requires more foreign workers (and can get the number expanded in Congress).
Regardless of the specific implementation - which I acknowledge to be critically important - an EMV program would bring these millions of people into the system. Right now these people are all living outside of the system, to their own detriment and to the detriment of American society in general. They need access to the law, the health care system, the rights that Americans feel people in society deserve. And we need to know who is living in this country.
So that's the package. Rigorous employment verification, and Eleven Month Visas. Wouldn't solve all the problems, but would be a darn big step forward.
- Sun Ra
P.S. Much of this idea originates with my wife.