Immigration Bill Defeated

Yesterday the immigration bill was defeated. Good! Nobody seemed to like it anyway.

But we still have the problem of illegal immigration. And we still have approximately 12 million immigrants here in this country. What to do? I was watching the O'Reilly Factor earlier this week, and somebody remarked that rounding up 12 million people and deporting them would clog up the legal system. I think that's a rather shortsighted view. If we were to deport all the illegal immigrants, who says that it would have to be done overnight?

There are two parts to this problem. The people getting in, and the people that are already here. These problems would probably be best tackled separately... if I was in Congress, I would tackle the problem of the people still coming in first. If you start dealing with the people that are here first, it's like trying to put your finger in the dam to keep it from leaking. The dam must be taken care of first.

So how do we take care of that? I suggest that you take care of both the means that people come in, and the motivation. Take care of the means by securing the border. Use a fence. The Minutemen are practically willing to build one for the country, I don't see why we couldn't take advantage of that resource. Ask for donations. Why does everything have to go through taxes? I'm sure many people would volunteer to donate. I would consider donating to that, even though I won't even donate $1 of my tax money for political campaigns.

We shouldn't stop at a fence and border patrols though. People will still dig under the fence, come in by boat or through Canada, etc., if they have the motivation. Don't offer services to illegal immigrants, except life-saving medical care. Punish companies who willingly hire illegal immigrants. I know that illegal immigrants sometimes take the social security numbers of dead people and children, and companies can unknowingly hire them... I'm not talking about that. But there are some companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants... sometimes even PREFER illegal immigrants. Fine them. Also fine private individuals who hire illegal immigrants as maids, carpenters, pool guys, and landscapers. I realize that finding private individuals is more difficult... don't send too many resources that way to start, but if you find a private individual knowingly hiring an illegal, fine them.

Once we can take care of the flood of people coming into this country, focus on the people already here. Do we send the Gestapo out to knock on everybody's doors and have everybody show their papers? No, that would be silly. But we can start somewhere. Why not start in the prisons? Once we release an illegal immigrant from jail, it's deportation time. That is a good start. As the jobs for illegal immigrants start drying up, it will cause some natural attrition... that continues the reduction of illegal persons in this country.

When the prison population of illegal immigrants starts drying up, we can start finding and deporting individuals from other places. Schools. Hospitals (we'll fix you up and save your life, but then we'll send you packing back to your home country). Those guys waiting on the side of the road for people to pick them up and give them jobs. If we can even reduce the illegal immigrant population from 12 million to 5 or even 10 million this way, we've succeeded.

I know that this sounds mean. I don't know if a bill like this would succeed because it would require people to not be pansies. We'd have to get tough, and say ENOUGH! A lot of people in government nowadays don't have that kind of courage.

But how kind is it to allow people to exist here as a permanent underclass? To allow people here to take advantage of the illegal immigrants by hiring them for a pittance, giving them jobs that are not safe, etc.? I know that many employers aren't like this, but there are many that do, and the illegal immigrants can't complain because then the government will find out their legal status. There have been even worse cases... illegal immigrants have been taken as slaves, many died several months ago in a fire because many of them lived crammed in a little apartment in unsafe conditions. If we force them to return home, these people... who may just be the some of the most courageous, adventurous, etc. from their home countries... they can perhaps create change in their countries at home, whatever it may take.

Unfortunately, I feel that our inability to control immigration in this country is a problem with us... the United States citizens. We have forgotten who God is. We don't follow him. I think that a passage from Leviticus is relevant:

Lev 26:14 But if you will not listen to Me, and will not do all these commandments,
15 and if you shall despise My statutes, or if your soul hates My judgments, so that you will not do all My commandments, so that you break My covenant;
16 I will also do this to you:
I will even appoint terror over you, consumption, and burning fever, consuming the eyes and causing sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

Most of us aren't farmers... but when people come into this country and take advantage of resources that we have worked for, I see that as the 21st century equivalent.