🚀 go-pugleaf

arminius wrote:

...

>>
>>True comprehensive immigration reform, as FAIR - the nation's largest
>>immigration reform organization - and the overwhelming majority of
>>Americans believe it to be, must adhere to this set of immutable
>>principles:
>>
>>First Principle: Cut the Numbers
>>Any level of illegal immigration is unacceptable, and current legal
>>immigrant admissions of about one million persons each year are
>>entirely too many.
>>Any measure that increases either illegal or legal immigration
>>violates this principle. Immigration is a discretionary public policy.
>>Its primary purpose, since our founding, is to advance the interests
>>and security of the nation.

OK, let's do it, no more screwing around, keep those illegal aliens 
outta here.

How do we do that?  What do we need to do that will really, truly get 
the job done?  And what will it cost?

>>
>>Second Principle: No Amnesty or Mass Guest-Worker Program
>>The 1986 amnesty was a failure; rather than reducing illegal
>>immigration, it led to an increase. Any new amnesty measure will
>>further weaken respect for our immigration law. Therefore, all amnesty
>>measures must be defeated.
>>Laws against illegal immigration must be enforced, if they are going
>>to act as a deterrent. Redefining illegal aliens as "guest-workers" or
>>anything else is just that: a redefinition that attempts to hide the
>>fact it is an amnesty, not reform.

OK, but if amnesty doesn't work, it doesn't work.  No more amnesty for 
anyone for anything:  draft dodgers, tax delinquents, library books 
overdue ... forget it.

>>
>>Third Principle: Protect Wages and Standards of Living
>>Immigration policy should not be permitted to undermine opportunities
>>for America's poor and vulnerable citizens to improve their working
>>conditions and wages. The need for guest workers must be determined by
>>objective indicators that a shortage of workers exists, i.e., extreme
>>wage inflation in a particular sector of the labor market.
>>The current system accepts self-serving attestations of employers who
>>seek lower labor costs as protections of American workers. True reform
>>requires an objective test of labor shortage demonstrated by rising
>>wages to attract more American workers.

Now you're talking:  Let's get the minimum wage up to a living wage.  I 
would calculate that a living wage is enough to let a household with two 
employed adults raise a family.  In most areas, that's probably a 
minimum of $12 / hr.  Glad we agree on something.

>>
>>Fourth Principle: Major Upgrade in Interior Enforcement, Led by Strong
>>Employers Penalties
>>Employers who knowingly employ unauthorized workers are the magnet
>>that attracts illegal entry into the U.S. These employers are
>>complicit in the illegal alien cartel activity of smuggling,
>>trafficking, harboring, and employing and must be punished. We must
>>reform the current system by enforcing employer sanctions and fully
>>punishing employers who break the laws of this country. These
>>punishments will be fines, jailing for repeat offenders, and loss of
>>corporate charters.

OK, but to make this stick, I think we need need a federally managed and 
supported, absolutely foolproof individual identification system, like a 
national identity card for each person, keyed to a retinal scan or some 
such, with re-validation at national ID centers every two years or so. 
Is this OK?  (And, what does it cost?  Or, is cost irrelevant?)

>>Employers who knowingly or unknowingly employ illegal workers must be
>>weaned off of their growing use of such workers by assuring a level
>>playing field for all employers and demonstrating effective
>>enforcement actions against employers who continue to exploit illegal
>>workers. No U.S. industry has jobs in which there are no American
>>workers. If illegal workers are decreased over time, wages offered
>>will rise to attract back more American workers. Real shortages, as
>>noted above, can be met with short-term temporary foreign workers.
>>
>>The Basic Pilot Employment Verification program must be made mandatory
>>and at no extra cost to employers.
>>
>>Effective immigration enforcement on the border and the interior of
>>the country requires that staffing, equipment, detention facilities,
>>and removal capabilities be adequate to fully meet current needs. The
>>measures needed to identify and remove illegal aliens will also remove
>>the ability of potential terrorists to operate freely in our country
>>as they plot the next catastrophic attack on our people.
>>
>>Fifth Principle: Stop Special Interest Asylum Abuse
>>Reforming the refugee and asylum system means returning to the
>>original purpose and definition of the program: "any person who... is
>>unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail
>>himself or herself of the protection of that country because of
>>persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race,
>>religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or
>>political opinion...."
>>America must honor it responsibilities to protect people who are
>>fleeing true political persecution as defined by U.S. and
>>international law. Efforts to expand those definitions to include all
>>forms of "social persecution" invite massive fraud and endanger the
>>security of this nation. Similarly, treating aliens illegally residing
>>in the country the same as foreigners on legal visitor visas for
>>purposes of the Temporary Protected Status designation is illogical
>>and a form of amnesty that must be ended.

Is your proposal too timid?  Wouldn't it be simpler to say to any and 
all potential refugees, "Sorry your country sucks, but that's your 
problem, you're not coming here"?  Who says we have to take in those 
yearning to be free?

>>
>>Sixth Principle: Immigration Time Out
>>We must restore moderation to legal immigration. Beginning with the
>>recommendations of the Jordan Commission in 1995, we need to restrict
>>immigration to the minimum consistent with stabilizing the U.S.
>>population.

Well, OK, but these are big changes:  No foreign diplomats on a two-year 
diplomatic visa.  No more foreign students at MIT or Harvard.  No more 
family relatives joining legally resident aliens or even naturalized 
citizens.  Americans can marry or adopt foreigners if they want, but 
forget about  bringing alien spouses or babies into the country.  But 
maybe big changes is what it will take.

>>Overall immigration must be reduced to balance out-migration, i.e.,
>>about 300,000 per year while still permitting nuclear family
>>reunification and a narrowly focused refugee resettlement program. A
>>moratorium on all other immigration should be immediately adopted
>>pending true comprehensive immigration reform. We should abolish the
>>extended relation preferences.

Maybe outmigration will increase as people seek to evade the national 
identity card?

>>
>>Seventh Principle: Equal Under the Law
>>There should be no favoritism toward or discrimination against any
>>person on the basis of race, color, creed, or nationality.
>>All admission of immigrants should come within a single, stable
>>ceiling which is periodically reviewed on the basis of a reasoned,
>>explicit goal of achieving population stability. We should abolish
>>special preferences such as the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Actually, the special preferences that now count most are those of money 
and education:  You got cash to bring with you?  You got a skill 
currently desired by American industry?  Welcome to America!  Are you 
arguing that we should abandon this meritocracy, and go to some sort of 
lottery system, so that the impoverished and ignorant have a better chance?

>>
>>http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research3327
> 
> 
> 

RPD / Cambridge
Facts can be your friends if you treat them right.