By Carter Bundy
I’m unhappy any time we ignore our laws. Well, maybe not speeding laws. But the Senate’s new immigration proposal rewards illegal behavior, and that’s generally bad. Immigration is complicated, and I’ve come to believe in some kind of earned citizenship. (“Amnesty” would be a lot quicker, easier and surer. This isn’t “amnesty.”)
We citizens invited these nice undocumented folks over. Yup. We did it. Big ol’ welcome mat. Our agribusiness and service industries actively recruited and knowingly hired them. We gladly enjoyed restaurant buffets and hotel rooms priced like each of us was William Shatner.
And don’t act like you didn’t know. If you buy tickets to watch Barry juice ‘em out of the park, you don’t get a refund when you find out Balco’s been adding 50 feet a shot.
So relying on those explicit and implicit promises, and our happy acceptance of the deal, millions came merely seeking a better life for themselves and their children. To quote Simon and Garfunkel, they’ve all come to look for
Why undocumented immigration is bad
Having said all that, an underground economy is terrible. It drives down pay and benefits for the rest of the labor force. It’s bad for both immigrant and citizen workers’ rights at the workplace. It requires victims of domestic violence to stay quiet. It encourages driving without insurance. And from a principled point of view, it means we’re not interested in being a nation of laws.
Why someone in Congress should read this article
So how do you balance fairness to those already here with a future rule of law? It’s not as tricky as you might think. I offer this for free (thanks, Heath). I don’t even need credit. Maybe a footnote would be nice.
• Automatic rule: No undocumented immigrant becomes a citizen until all cases are processed for those pursuing legal immigration. If it takes 10 years, so be it. It’s a huge break, and undocumenteds should take that waiting period in exchange for legal status in a New York minute.
• Give a six-month window for undocumenteds to come forward to apply. Two years of residency, no Robert Horry incidents here or in the motherland, and you get an ID, work permit, and are entered into a federal employer/landlord database. Those who have been here less than two years (I’d be flexible in negotiating that number) have less invested in the
• The employer and landlord enforcement begins after the window closes. In the future, you cannot be an undocumented worker in this country. Period. We put business owners and landlords in jail starting with the first offense. How much would you love to see Martha Stewart back in the pokey (in the unlikely event that she was to ever do something unscrupulous)?
As an aside, we should also use our trade agreements to do something other than buy Lee Scott a new vacation home every week. Improve conditions for our trading partners so their citizens can have a better chance at improving their lives in their home countries, while also helping us stay competitive.
• What about a wall? Truth is, a wall won’t do much as long as we have tourists and student exchange programs. A wall in heavily trafficked/populated areas makes sense, but a 2,100 mile wall is silly. Anyway, if you cut out jobs and housing for undocumenteds, no one’s going to come.
I’m not saying we should make it easy to cross, but if you do the other stuff and have good security in heavily populated areas, you can take your billions of wall-building dollars and apply them to visa enforcement, which is much more important for national security. Oh yeah, and a massive wall would suck for hunters and the environment.
• If we need more workers in the future, or want to re-unite families, we can set up generous legal immigration plans. If you work here long enough, you can apply legally for citizenship. Seems fair to me. To protect immigrants from the abuse that naturally arises from giving the power of residency or citizenship to an employer, don’t tie the permit to one employer.
Why some will still complain
Two extreme groups will oppose this plan, but it’s good for immigrants, for our economy, for workers, for safety and for national security.
One, small group will say it’s unfair to enforce our laws even after earned citizenship. But not enforcing the laws at that point would be setting up another future underground world of crime, poverty, desperation and fear. Enforcement opponents are advocating for de facto open borders, which is an interesting argument, but we’re a long way away from that today.
Their polar opposites will say it’s unfair to reward illegal behavior. Sure, but we’re all accomplices in it, and what’s really unfair is uprooting millions of families you invited in well after the fact. How mad would you be if someone did that to you? Heck, think how mad you’d be if you got something as trivial as a speeding ticket retroactively. Oh, wait – I live in
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in