January 24, 2006
Pushing Elephants: Part 1
I'm not real happy with the Republican Party right now, and would like to see not just a reform, but a restructuring, with a revised GOP platform for upcoming elections. I'll present a single broad topic at a time, and present some ideas. Please discuss in the comments.
Immigration
- A complete, multi-layer physical wall stretching the length of the United States border with Mexico, manned by an expanded, adequately staffed, armed and trained Border Patrol. It should go without saying, but a stronger physical border makes illegal immigration more problematic to those that would enter illegally.
- A decrease in foreign aid and revocation of Most Favored Nation trading status to countries that encourage illegal immigration. Make it financially unpleasant for nations that allow their citizens to illegally enter our country.
- A National ID minimum threshold. This would force states to apply more stringent requirements to obtain official identification. Hiring anyone without a valid, complying ID would be against he law, and any employer violating these standards will face increased civil and criminal penalties, up to and including the forfeiture of assets for repeat offenders.
- A punitive 20% tax on overseas wire transfers by those without a valid, complying ID.
- A robust, interrelated immigration computer system that can track legal immigrants and revoke ID status and residency without compliance, making it impossible for illegal immigrants or visa violators to find or keep jobs or lodging.
- Targeted immigration to help American business, particularly in technology and engineering fields.
- Targeted education visas for students from emerging allied democracies.
- Repeal the practice of automatically awarding citizenship to babies (so-called "anchor babies") born in this country, unless both parents are already U.S. citizens.
The United States of America is a wonderful country that I firmly believe is the greatest nation on Earth, and I can certainly understand many reasons why people from other countries would want to come here. But America's resources, while vast, are finite. We are under no obligation to support other nations nor their citizens, and we have a duty to protect the lives and rights of our own citizens.
Towards that end, we must be able to control our borders and know who is in our country. Illegal immigration must be stopped, illegal immigrants deported, and those that would provide illegals with employment and shelter should pay a high price for their flouting of this nation's laws.
At the same time, legal immigration must be practical to satisfy the needs of American business and to expose Americans to other cultures, while exposing other cultures to the benefits we have to offer as well.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
02:12 PM
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1
Fine ideas all, but remember that we also have to pay for everything. Make sure your ideas include plans to pay for this or that. And sure we'll save billions in the long run, but these things have to be paid for up front.
There's plenty of pork, but getting the politicians to cut it is another thing entire.
Marshall Neal
Posted by: Marshall Neal at January 24, 2006 04:29 PM (Qa0tQ)
2
Hireing illegals is aready supposed to be against the law. Too bad Bush and co. (and corp. and LLC, etc)don't want those laws enforced.
I like the rest, though.
Too bad the RNC wants basically amnesty- they just endorsed Bush's "Temp. worker program."
Posted by: KurtP at January 24, 2006 10:57 PM (H+rgl)
3
Hey....anybody ever lived in Southern California? The hiring of illegals has been going on for many, many decades. I lived in San Diego for 10 years and every morning there would be groups of men standing at certain corners. Trucks would come by and pick up one, two, ten....and off they went to work. This is not a problem that was "caused" by Bush.
Unfortunately, to make $25 in wages for a day, is a lot more than they can get in their own country. And once they are "in" they end up getting free medical care (That was an issue in California when I moved there in 1984 - and it still is.) It's a little hard to completely stop traffic of illegals along hundreds of miles of open territory. How do we accomplish that? Fence - they cut through/dig under/go around.
Just trying to blame a particular administration doesn't do justice to the problem - and it is a problem. Especially now that we have terrorists that could use the same entry methods. We have incursions of the Mexican Army with heavy automatic weapons apparently protecting drug shipments into the US.
So how do we handle it? Put thousands of INS agents out checking every truck with workers in it? We'd get some hits and maybe some fines, but sooner or later we'd stop a truck that had legitimate workers and then we'd have a huge outcry of violating their civil liberties. It's almost a no-win situation. And they've been struggling with it since before the 60's....
Posted by: Specter at January 25, 2006 08:42 AM (ybfXM)
4
Perhaps I should clarify: I'm not advocating a national ID, but a national minimal standard for identification. Is that the same thing?
For example, to get a NC ID, you can use your apartment lease to prove residency and an original birth certificate to establish your proof of age and ID, and neither requirement proves you are in America legally.
I'm pushing for whatever minimum standard proves you are in the United States legally to obtain a certified ID, and then saying you can only legally work if you have this kind of ID.
I do like your additional idea of only allowing money to be wired with valid ID better than my original punative tax idea, but I was trying to offer something to the Democrats. ;-).
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at January 25, 2006 12:26 PM (g5Nba)
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