Immigration Reform for Dummies (or Congress) your choice

Well over the past few months we have seen just about every idea regarding immigration reform discussed and argued about and still Congress sits on their collective asses and does nothing. Why well for one the liberals cannot make up their minds, and the conservatives are afraid to take a position and fight for it. So I have taken it upon myself to sit down and look at the issue and see if we the people cannot come up with a solution that we can send to Congress for examination.

In order to do that we need to look at the what are the things that have people trying to enter this country illegally in the first place. Next we need to find a way to either eliminate that incentive or make it easier for the goal to be achieved. Finally we need to set things out in a way that allows for easy and consistent enforcement of these guidelines.

That being said I know of at least 5 reasons that people are crossing the borders illegally:

• better paying Jobs than at home
• Free Health care
• US Citizenship by birth
• little or no taxes
• Family already here

I know there are others however for discussion I think that these five cover the largest portion of the pie. So how do we fix things and eliminate the incentive or if necessary make it easier to enter legally?

Well for starters we can eliminate two of the issues really fast, US Citizenship and Health care. Citizenship requirements need to be cleaned up, and eliminating the Citizenship by birth for all, and change it to Citizenship by birth for those here legally. If you are in the country illegally your children born here are not citizens of the US plain and simple. Refuse to recognize these births and you reduce and probably eliminate the pregnant woman coming across the border and having her kid in a border town hospital. This also will reduce if not eliminate the problem of splitting up families because mommy and daddy are illegal.

Along those same lines you eliminate free health care and other government programs for non citizens and several things will happen. First the local support programs, hospitals and police, will not be stretched as thin because of all the expenses that they have to write off due to non payment or indigent care, and at the same time the quality of care should improve for those that need it. This means that every facility should be allowed to refuse service if they feel that the person who is requesting care is not a citizen, that and the emergency clinics should be able to refuse care for those that are truly not in need of emergency care. Cut out food stamps, welfare, and any other program that enables illegal to be attached to the teat of the government.

Now as far as dealing with the employment issue, it should be cut and dried. Every person who wants to enter the country strictly as a worker should be allowed to provided they follow these steps.

• They enter the country from a legal point of entry
• They submit to fingerprinting
• If they want citizenship they have to return to their country and start the process.
• They will be given a work visa that expires 365 days from date of issue and needs to be renewed annually for a small fee. This renewal could be done at any consul or point of entry or INS office .
• If for any reason they are convicted of a felony, all rights and access would be revoked permanently. Misdemeanors would be different, however habitual offenders could have their rights and access revoked as well.
• Eliminate sanctuary cities and find a way to withhold federal assistance funds for local projects if for any reason immigration laws are not enforced within any part of the country, be that city, county, or state.
• Accept the issuance of a federal foreign worker ID card that is tied to a unique tax id number, and that is accepted as a form of ID that way employers can take care of the payroll taxes and such. Also they would during the process forfeit the right to claim any of their income taxes that are withheld. They would have the option if they obtain citizenship get a partial refund of these taxes provided they have been legal the whole time.
• They pay an administrative fee of no more than $200 that would cover the above expenses

Now you all may be saying that is all well and good, but how do we deal with the twelve million plus that are here illegally right now. To that I say, we give them ONE chance to come clean, after that we go after them with no mercy or quarter, and here is how that is done. On the first day of the month after this legislation is signed, the following rules would be put in place.

Anyone who is in the country right now illegally has 6 months to come clean, return to a legal point of entry, and begin the process as described above or face forfeiture of any and all future access to the program. Then at the end of the 6 month period you start hitting cities one by one and holding massive immigration sweeps, unannounced, and hit all of the day labor sites, as well as spot checks at employment sites where immigrants are known to be employed, as well as social spots. No other choice, and from then on if you are caught in this country illegally you will be fingerprinted, and shipped back to your country of origin. If for some reason someone is caught a second or even a third time they will face prison for at least 15 years.

I realize this is not a perfect plan and some would call it amnesty, however we need to do something, and the sad thing is if we leave it up to Congress it will be nothing more than a hollow convoluted mess that cannot be enforced let alone understood. Just look at the Medicare Prescription plan that was enacted.