just a thought on immigration; may change my mind

Why not let them all in? But tag each & every one in some definitive manner. Anyone caught here without the 'tag' does not go back home, they go to prison for a year or two and then send them back. Anyone who's more than a minor nuisance or becomes chronically unproductive, send them back. If they're still here.. 10.. 15.. years later, allow them a means of naturalizing. This is (as so many things are in my mind) an individual thing; there's no tagging along because you're related. The USA isn't forcing you to split up your family, you are, you could always stay put.

Which reminds me, we may choose to let you all come here. But that doesn't mean you have any kind of 'right' to immigrate. In all likelihood, USA citizens can't simply move permanently into your country, what the hell makes you think you can simply walk into ours? And since your country is your country, I have no objection to you keeping us out if you want to. Accept that we've got the same right to pick & choose who we let in.

I have no trouble with this tagging/ID thing - they're not citizens, they accept our terms or they stay out. And if none are being denied entry, why refuse?

Most of them are what we saw during the peak migration years of the early 1900s - decent productive people with some ambition to better themselves. So why wouldn't we want them? The huge majority of the 'bad guys' are your routine crooks, thugs, and lay-abouts and you can pretty much count on them to blow it sometime during their 10 or 20 year wait and get their asses sent back where they came from. Yes, probably there will be a very very few really really bad people who could be part of a long-term sleeper cell situation, but they may prove easier to locate once they're inside this country than outside. And sadly, no matter what you do, you won't find 100% anyway.

Now the big downside of all this is jobs for current citizens. The unfortunate truth is that our fellow citizens are already competing against these potential immigrants; it's probably to our advantage that they're here working for $7.25 minimum wage rather than there in their native country working for $1.50. And the still harsher truth - we would be getting their best, brightest, most ambitious, most motivated which makes them better for our country in the long term than the citizens they might displace. And I certainly hope we'd have provisions for citizens displaced from their work (although that is certainly a whole other issue).

edit: I see this is pretty damn close to my previous note on this topic. I guess I'm getting pretty close to a position.

dealing with illegals

There is a sort of continuum of those living in this country. There are citizens, there are legal aliens, and there are illegal aliens. In real life dealing with individuals, it can be tricky fitting each one into the correct category. I also need to factor in that I don't particularly like the idea of citizens having to "have their papers". However, if we could positively identify each legal alien, that would break the continuum and we'd merely need to sort the citizens from the illegal aliens (which has to be easier). So here's what I would do.

Set up a database of legal aliens. Use identity certain technologies like fingerprints, retina scans, DNA, whatever. I'm not particularly disturbed about keeping that kind of information about non-citizens. The first people to go into the database would be the legal aliens. Allow an appropriate amount of time to get them processed. And of course as new legal aliens come in, add them. This includes everyone for any reason - tourist visas and everything. After all, a large percentage of illegal aliens are actually visa overstays.

Then deal with the illegals. Basically offer a visa for everyone who comes forward and applies. I'd come up with some kind of scoring system to identify the most desirable; points for having a job, points for length of time here, deductions for criminal incidents, etc. Except for some who are clearly bad people (an easy example - murders) who simply get deported, everyone's going to get at least a 2-year visa. Best scorers maybe get a 10-year. As they come forward, put them in the legal alien database. Set a deadline (being reasonable about the amount of time required to process all these people). After that, if you're in this county illegally, you go to jail. 1st offense maybe 6 months. Step up from there. If you're in jail, you're not helping your family whether in this country or back home, so you're going to want to avoid that.

Something like the above could clear up the problem with illegal aliens. Then the remaining problem is appropriately setting the limits on legal entry.

some figures on legal immigration

For fiscal year 2009 there were 468,770 immigration visas issued. (There were some ~750,000 temporary visas issued.)

The breakdown by country starts with:
Mexico................74,769...15.95%
Dominican Rep...40,824.....8.71%
Philippines..........36,048.....7.69%

The category breakdown is:
Immediate Relative........227,517
Family Preference..........176,273
Diversity.........................46,761
Employment Preference...13,846
Special..............................4,325

I guess the first thing to note is that this means that for every 700 residents of this country, 1 legal immigrant was admitted. To me, this is additional proof that our legal quotas are too low.

Next, I note that 86% of immigrant visas were based on family relationships. I'd gotten the impression that our legal immigration was heavily skewed towards family unification and that's clearly true. Even before I knew the figures, I had some doubts about the wisdom of this approach; so you get your foot in the door and every scummy relative you have gets to jump to the front of the line? I do understand that potential immigrants have to be sponsored and (I believe) that approval depends on the ability of the sponsor to financially support the immigrant. But isn't that wrong? Shouldn't it be about the potential immigrant's own abilities?

So I am more convinced than ever that our legal immigration level is too low. And I continue to doubt the wisdom of the primacy of family unification.

where we've been

Notes for myself about the history of immigration in this country.

In the beginning, there were citizens, there was everyone else, and there was a path to citizenship (i.e., naturalization). There were federal naturalization laws as early as the 1790s despite the fact that citizenship at that time was more likely to be thought of in terms of being a citizen of Virginia (or whatever) rather than a citizen of the nation. The distinction between citizen and non-citizen has a long history in this country.

In contrast, the distinction between a non-citizen being here legally versus illegally is relatively recent. Prior to 1882 (Chinese Exclusion Act), anyone could come to this country and stay. There were no limits as to where you came from or how many of you were allowed in. There was no such thing as an illegal immigrant.

It was during the time when illegal immigration did not even exist that the 14th Amendment with its citizenship clause was proposed and adopted. It's reasonable then to conclude that whatever it says about birthright citizenship, it may only say with respect to legal immigration since that's all that existed at the time.

The USA v Wong Kim Ark case was decided in 1898. By a 6-2 decision that court ruled that birthright citizenship applied where the parents are non-citizens. This decision can only be reached if the 14th Amendment is interpreted to mean that such babies are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the USA.

In the current circumstances, federal statutes provide for legal means of entry. Complying with those standards could be construed as an act of subjecting themselves to the jurisdiction of the USA. If so, then it is logical that failing to comply with those standards would be an act of rejecting the jurisdiction of the USA (in effect, "the USA can't tell me what to do"). Perhaps tellingly, it's rejection at the very initiation of the person's residency in this country.

I can see logic in continuing birthright citizenship for children of legal immigrants, but denying it to illegal immigrants.

citizenship

Just making myself a note.

Granting US citizenship to any kid born here.... that's just nuts.

The bad news on this score is the text of the 14th Amendment which states:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

The only "loophole" is the part about "subject to the jurisdiction thereof". It may be possible to argue that the child of illegal aliens is not subject to the jurisdiction of the USA. But there does not yet seem to be a definitive SCOTUS decision on this topic.

further on the same topic

I understand many of the objections to an ID scheme. It'll be used for other purposes (that we won't like). It'll have false positives, causing legit people problems. There will be ways to defeat the system (many of them simply low-tech - cash). It'll be expensive to the nation as well as expensive to small businesses. I tend to believe all the preceding are true. And all of them matter.

It almost makes more sense to have an ID scheme for aliens. Anyone who gets in trouble with the law, one of the first thing that happens is that the alien database is searched. As aliens, I think there's a reasonable argument that we could include whatever information we wanted into the database. And any alien caught in this country who has never applied for entry has consequently never been entered into the database, they don't get deported, they go to prison.

There's a perfectly reasonable argument that illegal immigration is as rampant as it is because legal immigration is so limited. I like the notion that the quotas for legal immigration need to be raised. Plus, it seems various countries (including the USA, at least at some point in the past) have had "guest worker programs". If there are enough legal guest workers to do jobs Americans won't, it has to reduce illegal entrants. Maybe.

Guest worker programs tend to get pulled in two directions. Rights groups want to raise pay & working conditions & rights of guest workers. To the degree they are successful, some employers comply and simply attempt to pass along the increased costs to consumers. However, other employers continue to seek undocumented cash-only illegals reducing the ability of compliant employers to pass on their increased costs. In other words, it seems that US government policy has to either aim for maximum exploitation of guest workers or else it has to be serious about busting non-compliant employers.

The guest worker notion raises another topic - overstaying visas. I'm given to understand that we don't have the ability to know if "John Doe", who is now applying for a temporary visa or guest worker status, has over-stayed a previous entry. If this is so, that needs fixing. And if it is so and/or is unfixable, what does that say about our ability to create a reliable system to track all eligible workers, natives and aliens?

And I think it's entirely reasonable that aliens - legal & especially not - could be denied most welfare/benefit programs. Perhaps legal aliens might become eligible after some minimum period of time, but illegal aliens, never. That said, I can certainly see allowing emergency medical care. And once you make one exception, we'd have to go through the entire list of benefits and make decisions one by one. So be it.

starting point: immigration

In the news a lot what with the Arizona law. Where exactly does one begin?

This post won't solve anything. Heck, as much as anything it's my first attempt to sort things out using tags/labels. But there are a few starting points for this discussion that I feel pretty certain about.

There ought not to be laws that simply aren't enforced. If you don't actually mean something to happen/change, you ought not put it into law. Now I accept that no law can be 100% enforced and I'm not thinking of such instances. I am thinking of situations that are 99%+ overlooked.

Enforcement of immigration laws does, however, seem to present serious problems so long as we're not willing to adopt some form of national ID and not willing to require everyone to carry their ID. The characterization of such laws as "draconian" and "fascist" is understandable. But that stance does tend to make immigration control unenforceable.

What's more, resolution of this conflict would seem to be essential. Regardless of where one comes down on the continuum of immigration control - from incredibly loose to insanely tight - the possibility will be that some people are here illegally, whether their numbers are millions or merely hundreds. If we mean whatever restrictions we may choose to keep in place, it will be necessary to have a means of separating the sheep from the goats.