[Ed Note: Part 1 of the series is here. Part 2 is here.]
What is a sane immigration policy you ask?
Well it starts with a simple and straight forward process for immigrating here, procuring a work visa, obtaining residency and finally becoming a citizen. What we have now is a highly political and difficult to navigate hodge-podge of ever changing rules that are meant to help fulfill some type of social engineering ideal. Currently it takes a lot of time, money, connections and luck to make it through, and that’s if you’re from a “preferred nation”. When I say time, I mean decades! If you’re from a country like Mexico with high demand to immigrate, you’re looking at a wait of over 130 years. No wonder people take their chances making a run for the border. This idea of “take your spot in the immigration line and you’ll get there someday” is a mirage. If someone told you the line at the DMV was 130 years long and others randomly get to jump in front of you, what are the odds that you’ll just drive without a license?
We used to have a simple path to citizenship that gave people who had endured so much to come here a long term stake in this nation. They wanted it to be excellent because they felt like it was now their home too. And generationally immigrant’s kids tend to be more upwardly mobile than their parents were. They also are more educated, speak English as a first language and culturally are as American as apple pie.
We need to get rid of the whole per nation quota system.
Instead we should have a far more open and quick system akin to the spirit of Ellis Island. We should offer lots of migrant work visas for lower skilled workers and Green Cards for the premier workers and investors. We make it clear what is expected of those seeking citizenship and provide a clear path to that goal. If you work hard, are productive, are not a criminal or terrorist, and remain a good standing guest in America for a certain number of years, you can be a citizen.
By doing this it also helps us secure our borders against the people who are a threat. With the volume of the good intentioned shifting from the “back door” to the “front door”, it makes it much easier to focus on the nefarious still trying to gain entrance illegally. We need to have secure borders, but they need to be secured against those wishing to do us harm, not those who wish to contribute to America and make a better life.
We can either turn the problem of illegal immigration into the prosperity boom of legal immigration or go deaf yelling slogans of a centuries old fear.
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