Immigration Arguments

25Feb2008 Filed under: Politics Author: Mike

Blue Collar Muse offers one of the more reasonable arguments for stricter immigration enforcement: crime prevention. The argument is that illegal immigrants sometimes commit crimes. Thus, if we deported illegals or barred them from coming here in the first place, we would prevent those crimes. I am sympathetic, especially when it comes to terror-related crime.

However, there are still some problems with this reasoning. For every crime committed by illegals, there are undoubtedly also good deeds. Do we throw out the baby with the bathwater when we crack down on illegal immigration? Can we say for sure that the overall net effect would be negative? I think not. To be fair to BCM, he is talking specifically in the context of sanctuary cities, where illegals with criminal records are still not deported. This is inexcusable, for sure, but we have to make a clear distinction between dealing with sanctuary cities and our nation’s policy as a whole.

Tags: Immigration

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One Response to “Immigration Arguments”

Blue Collar Muse
February 25th, 2008 at 5:24 pm

ChiBlog -

Thanks for bringing up a point that is very seldom mentioned, that of the good that people do.

In the context of illegal immigration, it is true that if the illegals were not here, the crime they might commit AND the good they might do would not be done.

However, to argue that we should permit illegals because they often do good things (which I do not argue - I agree) is the argument that got us illegals in the first place. The good things they did were fill jobs in low paying and dead end fields that needed to be done and no one here wanted to do. In addition, they did all the good things that regular people do. They visited the sick, they helped in their neighborhood and so on.

There is a way to fix the problem so that we don’t get the criminals we don’t want and get the good guys we do want. It’s a simple three step program.

Step 1 - Secure the border. Tomorrow.

Step 2 - Illegals can either self deport or be deported by the US when found. Those deported by the US are ineligible to participate in the guest worker program for 10 years. Make allowances for the details, selling off property, etc… and allow savings and investments to go with the illegal without penalty if it is proven it was not earned illegally.

Step 3 - Institute a guest worker program similar to Canada’s. Those applying for the program are checked out before approval for entry. Any criminal activity while here means you get tossed out and can’t come back. Ever.

That solves the problem. We could even do it. D.C. seems uninterested in a plan that might actually work. So we’re left with the unsatisfactory default plan that doesn’t work for anyone, citizen or not.

Blue