Part I: The Wrong Approach to Immigration Reform

The current immigration legislation being debated in the United States Senate has ignited a firestorm of emotion from all concerned parties. It seems that Senator Ted Kennedy and, perhaps, President George Bush are the only ones who view it as a good piece of legislation. Why?

Quite simply, the bill takes the wrong approach to the problem. It takes a typical, big-government approach to dealing with an untenable situation. It seeks to impose more laws, more government control, more regulations and more complexity that cannot possibly be enforced. Those in government have proven to the masses, time and again, that they are poor managers, yet they relentlessly reach for ever greater control and influence on our lives.

Simple mathematics quickly illustrates the impossibility of the proposition before us. The proposed legislation includes a requirement for background checks for all illegal immigrants as part of the process of granting Z-Visas. We are told that there are, at minimum, twelve million illegal aliens currently on our soil. If we base our calculations on the assumption that each of these background checks could be accomplished in only two hours – an insanely optimistic assumption – it would take twenty-four million man hours to perform this duty. If one thousand people work forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year to perform this task, it would take twelve years to complete – if not a single additional illegal joins their ranks. This is clearly not an acceptable proposition, and it is only the beginning of the horrendous paperwork mountain being deliberated. If each of these security checkers drew a modest annual salary of $50,000, the salaries alone would add up to $600,000,000. And that’s just beginning to scratch the surface of the costs of this legislation.

But beyond the physical enormity of the task, there is the question of its utter futility. The bill changes nothing. There is not even a whisper of an attempt to fix the situation; the focus is completely on controlling and managing uncontrollable and unmanageable conditions. The American citizens have reached the boiling point. Too many of our family members have been negatively impacted by illegal immigrants. Far too many of our number have been murdered, robbed or molested. Our children’s schools are overflowing with non-English speaking students, stretching already limited resources to the breaking point. We pay ever more for health care to pick up the tab for those who can’t, or won’t, pay their own way. The daily newspaper tells an infuriating story of our tax dollars being used not to eliminate poverty among our citizenry, but to support people whose first act in coming to this nation was a crime. And there never seem to be any consequences for the offenders. Simply put, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

We see no relief in the proposals before us. The people creating the angst in our nation will actually be rewarded by having their crimes forgiven, and we will continue to pick up the bill. What’s more, there is little consolation in the proposed security measures – the plans for securing the border are much too little, far too late. We see a future filled with an endless stream of ever more offenders, a prospect which is beyond unacceptable.

If we attempt to look compassionately on those who bring us so much grief, we find that the future is not a great deal rosier for them than it is for us. They obviously love the land they felt compelled to leave, and have been denied the opportunity to live out peaceful, profitable lives there by individuals far more corrupt than they. Many of them live in abject poverty, and the proposals under consideration require payment of fines that are far beyond their means. It is unclear what consequences they will face if they are unable to pay these fines.

Still others of our southern neighbors have chosen to obey the law and fight it out in their own country, hoping that one day a guest worker program will allow them what they see as their fair share of the American Dream. They do not see that happening with this bill.

Yet the legislation goes forward. Senators line up to offer amendments, adding still more complexity to a lawmaking effort that was completely bereft of value from the onset. Any thinking man would know that there has to be a better way. The very sovereignty of our nation is at stake here, but we are told that we must compromise – we do not wish to compromise our futures and those of our children and grandchildren. We remember very well the founding principles of this great country and refuse to see them mangled in such a heavy-handed manner. How, then, do we solve this gargantuan problem?