The topic of Illegal Immigrants is in much debate in our political rhetoric of late. This breaks my heart—especially, as I look to very recent ancestors who immigrated to the U.S. so they (and subsequently I) could be successful.
Why can we not offer this freedom to others who sacrifice just as much to get here?
The problems of open borders are clear—terrorism, drugs, and unreasonable financial burden on the citizens of the country—to name just a few.
I believe we need to streamline the process of immigration to the essential: Taxation and Security. Achieving this requires documentation. The government needs to streamline the process of documentation to achieve these two objectives and issue work visas or green cards or even resident status. There should also be more incentives for citizenship (ie. lower tax bracket). There should be points of entry clearly documented—so inbound immigrants will know where to go.
What do we do about current illegals? Establish an amnesty period. After that period—they remain illegal and must be prosecuted. They are without excuse. They should be deported if not documented in the allotted time. Employers should be fined, heavily, if they do not comply. A question remains on how to enforced this.
What do we do with the jobs the immigrants take? If Americans want a job, why don’t they apply for it? Because the only reason legitimate employers hire immigrants is because they will do the work for less. We need to return to a culture of working for the money we receive. We would not be competing for the jobs being taken away by immigrants if Americans were working those jobs in the first place.
What about taxes? Immigrants need to be taxed. That is fair and is legal. This is one of the biggest reasons for documentation. They need to be cared for—therefore, we need their resources to do this. Taxing the documented immigrants would help this process.
Ultimately, I believe we should be a welcoming country and a hospitable country—but we need to make sure we are safe and financially secure.