OptimisticOwl
Legend
Posts: 58,760
Joined: Apr 2005
Reputation: 857
I Root For: Rice
Location: DFW Metroplex
|
RE: [split] Immigration
(04-17-2023 01:17 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (04-17-2023 12:31 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: (04-17-2023 11:49 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (04-17-2023 11:04 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: (04-17-2023 10:27 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote: It always tickles me when old threads are dug up.
Similar to drug legalization and some other issues, I'm often a supporter of more legalization with better controls. So faster immigration review (like a same-day registration) would be ideal to encourage people to follow the legal path towards citizenship. I completely agree that time spent in the immigration process is a deterrent towards entering it, and reducing time spent is one way to reduce illegal immigration.
Probably easier said than done, though.
Funny how we can agree and disagree at the same time.
Making a path easier certainly would create more usage of that path. If the goal was to create less people deemed "illegals", we could just make everything legal.
You mention better controls. Please explain how better controls coexists with easier paths.
Why do we have immigration controls, anyway? Are there any reasons to need to know who is in our country, and why, and where, beyond just giving employment to a bunch of Border Patrolmen? Why not just have the easiest path - open borders, no immigration agency, no customs, no border checks?
In that vein, I have a great idea on how to reduce crime. Just legalize everything.
As for taxes, wouldn't it be easier just to accept every person's word on what they owe?
I'd like to start by noting most of what you posted (bolded) has nothing to do with what I actually wrote, or are implying I made arguments I didn't.
My comment about better controls is related to the act defined as being illegal. As in, when someone is doing something illegal, they are not within the confines of controls - I'd rather create a system that makes that act legal within a realistic and, ideally, easy to navigate system. Marijuana legalization is a great example of this.
For immigration, I'd rather adjust our system to make it much quicker and easier for those who want to come here and work to be able to do that. Controls are still needed to filter out the bad actors, a task which I very much think is needed. But if Bob wants to immigrate here and work in the fields, let's find a better legal path that is available and easy to him. If Bob instead has a degree in engineering, let's do the same. We currently have paths for both instances, but they are more limited and time consuming than I would like for them to be.
I want to encourage good actors to use the legal path so that they don't think the illegal path is worthwhile.
This is what I was responding to:
So faster immigration review (like a same-day registration) would be ideal to encourage people to follow the legal path towards citizenship.
In your response, you say this:
For immigration, I'd rather adjust our system to make it much quicker and easier for those who want to come here and work to be able to do that
The two goals/groups (citizenship, work) may overlap to a degree, but they mostly don't.
I (and I think Numbers) have proposed worker's permits, where Mexicans wanting to work here can get a permit, which not only legalizes them temporarily, but provides a mechanism for keeping track of their whereabouts, but also provides for them to pay taxes. After a background check, which may or may not be more rigorous than the one required of citizens wanting to buy a gun, a permit holder would have to to provide a filed tax return annually to renew the permit. Employers would have to see the permit to hire the worker. Withholding would be the same as for a citizen. Felonies would be a disqualification. Children born here would NOT be automatic citizens.
For the group that primarily want to be here to be permanent citizen, a declaration of intent would be the beginning of a path. It should be a five year path, and should include a course on our history and government, an ESL course, and of course, annual tax returns. Children born to an immigrant while here would become citizens retroactively when one parent qualified and became a citizen.
Of course, an immigrant can do both. They must do one to be legal.
And of course, neither should be the result of a ten minute stop in a line at a port of entry.
Overall, that sounds good to me and is in line with what I want. Clear and easy paths to legal status (be it permanent or temporary) - I see both of your options achieving that.
Of course, we will still have illegals wading the rivers, as there will be:
a. rejectees, who do not clear the background check, (or the tax obligation)
b. Impatient people who want to get to work NOW and don't want to go through the relatively slow legal process, {or incur the tax obligation) and
c. Those who want to bring their entire family with them, even though they may be the only worker.
|
|