Immigration Reform: Preparing our Future

It is clear that our current immigration system is in dire need of reform. Reforming immigration must be comprehensive by addressing the procedures and policies governing immigration; identifying and processing those who are in the United States illegally; and securing our borders from terrorists and criminals.

Our nation has always been said to be a nation of immigrants, and we will continue to allow immigration into the future because we are a refuge for the poor, downtrodden, oppressed, and those wishing to find their “American Dream.” More practically, immigrants will always be wanted in the United States because they have always been a key to the success of our economy. The President in his Economic Report agreed stated that “immigration has touched every facet of the U.S. economy...and America is a stronger and better nation for it.”[1] Immigrants both fill and create jobs – allowing our economy to continue to expand by filling the lowliest of jobs to some of the most skilled jobs such as doctors, nurses, accountants, and computer programmers.

Immigration Reform: Streamline the Process

Thousands immigrate to the United States legally every year and perform valuable roles in our economy, raise good families, pay taxes, and follow the law. Unfortunately, many do immigrate to the United States illegally or remain in the United States illegally either through ignorance or willful disregard of our laws.

My goal for immigration reform is to promote greater community harmony, strengthen the rule of law, enhance our economy, increase our national and state revenues, and allow each immigrant and their family to earn respect and dignity as "First Class American Citizens."

Each country has its own policies that affect the ability for documented immigration. For someone to immigrate legally: each country's consulate must be sought, each with differing requirements, and employment in the United States must be confirmed (something that is completely impractical). Legal immigration efforts can take years to attain, so urgent and compelling demands to immigrate coupled with a lack of awareness and a sophisticated black market promoted undocumented immigration. These obstacles to immigrate legally promote illegal immigration and criminal activity where simply put, the reward to come to the United States for many, without documentation, is worth the risk. It's worth the risk of detection and future deportation.

We must create incentives to immigrate to the United States legally whereby immigrants are fully processed, identified, and become a legal permanent resident. From this point, we must set a trial period where if immigrants gain employment and act lawfully, they will swear the oath of loyalty and become a naturalized citizen.

All people entering the United States must maintain documentation that includes a legal permanent resident status where each individual obtains a social security number; confirms identity using a picture; provides fingerprints for filing with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FBI, and law enforcement officials; and conducts a review after five years where a background check is completed to determine whether the individual abided by the rule of law, maintained employment, and paid taxes.

I believe a path to citizenship is essential for those seeking safe haven in our country in the future and also for those undocumented immigrants already here. It will foster short term benefits while earning their citizenship and life time benefits once becoming a citizen.

Immigration Reform: Provide Time-based Standards for our Immigration Agencies

We cannot let our bureaucracy and slowness of action compound an already existing problem of illegal immigrants.

We must provide incentives to this process through both positive public media in countries of origin and an expeditious handling of their affairs where one can begin the process in an American consulate and be prepared to depart for the United States within 10 days. That needs to be the standard we hold our immigration officials.

People desiring to come to America will come legally rather than illegally because the risk of using the black market and being deported exceeds the risk of remaining in their countries and enhances their desire to follow our rule of law and efficient form of government.

Immigration Reform: Documenting and Identifying Immigrants

We do not have a reliable identification system to determine who is a legal immigrant and who has forged documentation. Compounding this problem is one where multiple forms of documents exist that are legal options for immigrants to use or forge for employment.

All immigrants should have a common form of identification that is not easily forged, provides them a social security number; confirms their identity using a picture; provides fingerprints for filing with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FBI, and law enforcement officials; and registers their biometric data with US-VISIT (see border security for further info.)

We know who is in our country, helping to solve crimes for those who have broken the law, ensures people have the ability to get a job legally, contribute to our economy and national and state tax base, and checks their identity against terrorist, criminal, and intelligence agencies to help improve our national security.

Undocumented Workers: Registering those already in the United States

There is no exact measure of how many people enter or leave the United States illegally each year, but the consensus seem to be between 7 and 11 million people. Of these, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that as much as 92 percent of undocumented men aged 18 to 64 actively participate in the workforce. These undocumented workers fill voids in our current workforce, and they help bolster our economy. Of these, 81 percent are from Mexico or Latin American countries.[2] While these individuals are contributing to our economy, they are also increasing social burdens increasing the costs of education, medical care, law enforcement, and border security.

I do not believe amnesty is the answer, so I propose that every man, woman and child that are undocumented come forward and pay a one-time documentation and restitution fee per immediate family so they can obtain an active social security number and obtain authentic identification with a photograph and fingerprint within the next 3-5 years. By obtaining a legal permanent resident card with the expectation of lawful behavior in five years, they can then apply to be a naturalized citizen of the United States. In other words, people will pay their fair share and earn their citizenship.

We provide undocumented workers with the opportunity to take the first step to becoming citizens. We also ensure they are not granted amnesty, promoting community harmony by them acknowledging their failure to abide by our laws – satisfying those of us who are law-abiding citizens.

Undocumented Workers: Removing the Backlog

Even those who have tried to register with immigration officials face a backlog of months and more likely years before they can receive their legal permanent resident status.

Furthermore, the many people who have already documented and applied for legal permanent resident status and those who have applied for citizenship should be expedited. My solution is that we alter the roles of a substantial portion of the personnel tracking illegal immigrants already in the United States and focus their efforts on registering illegal immigrants for the next three to five years. Once this deadline has passed, we should resume tracking down illegal immigrants for deportation because they have not made the effort to become citizens in our country.

Once this backlog is removed, we can establish system processes to allow immigration to continue to run smoothly without providing immigrants an incentive to turn to a black market or arrive in our country illegally.

Undocumented Workers: Removing benefits for Illegal Immigrants

Illegal immigrants have access to education, medical attention, and other government programs paid for by law-abiding taxpayers.

Make regulatory changes to access to our public schools, health care system, welfare system, etc., so those who have not registered at the end of the open-season period for undocumented workers be denied access to all government programs.

Many immigrants come to the United States for access to our better health care and education as well as the better opportunities for employment and higher standard of living. By removing the reasons immigrants come to our country, we lessen their desire to remain here illegally as undocumented workers.

Undocumented Workers: Registering them in the next 3-5 years

Unfortunately, some will not come forward and register during the established timeframe and pay their documentation fees.

Once this program is in place, and the backlog in the current system is rectified then I expect that even tougher laws on criminals, to include those here illegally, be enforced.

We are no longer chasing 7-11 million illegal immigrants because we have taken a substantial step in documenting those who were here illegally. From this point, we can actually enforce our laws and deport those who are here illegally without it substantially reducing the workforce or using more resources than we have the ability to spare. We also will no longer be chasing as many illegal immigrants, opening up the opportunity to actually find and deter criminal and terrorist activity – making our nation safer.

Enhancing our Workforce: Using Immigrants to Enhance our Economy

We are approaching a desperate need for more workers to replace the aging workers who are 55 years of age or older. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that from 2002 to 2012 the number of people 25 to 34 will increase by three million people while those aged 55 years and older will increase by an overwhelming 18 million. Even more startling is that more than half of the labor force will be over 45 by 2012 placing an ever greater burden on their children due to Social Security, Medicare, and other programs.[3] With these demographic changes, there will be an increasing need for more workers in the service sector of our economy. Many of these jobs will include retail salespersons, janitors and cleaners, food preparation and service, nursing aides, etc.

Given the state of our workforce, we should:

1. Expand our visa program and remove the confusing visa options. We should give priority and expedite the processing of those with employment already arranged or those in skilled positions while those in unskilled positions would still be processed within 10 days of completing their paperwork and providing appropriate documentation to the consulate.

2. Remove the absurdly low quotas on green cards and other visa programs for those in jobs that require little training.

Employers no longer have to wait years to get an employee whom they have promised a job, and because a requirement to remain in the United States is to maintain employment before becoming a naturalized citizen, getting rid of the requirement to identify a pre-destined employer does not relegate new immigrants to wandering the streets begging. Further, we should be making this an opportunity for employers to compete for the limited workforce which will drive wages higher for both immigrants and Americans alike.

Border Security: Enhancing our National Security

Aside from Hawaii and Alaska, our nation's mainland is bordered by water with one southern border over 2500 miles long and an immense northern border. Border security is typically attributed to our southern border because that is where the preponderance of illegal immigrants are coming, but if you recall it was Washington and New York where terrorist suspects were recently caught entering the United States illegally. Fortunately, we were able to stop these suspects, but much more criminal activity occurs each day across both borders. Border security is a responsibility of the federal government, not the state of Texas, Arizona or California, just as it's not the responsibility of the State of Nebraska or Oklahoma to enforce its borders. Border security needs to utilize resources wisely by coordinating resources and effective measures in Homeland Security, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the FBI, and the Defense Department to protect our nation's public safety, deter global terrorism, and illegal criminal activity by land and sea.

For increased border security, we need a national defense security strategy to effectively restrict criminal activity and threats to homeland security. We need to know who enters our borders, and using the United States Visitor Immigration Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) system at all entry/exit points to the United States is essential. US-VISIT provides an integrated, automated entry/exit system through the capture of biometric identifiers which are then compared with criminal and intelligence databases from other departments.

We have more resources to stop criminal activity of known felons, drug dealers, and those who would do harm to our country.

Through the immigration reform proposals recommended, there will actually become a lessening need for border patrol agents as more immigrants choose to come to America legally rather than illegally because the risk of being deported is no longer worth the reward of becoming a legal resident.

We know that as immigrants get jobs and begin saving, they will also become property owners and share the burden of paying for education and other elements of our society.

Immigrants are an economic necessity in our nation, where our elderly people are leaving homes abandoned as they pass the increasingly older workforce continues towards retirement.

We need a younger, more viable workforce that fuels the economy with a demand for workers that current citizens do not aspire to take part and fill jobs of higher skills in our hospitals and service sectors where shortages already exist.

For our economy to grow, we need to attract these new workers with a citizenship agreement understanding that we will support them and a new federal immigration policy as long as they follow the procedures for proper documentation, abide by our laws, seek employment and contribute to our economy, and after five years of probation becoming a full-fledged First Class Citizen. We should advertise this as a “Contract with America” as we help ourselves and help our newest citizens seeking the “American Dream.”

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[1] Economic Report of the President, delivered to Congress, February 2005.

[2] Pew Hispanic Center, Estimates of the Size and Characteristics of the Undocumented Population, March, 2005.

[3] Bureau of Labor Statistics, Labor Force Projections to 2012: The Graying of the U.S. Workforce, February 2004.