Immigration reform - come on!

This is another one of my pet peeves. The "difficult" problem of immigration reform. So many polititicans, with so many laws, bills, amendments, etc. that they have, will, or want to put into our legal system, spending so much of our time, effort, and money to "solve" yet another problem that can be traced to basic human emotions and motivations.

Let's review some of the facts:

1. We have over 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States today.
2. The vast majority of the illegal immigrants have little education and/or are quite poor.
3. The vast majority of the illegal immigrants came to the United States to get jobs that, by their standards, were much better than they could get where they were.
4. The vast majority of them are taking jobs that legal Americans would not take, given the same pay and working conditions.
5. Most of them come to the US through our porous southern border.

Assuming you agree with these facts, which most rational people do, what's the problem? These folks come here, work at jobs nobody wants, and no one gets hurt, right? Wrong. The problem is that these folks generate more than the positives of income and revenue. They also generate costs. Costs in the form of health care and education.

1. Health Care. Most illegals have no health insurance (how can they?). This is one of the main reasons they can work for such low wages (no deductions!). But what do they do if they or their family members get sick? They go the emergency room. This is by far the most expensive way to treat people, and our poorest people are being treated this way en masse. Most emergency rooms cannot and will not turn away anybody if they are sick (not just emergencies, but any type of sickness). They don't ask. They just treat.
2. Education. Again, since famiily members of illegals need education (in fact, this is the second most desired benefit of coming here), of course they send their children to our public schools. Our public school systems are more than happy to accomodate them. Since illegals pay no taxes, this accommodation is FREE for them. Of course, it is not really free.
   

So who pays for all this? YOU DO. Meaning, anybody who is legally here, who pays taxes and health care costs legally. And sure, some illegals do pay some taxes, but since thier incomes are so low, I guarantee you they are taking out much, much more than they are putting in.

What is the net effect of all this?

The net effect is that all of us who pay taxes and legally pay for health care in the United States are in effect subsidizing a bunch of fat-cat companies and employers that are too cheap to pay the "market price" for getting work done in the US. So they hire illegals, and pass the cost onto all of us in the form of higher health care and Federal, State, and local taxes.

We are essentially trading off cheaper housing, food, and clothing costs for higher taxes and higher health care costs. And I think the tradeoff sucks, mainly because in between the transaction these employers are taking a huge, illegal, and invisible, profit. We have no idea how much more they are making by employing illegals. We have no idea how much these poor folks are suffering by crappy and unsafe working conditions, low wages, and little protection under the law. And we really don't know how much, if at all, less we are actually paying for these "cheaper" goods, since we can't know how much of that profit the employers are actually passing along to us. My opinion? Not much!

And, all during this, we get inundated with these ridiculous proposals for 600 mile long fences, armed guards, interdiction, etc., all designed to keep out the throngs of illegal immigrants.

Poppycock!!

The ONLY way to get illegal immigration under control is to attack the motivation for why people come here.

They want a better life, and from their point of view, we have it. We need to make it very hard to come here and get a job illegally, and very easy to come here legally and obey the rules!! Only when we do this will we be able to control our borders. I am not addressing the terrorism issue here, that is the subject of a different blog. Rather I mean control from the standpoint of being confident that our workforce is, by and large, staffed by legal Americans and immigrants.

It is simply ludicrous that intelligent, literate, upstanding people who can and want to contribute positively to American society are continually hindered from legal immigration, while any bum who wants to can run across our border and get an illegal job. And the ONLY reason that person is risking his life and family is because some fat-cat scumbag employer is willing to break existing laws to hire him, because he knows he won't get caught. How does that make sense?


So here is my proposal for immigration reform:

• Unique IDs. Every man, woman, and/or child that wants to work legally in the US needs to be uniquely identified. I'm not going to design the system here; I'll leave that to the technical folks, but rest assured (since I am one of them) this is NOT HARD. Today we have passports, driver's licenses, etc. that go part of the way. We need to go all of the way. And yes, if that means embedding an RFID chip in the forearm of every worker in the US, then so be it. If you want to work here, too bad.
• Punishment. Not for the illegals. FOR THE EMPLOYERS. Believe me, they all know who they are. And they are laughing all the way to the bank. We need strong laws with swift, severe punishment for employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. I guarantee you, if the source of jobs dries up, people who are here illegally will leave as fast as they came. Since the employers will wine that they can't do it easily, we need the unique ID system in bullet 1 so they don't get let off the hook. Once there is a system in place that law enforcement can administrate, believe me, these guys will snap into line.
  
• Clean up the existing laws. I'm sorry, but we simply have some very stupid laws on the books for no reason. The most ridiculous one is that a person here illegally can have a baby and, the instant the child is born, the child is a US citizen. No other country has this law. Why do you think that is? Is it perhaps because it encourages illegal immigration? Of course it does. We need to grandfather existing cases, change the law, and move on.
• Monitor the borders. I think fences are an incredibly stupid idea. But with technology we can measure the movement of people across the borders. How many moved last month? Last year? We should know this stuff, if for nothing more than to measure the effectiveness of our ongoing policies.

That's it. Simple, huh? I think so. As with so, so many issues in this country. we have a preponderance of people who will not see, and have no will to act. This is typically not because they are stupid, rather they have different agendas. Agendas that they don't want you and I to know about. Because they are getting rich off of them. At our expense.

Separation of Church and State

The United States was founded on many principles, one key principle being freedom of religion. The US Government shall not impede the free practice of religious beliefs. That does not mean the US Government shall promote any one religious belief, despite the fact that over 95% of Americans are Christians.

"Separation of Church and State" - One of the more interesting concepts upon which our country was, supposedly, founded. In actuality, it merely refers to a passage in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, but the idea caught on and was popularized into our system of government. Again, in principle, it is a great idea.

Unfortunately our application of this concept is far from perfect. If we were to truly separate church and state, I firmly belive many of our contemporary problems would be severely reduced and perhaps eliminated entirely. Here are some examples:

1. Stem Cell research. I've blogged about this before. The problems arise here when our government supports with funding the use of human embryos for research. Some folks believe that this is killing. It is part of their religion. If Chuch and State were truly separate, this debate would not be taking place this way. See my other blog for more.

2. Gay Marriage. What a rat-hole! The very question "Do you support Gay Marriage?" is a trap. It is the very formulation of that question that is in error. IF you allow yourself to answer, you have already lost the argument (not to mention missed the point). The very use of the term "MARRIAGE" in the context of any government-related activity (e.g. getting a "marriage license") is the root of the fundamental problem here. The exact same term, "marriage", is used by both the Church and the State, but they mean distinctly different things. The Catholic Church (as one example) defines "marriage" as a "union under God between a man and a woman". Period. The State defines "marriage" in a way as to ensure certain legal protections and civil and legal rights. These are NOT the same things. Thus the problem. This is a simply case of an "overloaded" term. IF Church and State were truly separate, we would use different terms for each function, and the problem would be solved. For example, we could call the RELIGIOUS UNION between a man and a woman, sanctioned by their respective church, as "MARRIAGE". Then, we could call the CIVIL UNION between two people, as specified by GOVERNMENTAL LAW, as "UNION", or some other acceptable term. The church has their activity, sanctioned by the church, with their own licenses, etc., and the government has theirs. PROBLEM SOLVED.

As you can see, if we truly had a clear, concise, crisp separation between Chuch and State, things would be simpler, and there would be less conflict. Why do our religious leaders and politicians let this continue? I'm not sure; perhaps we should ask them.

Perhaps our political leaders don't want this severe a separation. Perhaps they are not comprehending the true principle here. For, although we absolutely need and require adequate separation between Church and State, we will never achieve (nor should we pursue) separation between Religion and Politics. These concepts are, although related, distinctly different.

My opinion is that it's a combination of ego, stubborness, thick-headedness, and ignorance. The things that can be blamed for most of the problems in the world. Let's face it: "making the world a better place" is simply not the highest thing on most peoples goal sheets these days. We all have our own agendas. Sad, but true.