Light a Candle...

Illegal Immigration - there is only one cure...

Illegal immigration is a topic that Democrats trot out when they want to seem that they really care about minorities and that Republicans not living on the border seem to prefer to ignore.

However you may feel about illegal immigration, the inability to control our own borders is a significant threat to our sovereignty. The nature of illegal's has changed significantly since my childhood. When I grew up, I believe that illegals (wetbacks in local parlance) were almost exclusively economic immigrants; in other words they were here to earn money they couldn't at home to keep their families from starving.

My grandfather, a small rancher, employed one or two and even had a 'regular' that returned each year to work in the summers for a while. It wasn't that my grandfather didn't want to hire local people to do the work needed, but that they wouldn't work since welfare was a much easier option. I remember riding with him in his truck to the corners where groups of young men sat around and asked them for any one that wanted a job. It never got far enough to discuss wages, the answer varied from a polite no sir, to angry stares and a negative shake of their heads. Never did I ever see one accept the job offer. Only then, would he contact some other ranchers in the area to see if they had any illegals that could be spared or were ready to move to another job.

This story points to the two fold cause of the immigrant problem:

1. our welfare system was/is a positive economic inducement to not work, just as it is a destructive influence on families since it provides the an increasing economic inducement for out of wedlock children.
2. Lack of criminalization for the hiring of illegal immigrants.

The second is perhaps the most pervasive and yet the easiest to fix. Its not that I would have wanted my grandfather to be arrested, but as long as there is no real and significant criminal risk to employers, there will always be a job market for illegals. As long as that persists, the draw will be there to subvert our borders.

Change the hiring of illegals to a criminal felony charge with a 5 - 10 year sentence and/or a $100k fine for a first time offence. Increment upwards for each offence, with a three strike rule for a third offence. And then rigorously enforce it by going after the high profile/high volume employers of illegals (Brown & Root comes to mind from my own experience). Dry up the job market, and the draw for economic immigrants will go away.

That still leaves criminal and political immigrants that may still try to come across. However, they depend in large part on the infra structure developed to support the economic immigrants. Again, dry up job market, and the infrastructure to support the other illegal immigrants will begin to break down.

As things currently stand, without serious criminalization of the hiring of illegals, the problem will remain unsolvable.

A side note on the story about my grandfather; there was one rancher that Grandad would always check with to try and provide a 'move to' job if he could. The reason? That man would wait until the work was just about completed, then call the INS and report himself so that they would come and pick them up and he wouldn't have to pay the last of their wages. As Grandad said, that man was just plain mean.

posted by Clayton @ 9:11 AM