- Position on Immigration: Steve Porter for Congress -

Summary of a multi-step program:
• Securing our borders
• Identify and register the illegals
• Employers to post jobs so that no American would lose a job to an illegal alien
• Enforce the legal path to citizenship

Full Explanation:

"All too often, people in Congress who are being pressured by the latest headline react too quickly with legislation which has not been well thought out. We see it over and over again: handing Bush a free pass to invade Iraq without a plan and without allies, shoot-from-the-hip morality in the Terry Schiavo case, and on the state level, term limits for the unicameral legislature of Nebraska. Perhaps it might be wise for people in Congress to do a little thinking before running for office. In the crunch of today’s headlines, the poor legislation involves immigration reform."

Sensenbrenner’s immigration bill in the House would criminalize over 11 million people. Ridiculous on the face of it. How could we jail or deport such a large number—particularly with borders like Swiss cheese? Frist’s bill is even worse. The only piece of legislation which seems to make even a little sense is the McCain-Kennedy bill, and that is not comprehensive enough. So I am offering a plan which I hope our Congress will consider, and when I become a member of that august body, I intend to present it formally.

Immigration reform is complex and deeply entangled with other issues. Often that is the case. For example, one cannot talk about the loss of U.S. jobs without getting into the health care mess which drives companies out of the country. In the case of immigration, the problems of border security and the deployment of the National Guard to Iraq are both essential matters which must be addressed first if immigration reform is to succeed.

Therefore, step one in the process is to secure our borders. We can do this in a variety of ways, and we will need all of them: greater technological surveillance, more personnel (which entails the return of the National Guard), the appropriation of a great deal more money, and perhaps the building of physical barriers where they are practical.

This will take some time, perhaps two or three years. During that time, step two would begin: government registration of all illegal aliens under penalty of fine for the employer and deportation for the alien.

Step 3: Once our borders are secure and the illegals have been registered, those employers who had heretofore hired illegal aliens would formally post the jobs presently being done by illegals. The employer would give a reasonable amount of time, say a week or two, for both U.S. citizens and legal aliens to apply for those jobs. Any job not taken would remain in the possession of the illegal alien who originally held it.

At this point several things would occur in step four: the registered illegal alien still working would have to begin the process of acquiring citizenship and would have to pay the proper taxes on all monies earned; those illegals now unemployed would be placed on unemployment insurance and given a reasonable amount of time to secure another job (for which neither a U.S. citizen or legal alien had applied). If no job were found, the illegal would have to return to his or her country of origin. Hopefully, there would not be many such cases. To avoid deportation we could require the country of origin to pay the alien’s unemployment insurance until a job were secured. Should the country not comply, then the illegal would be returned to it.

In step five, which would be implemented early in the reform process, both stiff fines and jail terms would be assessed against the employers of illegals who have lowered wages, refused benefits, and aided in the rupturing of the immigration process if they continued to ignore both registration and fair employment standards.

A sixth step would be necessary for special circumstances resulting from illegals having married U.S. citizens before registration or having sired or given birth to children in the United States. The second case is covered by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which automatically makes any child born in the United States a citizen. To deport the parents of legal children is not only cruel, but would also impose the enormous burden of caring for those children on the State. For these reasons, such adults would be granted temporary legal status until their children were 18. The parents would have until then to become legal citizens themselves. Cases of the first kind have traditionally been resolved in favor of letting alien spouses stay in the country. If the marriage occurred in good faith before registration, the once-illegal spouse would be granted temporary legal status and given a reasonable time to become a full citizen. If the marriage occurred after registration (perhaps as a ploy to gain legal status) the special case would not apply and the illegal would have to proceed as in step four.

The next two steps are not strictly American issues, but are important to the problem nonetheless. Step seven would be a serious effort on the part of the world’s wealthy nations to improve the economies of the poorer nations so that the need for illegal immigration is reduced or eliminated. In conjunction with this, Congress should quickly raise the minimum wage so that Americans as well as foreign workers are fairly paid. By raising wages, more American citizens would be attracted to lower-paying jobs, thus further easing the illegal immigration situation. Step eight would be for all nations, perhaps with the help of the United Nations, to dampen the current population explosion through the use of legal birth control (not abortion!) and sex education. Sooner or later, mankind will have to deal with overpopulation and its repercussions, repercussions such as the illegal immigration problems we now face in America.

I do not claim to have all the answers, and the plan above may prove to have flaws and problems which need to be addressed as it is implemented. But whatever its virtues and limitations may be, it is a more thorough effort than the bills currently in Congress and should stand at the very least as a blueprint for more comprehensive approaches.

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