Immigration, what to do?

Immigration has always been an issue in America. After all, America is a country of immigration, from the American Indians migrating from Asia tens of thousands of years ago, to all that came during the expansion of our country to what it is today. In decades past there was great public debate about stopping the masses of Irish, Italians, polish, and Catholics who migrated for various reasons from Europe.

Many in Congress are resistant to any comprehensive immigration reform because of the amnesty program under President Reagan. However the problem with that program is that there wasn't the open public access to the Internet to check on the employable status of applicants by Employers. So there was no way to control those who crossed the border or over stayed their tourist or education visas. Today technology has changed greatly and if properly employed could reduce the availability of employment if here illegal.

It must also be understood that most who have ventured here illegal have done so for a better quality of life for themselves or their children. Which if any of us were in their situation would most likely take the same risk so our children would have the opportunity to have a much better life than what the future held for them in their country of origin.

I also know that America has to control its population. Our population growth has been astronomical increasing to over 300 million primarily in the last 170 years.  American can't sustain this rate of growth, both internal birth rate and immigration. We have to develop a system that recruits talented individual that will benefit our country, in such areas as engineering, electronics, science, math, the arts, etc. We also need a system that allows laborers to work here when our economy and product output needs additional labor for jobs that most American will not perform, primarily in agriculture. We have a long history of using migrant farm workers, principally Latinos from south of the border,  to harvest our food at a lower cost to hiring American workers, especially after slavery was abolished and civil rights were granted to minorities in the 1960's.

Today there is an estimated 12 to 15 million illegal immigrants in our country and they come from every country on the planet, not just Latinos. To round all of them up and deport them is insane on so many levels. First it would take years to do so. Second we do not have the money to investigate, incoserate and deport that many people. One legislator has suggested that we build interment camps like we did during WWII to hold Japanese Americans rounded up from west coast states for fear they would help the Japanese military, to hold all the illegal immigrants they round up, then deport them. It was wrong when we did it to our Japanese American citizens and it is wrong on so many levels to do it now to hold immigrants. Not to mention we can't afford to build and maintain these facilities.

Here is my suggestion of what reform needs to take place at the federal level:

Everify should be improved, expanded and made more reliable. Besides verifying a person's social security number, it should also list a person's green card, work permit, or visa number to better identify the potential employee. Make mandatory for every employer to check an applicant's right to work through the Everify system. Failure would result in large fines.

For those already here in country, allow them to make application for a green card, be checked for any criminal activity and if no problems, and then pay a fine. The green card would be valid for 5 years. After 5 years they have to make application for citizenship or special consideration to extend their green card. They would also be issued a Social Security number at the same time they are issued their green card. Should they commit a serious crime, they would be deported after imprisonment.

After 5 years with a green card, they can make application for citizenship and go through the same process as any other immigrant to become a citizen. Minor children born outside the US would be given automatic green cards if their parents pass the background checks and receive a green card. For these children who came into the US as minors, but go to college for two years or complete two years of military service would be fast tracked to citizenship.

By use of the information technologies we have today, we should be able to reduce the ability of illegal immigrants to find employment, therefore there would be less incentive to come to America to find work illegally.

Obviously we will need have to address the war on drugs to reduce the violence in the drug trade that flows the across the border.

Reform could be completed very quickly if Congress would approach it pragmatically and abandon the old racist, hateful emotion against Latinos. But with today's Tea Party and ultra-conservative movement, that type of pragmatic thought is not an option. So we will not see any reasonable policy changes any time soon.