Here's the beginning of a new idea with lots of details that'd need to be worked out, but you'll get the idea. I think most Americans could probably support this one. This idea supplements a previous entry I wrote in August, so it may not make full sense if you haven't read solutions to immigration reform. I'm trying to think of new solutions because not doing anything is only making the situation worse, and I'm not seeing a lot of innovative, realistic solutions from either side. New ideas can't hurt.
What are the problems that this idea addresses? We lump all undocumented immigrants into one category, and it's overwhelming to think about providing an amnesty to all of them at once. How would that work logistically, and how would we prevent people from coming across the border to take advantage of an amnesty?
The idea is to be very intentional about the order in which we process the documentation of people who are most deserving. If we need to document 10M+ people we could do it in segments, starting with those who have followed the rules and contribute to society.
We could begin with multi-year tax-paying business owners with no criminal records who are able to pass tests on English and U.S. laws. They are typically creating jobs, increasing quality and competition in their field, and contributing to the economy.
Or we could begin with kids who came here at a young age and have graduated from high school. It’s clearly inhumane to deport kids to Mexico who have never been there, don’t know anyone there and speak English better than Spanish. If we don’t send them back then we should give them documents so they can succeed and contribute instead of forcing them into a life of having to make ends meet without access to higher education or the ability to work legally.
After we catch up on processing those groups could be families that have been working and filing taxes for 20+ years, then 15+ years, then 10+years, etc. We start with people who are following rules and able to speak English and pass tests requiring knowledge of laws.
We could have a clear expectation that people would have to wait until the group before them was fully processed. Getting to the end of the line could take a while before being processed. The end could include recent arrivals, non-tax filers, people who can’t prove a history of working. Illegals with criminal records who are currently incarcerated should be deported immediately. Those previously incarcerated should be at the very end of the line and have their cases evaluated individually.
This initiative could include people only who can prove that they entered before a certain year, say 2010, in order to deter others from coming in to take advantage of the opportunity to receive documents.
What do you think?
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