The items found on this blog were written during the past few years and strictly reflect my own opinions. Because these articles deal with difficult issues they are bound to be controversial. They reflect my personal analysis based on the limited information that I have. I am certainly no expert and fully respect different opinions. Difficult issues would not be difficult if there were clear-cut answers. Although you will see in reading some of my material, I don't like being pigeonholed with a label, I will admit to being politically independent with a tendency to be more conservative fiscally and slightly more liberal with regard to social issues. Having lived through the 1940's, I have a great appreciation for the sacrifices made by our armed forces and, in fact, all Americans during World War II. The greatness of this country shone bright as we rehabilitated and rebuilt our enemies after winning that war. I am very patriotic and proud of our country. While we are far from perfect, we're not as far from that ideal as most other countries in the world.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

The U.S. Immigration Problem

Addressing this issue through the use of probabilistic rationalism offers the potential benefit of dealing with a cluster of related problems that impact our society on a variety of levels.  These problems impact our country on legal, economic, political, social and moral levels.  In this post 9/11 era, they also have serious national security implications.  Thus, we start with the notion that the current state of immigration into the U.S. is viewed as problematic by a large segment of our population.  Many of us are troubled by the extent of illegal immigration that has occurred in recent years and are puzzled by our government’s apparent inability to control our borders.  Beginning with this premise, we will examine certain key questions related to the situation.

1) Why are our borders not secure? 
Our borders are not secure either because we don’t have sufficient interest in securing them or we don’t have the ability to secure them.  While many common citizens are deeply interested in having secure borders, it appears that many of our political leaders have not shown the same degree of interest, most likely out of fear of alienating certain blocks of voters.  If there was strong determination on the part of government to secure our borders and a willingness to make the required investment, we certainly possess the technical capability of doing so. My assessment is that, overall, there is only a 20% interest in securing our borders, largely reflected by government’s long standing inaction on this issue. On the other hand, if sufficient interest did exist, there is a 90% probability that we would have the ability to do so.

2) Should we be concerned with the influx of illegal immigrants?
Thousands of undocumented, illegal immigrants have entered the U.S. and there is a great divide among the legal citizens of this country about what should be done about the situation.  Opinions range from seeking them out and punishing them to the full extent of the law (i.e., deporting them) to granting them amnesty and allowing them to remain in them U.S.  While various humanitarian-based reasons have been put forward to support the amnesty option, these all ignore a more basic issue that, in my opinion is crucial to address first, i.e., the vital importance of upholding the rule of law. 
Respect for the law is a critical element in the foundation of our society and an essential factor in maintaining order.  Laws represent the rules of the game of life.  They establish the boundaries of acceptable behavior.  Respect for laws and dependability of governmental enforcement of laws are essential in order for people to feel secure in their environment.  Conversely, when enforcement of laws becomes lax, people lose confidence in the government’s ability to protect their interests and such a society can quickly move from order to chaos.  In my opinion, we should be very concerned with the influx of illegal immigrants because it represents a failure of our government to uphold the law.  Without regard to the particular law or circumstances involved, this is an unacceptable situation.  I firmly believe that any law enacted must be enforced effectively in order to maintain public trust.  If there is not total commitment to enforcement of a particular law it should either be rewritten in a form that will be enforced or removed from the books.  To allow a law to continue to exist without being enforced seriously damages the foundation of our society.  If one law can be broken without consequence, where do you draw the line?  Allowing flexibility in obeying laws can only introduce ambiguities and confusion in the minds of citizens.  Indeed, we have all seen this play out with respect to areas such as traffic laws, tax laws, possession of illegal items and a variety of other restricted behaviors which include immigration.  Thus, I firmly believe that any compromise of the rule of law is detrimental to the society and that upholding the law is an essential, primary, responsibility of government.  For this reason alone, I must disagree with any resolution to the immigration issue that does not first consider upholding the rule of law.

One only needs to ask the following question to initiate a rational approach.  Why do we have immigration laws?  I think the answer is quite straight forward,  We have immigration laws to assure an orderly process for admitting new residents into our country.  Therefore, since we have immigration laws we must desire there to be an orderly process for admitting new immigrants.  If this is the essential goal of immigration legislation, there is virtually no chance that an orderly process would be achieved or enhanced by allowing new immigrants to circumvent the laws.  Since nothing is absolute, I would place the probability at 0.1% that circumvention of immigration laws would make the process more orderly.
In summary, if we truly desire an orderly immigration process, immigration laws (the rules of the game) must be upheld.  All other considerations can then follow, including such things as modifying the law to allow for a guest worker program and social services for temporary (“guest”) residents.
I would recommend the following 3 step action plan:

  1. Secure the borders to prevent additional illegal immigrants from entering the country.
  2. Reaffirm the rule of law by requiring all current illegal immigrants to return to their countries of origin and, if appropriate, apply for guest worker status (procedure to be established).  Many have stated that rounding up and deporting the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants currently in this country would be an impossible task.  However, I don’t think it would have to be approached in that way.  Illegal immigrants would likely leave voluntarily if they could not secure employment and had no access to social services.  Thus, adopting such a policy and enacting severe penalties for any employer hiring an illegal immigrant, should adequately drive the process. (This requires establishing a fool-proof documentation system, e.g., fingerprint  scanning.).
  3. Establish an additional set of immigration laws to cover guest workers and implement a guest worker program.
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