Due to the following article and other problems with immigration, The question for debate is: How do we implement effective immigration reform?

Complications for Illegals With U.S.-Citizen Kids

My suggestions:
Close the southern border except for commerce for five years.
All commercial traffic across the border is subject to inspection.
Use the National Guard to help patrol the border.
Go on a 'rampage' and document all the illegal aliens you can find, and encourage them to be documented.
After all that reopen the border with better patrols and regulations.

How do we implement effective immigration reform?

While the story of the Gomez children is very sad, the fact remains that their parents are the ones to blame, not the US government. I feel some sympathy for the Aguilars, as they tried to do the right thing; the article doesn’t state WHY Mr. Aguilar’s application has “stalled”. This article focuses on those illegal aliens with stories that touch the heart, that make you feel that these poor people are facing a great injustice. While the stories are touching, they focus on a tiny minority of the millions of illegal aliens crossing the border every year.

My suggestions run along the lines of what FAIR is suggesting. First off, I think we need a moratorium on unlimited immigration.

Then we need to:

Oh, this is quite correct. But, what candidate will advocate this policy?

Crashfourit, correct me if I'm wrong; but you are a Constitutionalist, correct? Your "Strengthen the Bill of Rights" amendment would certainly indicate that you have a deep appreciation for the works and intents of the founding fathers. How then do you justify 'placing a moratorium' on one of their greatest legacies? Would ceasing immigration solve some problems? Probably. Would it create others? Most definitely. Is it the moral thing to do? What you are suggesting is that only the rich have the opportunity to seek a better life. The last time I checked, the freedom and land of enterprise isn't supposed to be rationed to those who are already wealthy.

Yes i'm a moderate Constitutionalist.

Article I, Section 8:


Some times to build better, stronger you have to complety distroy the old.
(does the Articles of Confederation ring any bell?)

In answer to your question, no one. No politician is willing to alienate (pardon the pun) 14% (US Census 2002) of the electorate by being brave enough to address an issue that is reaching crisis proportions in border states. California politicians are even less eager, since the Hispanic population outnumbers the Caucasian population for the first time in history...well, at least since it was a Spanish settlement.

Crashfourit, feel free to address the other points I made in my post as well.

What nobody here has been able to explain to me at this point is how only allowing the wealthy to emigrate to the U.S. is a moral approach to take. I encourage anyone to defend that position while respecting the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the country they fashioned.

Oh, and Crashfourit, glibness aside, I'm sure you're aware that many of the people involved in the drafting of the Articles of Confederation were also involved in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. So any parallel to a contemporary revision of the U.S. COnstitution (or the ideals it upholds) is incorrect.

Why do you assume you have to be wealthy to immigrate according to law, rather than sneaking in illegally?

I don’t see anything there about having to make a certain amount of money.

To Ultimatejoe:
Sorry, I tend to open my mouth and stick my whole leg in at times.


Interesting challenge! I'm going to have to let the circuits in my head heat up a bit.
In the mean while, other ideas for immigration reform would be nice.

You don't? Look at the original suggestions in this thread. The majority of wealthy (by which I mean having enough wealth to be self-sufficient upon landing) immigrants come from Europe and East Asia (Japan, Korea.) There is no discussion of stemming the flow of those immigrants as near as I can see; just the immigrants who are part of the problem.

Free immigration (the kind that made America strong) will always have the problems associated with an influx of poor, uneducated or disadvanted people. The only way to avoid or escape these problems is to quite simply cancel free immigration.

Granted, Crashfourit's original post only dealt with the Mexican border. But, I'd like to point out that my original post had a link to the FAIR site that expands on the 8 bullet points I posted. For an example of how all-encompassing (not just the Mexican border) the suggested reforms are, here is the explanation of closing loopholes:

Not too many Mexican illegal immigrants are traveling via airport or requesting asylum, so I can only guess it means people from those overseas countries you assume to be wealthy. I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but California sees a lot of illegal Chinese immigrants...usually smuggled in shipping containers into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and they are far from wealthy by the time they get here after paying snakeheads for passage.

Yes, it is time to cancel "free immigration". And yes, it WAS what made our country strong (emphasis on the past tense), but now it is what will destroy our country if IT IS NOT CONTROLLED. The population of California alone is expected to double in 10 years due to unfettered immigration. And I doubt all the other immigrants moving to America are moving to the wide-open spaces of the Dakotas or Montana-they're moving to major metropolitan areas whose resources are already stretched to the breaking point.

Edited to correct factual error...and the boo boos keep on coming...sheesh

Well, keep in mind a few things when looking to ending immigration in the U.S

The Majority of Immigrants come for better jobs and quite frankly what they hope is freedom. No matter what the ammount of money may be that we spend on trying to eliminate the immigrant problem in america they will find a way to get in.

I believe that some people are very hypocritical about this issue.Here is why:

Indeed it is a problem that jobs are being tooken from american natives and given to immigrants. We do say Land of the free...We did "have" Ellis island and the statue of liberty symbolizing a freeland.. We send out false hopes to these immigrants...

As anarchist said, theres no real way you can prevent immigrants from coming. Any system can get beaten; save a total lock down in which case no one would get in at all. The only thing I can think of to end massive immigration is to improve conditions in the native country. Easier said than done, but otherwise illegals are here to stay.

The other "unmentionable" alternative is to make America so undesirable that immigrants wouldn't want to come. I doubt thats going to happen.

Also, If we tryed to improve conditions in native countrys it would simply make us look out to be tyrants and butting our nose into other peoples buisness. Its a lose lose situation ...

When people are sneaking across borders to get to a new country, risking their lives, we need to examine why. The countries illegals are coming from need to step up to the plate and help find solutions along with us. Mexico (as an example) needs to address the problems in their country that are forcing their own citizens to flock across the border. This is not something that we can legislate away, nor is it something that can be solved by us alone. We need to work with Mexico to improve the quality of life for the people there. Then, the 110 degree desert wouldn't look so appealing to try and cross.

But, Vicente Fox has no interest in helping the poor people in his country when he can just urge them to illegaly cross into the United States. It's easier for him to support amnesty for illegal immigrants in this country than it is for him to do something about the economy and the standard of living in his country. With a 'partner' like that on the other side of the border, we have no hope of ever improving the situation either here or there.

I fail to understand why so many oppose border and immigration control.

Even ignoring the problems we face with homeland security when we have open borders we have to face the facts that illegal immigrants are a massive burden on our society.

Just the medical cost alone when illegal aliens go to emergency rooms are enough to push some hospitals to the brink of bankruptcy.

Heres a thought.

Seal the boarders. Use military personnel, recon drones, air patrols etc. No one gets in unless they are supposed to get in (of course some still will but the numbers would drop dramatically). Beside gaining better control of the borders we will be gaining training time for our troops that actally does some good for the country.

Then, once we have control we can see where we stand. We would likely create a migrant worker program for agriculture and also expand the numbers of people who could legally immigrate to the USA if we could stop the out of control costs of illegal immigration.

With people entering the country LEGALLY we would know who was here, and we could adjust our immigration numbers to allow for the needs of our country.

Southwestern states are being bankrupted by the costs of caring for some illegal aliens, crimes committed by some illegal aliens, overcrowded schools due to illegal alien children who's parents do not pay into the property tax pool, etc.

We have to take the rose colored glasses off and examine the problem from a real world perspective. If it does not benefit America, then why do it?

Enact programs that will eliminate the vast majority of illegal aliens and we can them use the money saved to promote the welfare of everyone in the US, including LEGAL immigrants.

Eliminate the majority of illegal immigration and we can then expand the numbers of people allowed to LEGALLY immigrate to the US.

The biggest problem with the immigration is the illegals. I know that immigration is necessary for this country, but the one thing I can't stand is the people who sneak over here and then expect to get free health care and welfare.
"Illegal immigrants face mistreatment by smugglers and bandits, capture by border guards, dehydration in the desert -- and now armed civilian patrols"
article on http://www.sfgate.com/
If they want to come legally? Please do, but don't do it illegally.
overlandsailor...I agree, the best thing to do is to put the National Guard to use. Isn't that the point of the National Guard, to guard our nation? And they need to untie the Border Patrol, they have to even treat the illegals with kid gloves cause some whiny lawyer (the ones who can't run fast enough to catch the ambulances) will cause on hell of a problem.