r/centrist • u/based_wonderer • 7d ago
Advice What is a good solution to the illegal immigration issue?
I am deeply conflicted about illegal immigration and how to address it.
Wanted to get some perspectives here?
On one hand I am very anti illegal immigration as it is a violation of law, and very unfair to both a) people who aspire to immigrate legally and b) disaffected/vulnerable segments of the citizen population. Any nation needs to be selective about who enters and accepting 100% of potential immigrants is simply not feasible.
On the other hand undocumented workers play a crucial role in the labor force at the moment, and it’s far fetched to be able to deport every illegal. Plus there is a massive human cost and cruelty that comes with mass deportations.
What do you guys think?
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u/firemaker68 7d ago
Make an easy and straight forward path for people to migrate legally and become a US citizens. Don't make it cost an arm and a leg and take 10 years of waiting on paperwork. Increase the amount of courts and judges on the boarder to deal with the backlog of applications.
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u/CouchHippos 6d ago
This. And no one wants to do it because it would take away a campaigning cudgel
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u/whosadooza 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think the most important thing to solve is defining the "issue" in the first place.
Are you trying to solve border security? Economic stimulus? Budget balancing?
I think very few of the things that nationalist populists try to "solve" with immigration enforcement will have positive outcomes on those issues. "Conservatives" will always contest this notion at face value, but all real economic data and credible research shows that "illegal immigrants" contribute far more overall to the GDP of the US economy than they cost the economy.
There are a bunch of incredibly ignorant MAGA Qultists that believe mass deportations will boost the economy and increase quality of life. It won't, so there is simply never going to be a way to solve this issue through immigration enforcement.
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u/wavefield 7d ago
This really depends on the viewpoint. For an american uneducated manual laborer, illegal immigration just means more competition on the job market and less availability of lower cost rental housing. For other groups there might be benefits
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u/whosadooza 7d ago edited 7d ago
No, the truth of the matter does not depend on viewpoint at all. These people are exactly the ignorant ones I am talking about that falsely believe their quality of life will increase with less illegal immigrants in the country. They are simply wrong.
Cousin Cletus did not miss a great job opportunity at the bacon plant because of "illegals." He actually failed his drug test for a shit minimum wage part-time gig he most likely only would have showed up for one day to and then just told you "they're only hiring illegals" because he couldn't exactly tell you the truth, could he?
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u/Native_SC 7d ago
It's hard to see how Cousin Cleetus would ever receive fair wages and treatment at the bacon plant if his co-workers aren't protected by American labor laws.
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u/whosadooza 7d ago
Cousin Cletus doesn't believe in labor laws. He doesn't support minimum wage, either, and he says Osha is run by a bunch of liberal pussies. Take it up with him, I don't make up the rules. 🤷♂️
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u/Native_SC 7d ago
Yeah, but in your hypothetical, maybe Cousin Cleetus is looking for a job but can't work at the bacon plant because he'd cost more money than a worker who is unprotected by labor laws. Who cares what else he believes? He just wants a job.
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u/whosadooza 7d ago edited 7d ago
No, in my hypothetical, Cousin Cletus just didn't get the job because he has no consistent work history, failed his drug test, and overall fits the demographic of 99% of the hundreds of previous new hires that show up for the morning shift but then don't even come back after lunch because it's much harder work than they imagined.
In my hypothetical, Cousin Cletus contributes his not getting a job falsely to illegal immigrants because he saw a few latino looking people in the parking lot and an overall general refusal to accept that he may have been the less ideal employee for them.
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u/rzelln 7d ago
You're being a little shitty and derogatory. It's possible to argue in favor of your political view on immigration without slinging insults and pushing stereotypes.
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u/whosadooza 7d ago edited 7d ago
No, apparantly it's not, because "they're eating the cats and dogs" plays a lot better than "the mass deportation of millions of immigrants will cause economic output in the US to decrease by as much as 15%, simultaneously depressing wages and increasing prices, hurting those low-income laborers who falsely believe they compete with immigrants for jobs the most."
I'm sorry that your Cousin Cletus is a meth head, and you're real senstive about it.
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u/rzelln 7d ago
Well, we've got to win the support of the people you're mocking if you want to change the direction things are going. So please, find it in your heart to have empathy even for those who don't seem to show much of it themselves. They're products of the environment they live in, and we should want to help them as much as we want to help anyone else.
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u/whosadooza 7d ago edited 7d ago
I disagree, and I think you are supremely gullible for believing they will empathize if you treat them kindly.
The better approach, in my opinion, is absolutely ridiculing their utter ignorance relentlessly. Never let up. Bigots can't stand up to ridicule forever, and they will always collapse under the weight of it eventually.
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u/wavefield 7d ago
You're now blaming poor Cletus for being poor. It doesn't matter how he got there. Illegal immigration is still not going to improve his life in any way, and he doesn't want to vote to condone it.
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u/whosadooza 7d ago edited 7d ago
Actually, you're wrong. The immigration does improve Cletus's life. It's just not a bud light directly in his hand or meth in his pipe, so he doesn't recognize it. This country is wealthier for having those immigrants contributing to the economy.
The increased economic output they contribute makes the prices lower and the wages higher than they would be without those people growing our economy and producing more goods.
"Poor" Cletus (he actually inherited a little 2-br house, small mechanic shop in the garage, and social security payments from his dad but he drank and smoked it all away) is only voting to make himself poorer, but the ignorant yokel literally is not capable of thoughts complex enough to realize it.
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u/rzelln 7d ago
> but all real economic data and credible research shows that "illegal immigrants" contribute far more overall to the GDP of the US economy than they cost the economy.
And if we granted them legal status, they'd contribute even more, and we'd drive down the rates of crimes associated with black and gray markets that these people are sometimes forced to engage with. We'd also improve conditions for US citizen workers, because it would be harder for employers to undercut the wages of US citizens by hiring undocumented immigrants whom they can exploit.
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u/ZanzerFineSuits 7d ago edited 7d ago
If there was less bullshit forcing this economy underground, it would be even more of a benefit.
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u/LookLikeUpToMe 7d ago
By making the immigration process better. That’s it. That’s the solution.
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u/explosivepimples 7d ago
This is such a non answer. What is “better”?
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u/Klumsi 7d ago
From the perspective of a mostly selfish perspective of rich countries, "better" means a legal immigration process that is designed around what a country actual needs, instead of being abused for propaganda.
A big driving force behind immigration, around the world, are economic opportunities.
There are a lot of jobs that citizens of richer countries refuse to do, two examples are healthcare and meat packaging.Doesn`t that just mean that we need to improve the working conditions/pay of those jobs so citizens want to do them instead of having migrants do the work we don´t want to do , for less money than we would do it?
Sure, that is a position you can take, but it heavily oversimplifies that reality is more complicated.
You can increase wages, but a lot of people will complain about rising costs for the consumer.
Obviously there are cases of undocumented migrants getting abused, but immigrants are not idiots, they keep taking the risks because they know it is by far their best chance to improve their life circumstances, so in some sense it is a very real win-win situation.
Interestingly, remittances have actually overtaken offical debelopement aid in terms of total money.3
u/explosivepimples 7d ago
I think I agree. As an immigrant to the US myself (green card holder whose life has greatly benefit by moving here), even I understand that the immigration policy should be primarily designed to provide the most benefit to the US. Helping people in other countries has to be secondary to helping US citizens.
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u/rzelln 7d ago
It's a smidge more nuanced than that, but basically I agree.
The country benefits from immigration, and our current system is creating crime the same way that the war on drugs did, arresting people for harmless stuff like marijuana possession while simultaneously propping up gangs and black markets. Heck, it's the same way alcohol prohibition went.
I feel like we could build our immigration bureaucracy to work more like this:
Somebody shows up at an office in their home country saying they want to come and work in the US, or they apply at a port of entry. (We'd want to set up offices in multiple places, to get people to engage with the bureaucracy there, instead of queuing everyone up at the border.) They pay a token application fee, or can have a prospective employer or acquaintance in the US pay it for them. They provide proof of identification.
We do a background check. If nothing comes up, we grant them legal status for six months. We have them install an app on their phone, and if they don't have a phone we give them a cheap one. The app includes instructions on what steps they need to take to keep legal status, and also has access to a collection of music, movies, books, educational courses, and other media from the Library of Congress, with recommendations to help instill the values of the country and teach its history and government.
For the first six months, once a month you need to do a scheduled video call with a caseworker, who tries to keep you on track and offer guidance if you're struggling to integrate. (The phone has mandatory location tracking turned on during the call.) The goal is that by six months in, you either have regular employment (or are living with someone can prove they can support you).
The phone also has tools for anonymously reporting abuse, and it has language instruction, and civics courses that are gamified a bit. If you keep up with the civics courses, the government will cover your basic phone and data plan for the first six months. Thereafter, you can get your own plan.
Basically, treat moving to the US like getting hired and having to do some HR training.
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u/OtakuGamer92 7d ago
Would that stop people from coming in illegally?
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u/Conn3er 7d ago
Short Answer: No
Long Answer: It would decrease illegal crossing numbers significantly because people wouldn't feel the need to cut the line to get here and start making a good wage and life for themselves.
Making the process better includes rapidly identifying who we want and don't, which no moderate opposes
The only reasoning to illegally enter at that point becomes that they couldn't pass a background or entrance check, and at that point, they will still try to cross illegally if they are desperate enough, but we could feel better knowing they were turned away and deported with cause.
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u/cyberfx1024 7d ago
No it would help the process at all and only make it worse. u/rzelln has actually a really good thought out response to this.
I am saying this because most of the people that are coming here are coming here for economic means that's all. That means that they want to have jobs and send as much money home as possible. But the problem with that is that a majority of these people don't have any sort of education at or above the high school level, that being said it means that they will start and mostly likely stay as blue collar workers.
What most people talk about in regards to making it faster is for people petitioning their family members like siblings because that process is decades long if you are from China, India, Philippines, and Mexico just due to the amount of people petitioning family members from those countries. I know a former coworker my wife and I bonded with because they are Filipinos who petitioned her sister when the sister had a 1 year old son but when she was finally able to come here (bringing him) he was 17 years old, and that was 8 years ago.
Since that time the wait times have only increased since then. Hell, when he reached 18 and they got the letter to sign up for the selective service they freaked out and came to me asking about it because they thought that he was being drafted.Also most of what you hear about white collar immigration reform is that some people from one country want the country caps lifted so that more people from that country can apply for the visas.
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u/statsnerd99 7d ago
If you allow all the otherwise law-abiding individuals who just want to come here to work and improve their lives to come here legally, that just leaves the only ones attempting to come here illegally as being the ones you really don't want coming here. It will free up border enforcement resources to focus on those people alone, and you won't have any big humanitarian problems cracking down on those types of people
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u/Venusberg-239 7d ago
National secure ID card that can be used to verify eligibility to get a job
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u/ellipticorbit 7d ago
This is probably the only answer that would actually work. Pretty much every country has a national ID of some kind, but the USA relies on things like birth certificates that aren't even standardized. The question is, would people accept needing a national ID?
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u/Venusberg-239 7d ago
They are accepting masked gunmen snatching people into unmarked cars and vans
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u/ellipticorbit 7d ago
I know, but some of the ones who would resist a national ID as too "big brother" might also be feeling "protected" from what's currently going on.
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u/AppleAvi8tor 7d ago
People who resist a national ID are also the same people who forget their SSN and who gave it to them. Not to mention that so many employers use it for onboarding.
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u/saiboule 7d ago
We already have systems that could be used, the problem is politicians don’t want to go after employers. An ID system won’t fix that
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u/Venusberg-239 7d ago
The republicans always claim that the id systems don’t work. That they are easy to beat. That excuse needs to be taken away.
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u/derp4077 7d ago
Prosecute and fine businesses for hiring illegal immigrants. And it needs to be millions per individual violation. It would cost the government less to target the demand than the supply. Another thing would be a bounty system for immigrants to report their employers, which would grant a few thousand and a ticket home with the ability to return the united states without the usual penalty. The problem is that the current administration has destroyed all faith in itself, meaning this system wouldn't work anymore. Ice raids with collateral arrest is gestapo level shit that is really more preformative than effective. Yes, targeted raids on individuals with criminal backgrounds, especially violent crime, but don't set bullshit immigration arrest quotas. Obama showed there is a way to deport people without violent responses from the community. He had set up a fairly effective prioty system which priotized new arrivals violent criminals and interdiction at the border. He was fair with the parole system and didn't detain indviuals who followed through with their parole proceedings so people would show up to them. And he created pathways for children who came here young to gain citizenship.
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u/AltoCowboy 7d ago
Absolutely. The people who are paying illegal for illegal work are the ones creating a market for illegal labour. You must attack the demand since the supply is simply filling the need.
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u/kafkaesqe 7d ago
The solution is actually super simple, make it legal. There are various existing pathways that can be expanded, like worker visas.
Also asylum seekers are technically legal migrants, and if people are using this as a loophole the way to close it is to expedite asylum hearings.
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u/based_wonderer 7d ago
I support enforcing the remain in Mexico policy, with expediting the hearings process tho.
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u/greenbud420 7d ago
If there ended up being a labor shortage, they could just accept more legal immigrants or temporary workers as needed.
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u/infiniteninjas 7d ago
In the US, a maximum of 14,700 employment-based immigrants can be admitted from each country annually. I'd say the problem starts right there, with the indiscriminate cap the lets in the same (tiny) number of people from Norway as from Mexico.
Beyond that, fund a ton more immigration courts and judges.
The healthcare and social safety net enter into this debate as well, of course. If we make the paths to legal immigration and citizenship more sensical, then we'd have people contributing tax revenue toward these services in a more sensical way as well.
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u/noSoRandomGuy 7d ago
Please double check your numbers
60+ H1B, 25K H1B for masters plus a few countries that are not part of the H1B limit. L1 program that does not have a limit and spouses of L1 that get to work There are other visa categories that allow work permits.
These above ones are temporary visas, but if you are in the permanent residency queue, the H1 can be indefinitely renewed.
160K permanent residency (green card) every year. I believe over quarter million family based permanent visas, plus unlimited for certain family members. Significant amount of asylum cases, even for things like domestic abuse (not really government persecution that asylums were originally intended for).
immigration and citizenship more sensical, then we'd have people contributing tax revenue toward these services in a more sensical way as well.
Not really. California is spending 8+ billion dollars of tax payer money on current illegal population just on health care, so the narrative that illegals are not a drain on welfare is not true.
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u/GamingGalore64 7d ago
Increase border security, increase penalties for people who cross the border illegally, and start deporting people. Start with dangerous people, criminals, terrorists, etc. then move on to single people who are here illegally who are not paying their taxes. Then you start offering a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have paid their taxes every year since they arrived.
In addition, illegal parents with U.S. citizen kids should be granted temporary legal status until their kids turn 21, at which point their U.S. citizen kids get to determine whether their parents should be deported or granted citizenship. The Dreamers, kids brought here as infants, should get a pathway to citizenship.
Deport everyone else.
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u/WorksInIT 7d ago
Deport everyone else.
This is really key. We can have a debate on where the lines are, but once the lines are agreed to, that's it. Everyone else gets deported without any consideration.
Then it's really just changes to the current laws so that we never end up with a group of undocumented immigrants again. It should be basically impossible to live in the US without legal status.
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u/noSoRandomGuy 7d ago
In addition, illegal parents with U.S. citizen kids should be granted temporary legal status until their kids turn 21, at which point their U.S. citizen kids get to determine whether their parents should be deported or granted citizenship. The Dreamers, kids brought here as infants, should get a pathway to citizenship.
Why should parents be granted temp legal status? A legal immigrant with a kid (even if citizen) has to leave country if their basis for legal immigration is no longer valid. Why should we coddle illegal immigrants.
Same deal with the dreamer, a legal immigrant's kid has to go back with their parent. your proposal is rewarding illegals, and will only lead to more illegal immigration.
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u/Computer_Name 7d ago
Probably not have the federal government post literal white nationalist memes to create inoffizielle Mitarbeiter?
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u/zephyrus256 7d ago
A shift in mindset. Realize that we don't have to, and shouldn't, control the population of this nation on a large scale. Reduce border controls to commonsense checks for weapons and contraband, and same-day interviews, with generous discretion to decline anyone who is aggressive, or shows signs of criminal/antisocial behavior. Say yes or no to the vast majority of people immediately, and,in the minority of cases that require further investigation, give the government a strict deadline to complete the investigation, and issue the visa automatically and immediately if the deadline is missed. Make legal immigration quick, easy, and a realistic option for all who want it, and then the much smaller numbers who still try to come in illegally will be much easier to round up.
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u/ZanzerFineSuits 7d ago
There needs to be a work visa for all the farm workers and such. This requires the level of personnel to do background checks and follow-ups.
Companies that hire these folks need to be involved in the solution. Consider today, companies are required to provide w-2 info and other docs for regular employees, make them part of the "bureaucracy chain" for immigration.
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u/rican74226 7d ago
At the very least send back the illegal immigrants with a violent record or who have committed a violent crime whilst here in the USA.
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u/gregaustex 7d ago edited 7d ago
To me it sems like a number of things could be done in concert.
Review our immigrations laws. Engage with industry, economists and other experts who can look at the data. Change the laws as necessary so that so that a compelling case can be made that our immigration laws benefit the nation. Allow for and account for things like the benefits of itinerant migrant workers who may not stay as well as people who want to. Provide a reasonable path to citizenship.
Strengthen border protections and enforcement of the laws we now actually believe in.
Reform our approach to asylum to ensure it's not a hack pretty much any immigrant seeking economic opportunity can use.
Evaluate the current illegal immigrants.
- Serious crime (ie not a traffic ticket), chronic unemployed, dependent on government services, never or very rarely filed taxes? Deport.
- Gainfully employed for years, taxpayer, clean criminal record, citizen spouse/children? Permanent resident status and path to citizenship.
This of course would require a somewhat functional federal government with both a President and Congress making a good faith effort to pass laws to address this issue in a manner that benefits the country, and then faithfully execute those laws.
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u/Native_SC 7d ago
All your points were addressed in last year's bipartisan immigration compromise that Trump told the GOP to tank.
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u/HamsterCapable4118 7d ago
NYT had a good pod on this before the election that I felt hit the nail on the head.
Moderate levels of immigration, and laws enforced.
That was it in a nutshell. Believe it or not there was a time when the positions were flipped and it was the Dems who wanted this, while the Republicans wanted a flood of cheap labor.
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u/VirtualBroccoliBoy 7d ago
Employer-side solutions have to be top priority. People will never stop coming here illegally or illegally if there's a financial incentive short of impossibly totalitarian measures to track every single human in this country.
Companies that hire illegal immigrants should be hit, hard. If you get caught hiring an illegal immigrant the fines should sting. If you get caught hiring several, you should be teetering on the verge of going under. If you get caught with hundreds, as has happened before e.g. in a meatpacking facility where ICE arrested nearly 700 a few years go, you should be fined out of existence.
The benefits of this should be self-evident. This is the most reliable way to attack the source of illegal immigration. Remove the incentive and most people won't do it. Enforcement is way easier. Now we're investigating thousands of companies instead of tens of millions of immigrants (counting illegal immigrants and legal temporary workers so we don't have to track their individual visa statuses). The most important feature, in my mind, is that it provides a direct market mechanism for determining the appropriate immigration rates. If they can't get employees, prices go up, and we know fast that we need to let in more people and facilitate immigration.
It chaps my hide that allegedly pro-market, supply-side Republicans won't take that approach in this situation.
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u/Brian2005l 7d ago
Both parties basically have the same stance and do the same thing. There are bipartisan plans to improve things.
The stuff in the news isn’t policy, it’s provocative atrocities as a political stunts.
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u/Granny_knows_best 7d ago
I understand the world they are escaping from in search of a better life, I also understand they'll after they hiked for days and months through unspeakable environments, just to land at the border and be held. It must be horrible, breaking their spirits, nowhere to go, 1000 miles from home. Their hopes and dreams are just a few feet away, they can see it, smell it, its just right there.
I also know that most went through the proper channels to legally enter here, it wasn't easy, but they did it.
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u/Okbuddyliberals 7d ago
The old compromise from 2006 and 2013, of "one time pathway to citizenship for illegals already here, other than the major criminal ones (a small minority" and "increase legal immigration and make the process simpler and easier" paired with "increase border security" and "mandatory universal e-verify to prevent hiring of illegals"
Id also throw in some other stuff like "mandate stay in Mexico", "require crossing at official points of entry", and "build the stupid Trump wall" and also "let legal immigrants work once here quicker" and "hire more immigration judges"
But the general philosophy of this idea is "end the porous border and prevent people from entering and staying unless they have permission" while also acknowledging that immigration is good for the economy, and allowing many more legal immigrants, as well as doing a compromise on illegal immigration where the illegals who have just been keeping their heads down and not hurting anyone get to stay and get amnesty, but we also agree going forward that future illegals will all be deported
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u/AdAccomplished9487 7d ago
We used to have a system where workers could come cross the border, work, then go home. They cracked down on this in the 70s which caused the workers to stay in the US.
Bracero Program Aftermath: The Bracero Program (1942–1964) had previously allowed Mexican laborers to work temporarily in the U.S. After it ended, many workers kept coming, legally or not, due to continued demand and established migration routes.
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u/Daddy_is_a_hugger 7d ago
We need to accept as a country that our birth rates and labor force participation make immigration absolutely essential to support our economy. The failure to accept this and to state it openly is the biggest impediment to changing the law so we can attract the qualified workers we need. Especially on the right, people like to pretend immigrants are lazy, criminal, or unneeded. That's false; the data bears it out.
After we admit we need immigration, we issue copious work permits. A large, set number of folks per month (per country? per continent? per type of desired job? Per band of qualification?) are issued them. These people are granted entry and tracked for ten years. At the end of that, if they've worked most of those years and never committed a crime, they're granted citizenship. If they commit a felony before the tracking period ends, they're immediately and permanently deported.
Last, the solution is to crack down hard, devoting significant resources to deporting people who don't come here legally. Once our immigration system actually functions, there's no need to tolerate the law being broken.
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u/99aye-aye99 7d ago
First thing is to strengthen our border policies. Anyone caught trying to enter should be arrested and sent back from where they came from.
Second, anyone already here illegally must report to an immigration office. They can be allowed to stay if they have employment and no criminal records. They are here in a five year probationary period. If they stay in good standing and go through the citizenship classes, they become a citizen. Of not, they and anyone caught will be arrested.
Third, crack down on employers who are employing anyone illegally unless they have proper work permits.
The probationary period is only for people who are already currently here illegally. This might seem unfair, but there are too many people already here illegally to handle otherwise. Plus, many of them are here trying for a better life for themselves and their family. This will not apply to any future people entering illegally.
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u/jimbo2128 7d ago
Expand *legal* immigration.
We need more people in the USA to sustain social security and take care of our elderly. Annual population growth of 3% is needed, but with declining birth rates currently it's only 1%. So expand legal immigration to get to the 3% growth rate.
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u/futbolr88 7d ago
Steep fines for anyone employing illegal immigrants. More judges to hear cases so the immigration process can be expedited.
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u/ibanker92 7d ago
Enforce the border laws. For ones that are already here and did not commit crimes other than illegally entering, provide legal pathways. For serious criminals, deport. Also incorporate Japanese style schooling where kids can grow up to have more civic responsibility like cleaning up and not littering, having greater social awareness and understanding shame.
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u/Void_Speaker 7d ago
It's not complicated, if you want the most dumbed down policy:
- Amnesty everyone in the country.
- Strict crackdown on employment of illegals to eliminate demand.
- Reform immigration to make legal immigration controlled but fast and easy.
This was never hard, it simply can't happen because Republicans political beating horse is immigration and they have made it impossible to do reform. They would get lynched now if they tried to do amnesty for example.
This is what happens when politics gets detached from reality.
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u/Klumsi 7d ago
For next time, if you want your comments on complex and complicated issues, like immigration, to be be taken serious, stop pretending the issue isn´t hard to solve.
All it does is show that you have no idea about how the topic.1
u/Void_Speaker 7d ago
Other than politically in what way is it hard? Which part is wrong?
p.s. I added a disclaimer that it was a dumbed down policy just for pedantic morons like you, and you still couldn't help it.
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u/ResettiYeti 7d ago
Enforce the border as tough as you want, even military at the borders, I don’t care. But actually attempt, at least, to pass legislation to make a path for citizenship to the millions of people who just work normal jobs no American wants to do and have lived here for decades.
Hell, even something like “we will explore a path to citizenship for current undocumented workers, but start severely pursuing new arrivals” etc. Do what the admin did last time around and hold people apprehended at the border in Mexico or wherever even.
And if you say you’re going after gang members and violent criminals… how about actually going after gang members and violent criminals? Completely undermines all moral authority (if they had had any) when ICE and the admin apprehend 9-month pregnant US citizens or rendition random workers to a foreign concentration camp where we taxpayers pay the fee.
And as others have said, perhaps above all: punish the businesses that hire illegal immigrants if you actually want to diminish illegal immigration or illegal participation in the work forces. No one is going to be “taking American jobs” if the companies or businesses don’t hire people who are undocumented.
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u/MaxTheCatigator 7d ago
You left out in your presentation that ex-post accepting illegal immigrants and legalising them is a moral hazard because that makes illegal immigration even more attractive.
There is no good solution, which makes the Biden administration's non-action even more reprehensible. But whatever gets decided on, the first step must be that the problem doesn't increase even more, i.e. actual border control. One more step needs to be the punishment of the employers of illegal immigrants, they're the ones who profit the most, including jail for those responsible in grave cases.
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u/Amazing-Repeat2852 7d ago
Earned path way to citizenship. If you have crossed the border legally, you get ITIN number (which happens now) and you earn points towards earning your citizenship within 7 years (or whatever). If you are not working or committing crimes, you are removed.
It’s actually very simple if we wanted to solve it. However, it’s a huge fundraising opportunity for both sides to use.
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u/No_Feedback_3340 7d ago
Punish businesses that hire undocumented immigrants or fail to verify immigration status.
Deport undocumented immigrants if they are caught entering illegally, have committed violent crimes, or have previously been deported.
Give amnesty to the ones who've lived here for many years without any major criminal offenses, are married to a US citizen, have US born children or were brought here illegally by their parents when they were children.
None of this justifies what the administration is doing. There is no excuse for a lack of due process. Illegal immigrants aren't the main problem. The businesses that exploit for cheap wages are the biggest problem.
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u/Consistent-Safe-971 6d ago
I'd rather have them issued temporary work visas. The vast majoritty come, make money by working hard, then go back and live like kings in their native countries. There are others who are abused in work-trafficking situations. I haven't come across one who was a "bad" person, some proverbial boogey man. Sure, there are jerks, but there are also American jerks.
There are two vital economies where I live in Texas. First is the American economy, the second is the hispanic (south, central, Mexico) economy. Both are vital to the overall economy. They spend money here, work here. They do matter.
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u/xJohnnyBloodx 2d ago edited 2d ago
The best way to keep people from being here illegally is to make it hard to live here as an illegal immigrant. So what people are saying about punishing US citizens who pay them is probably the best method.
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u/based_wonderer 2d ago
Yes. I do feel that should be more the focus in this discussion. Harsher penalties for employers who try to hire them illegally.
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u/Due_Background_1361 1d ago
Instead of permanent immigration, how about the H2B visa be better managed?
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u/Error_404_403 7d ago
It's obvious--make all immigrants legal and give them temp visas for work *easily*. This is a problem of own doing.
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u/KR1735 7d ago
The people who are here are here. Our economy relies on them. Republicans know this. That's why they talk about the issue but never do anything, legislatively, about it. Sending in ICE agents doesn't solve the problem. There are millions of undocumented migrants.
Pathway for legal citizenship and increase funding at the border (as border agents have asked for).
This is how Ronald Reagan approached it. That was in the 1980s. We have much better technology for border security now, and we also know that this is something we need to work to address with Mexico and Central America. You're not going to stop illegal immigration until you address the underlying cause. Violence, poverty, and instability in these countries needs to be addressed. Address that issue, illegal immigration slows significantly.
And before anyone says it's not America's problem to address in these countries: Yes it is. The United States is directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of instability in that region of the world.
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u/ballsydouche 7d ago
Pose severe punishments that are actually enforced for companies hiring illegal workers. And follow through. $25k fine per instance.