Increasing Legal Immigration is the Answer

By: Alex Nowrasteh -- June 27, 2013

This afternoon the Senate voted 68-32 to pass its sweeping immigration reform bill. The bill is a solid improvement over the current immigration system. It legalizes most of the unlawful immigrants here and provides larger pathways for legal immigration in the future.

Under today’s immigration rules, very few of our ancestors would have been able to immigrate here legally. 

The bill does have flaws – many of which I’ve written about in detail. It doesn’t increase lawful immigration enough. The guest worker visa programs for lower skilled workers are too small, restricted to certain sectors of the economy, and governed by confusing bureaucracy. Under today’s immigration rules, very few of our ancestors would have been able to immigrate here legally. The Senate’s immigration bill takes us a small step closer to our traditionally more open immigration policy.

It shovels gargantuan amounts of security resources toward the southern border in an attempt to halt future unlawful immigration that could otherwise cheaply be halted with an expanded guest worker visa program. The border “surge,” as many are calling it, is truly embarrassing, especially for a country with such proud immigrant traditions. There are certainly legitimate security concerns, but the extra enforcement will just drive up the price of smuggling and marginally decrease unlawful immigration of peaceful workers at enormous cost.

Worse, the bill creates a mandatory employment verification system called E-Verify. Those seeking work here will have to use this proto-national ID system to ask the government for permission to work. Government audits of the system find that its inaccuracy rate hovers at around a quarter of a percent. Independent audits, the most recent carried out in 2009, found error rates 3 to 4 times as high as that. As the system is expanded it will place an unfair burden on American businesses, saddling them with costs, and incentivizing illegal hiring without even a cursory I-9 form as has happened in states that have already mandated E-Verify.

Even with those flaws, this bill still does a lot more good than bad. Millions of new Americans will finally be able to live and work openly without fear of deportation. Millions of more highly skilled workers, merit-based immigrants, and their families will be able to become Americans. Americans will have more freedom to hire whom they want and more buyers for their goods and services. Our economy will grow more quickly, wages will increase, and the fiscal state of the federal government will improve over the medium-term.

Despite all of these benefits, this bill will face an uphill battle in the House of Representatives. The first round of a major political brawl has been concluded; time for the toughest round to begin.

http://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-bill-better-not-best?utm_content=bufferb6f2c&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Immigration Reform

by: Bryan Baumgart 

Incentive and Motivation 

We have to take away the incentive to immigrate illegally and motivate LEGAL immigration.  We do so by removing the job opportunities for ILLEGAL immigrants and replace them with job opportunity for LEGAL immigrants.  This helps us keep better tabs on who is coming and going and helps immigrants become productive, contributing, taxpaying members of society rather than living at our expense. 

Remove incentive for illegal immigration:

1. Establish an effective “e-verify” system such as a website to verify the authenticity of social security numbers with the potential to print off the verification for record keeping.
2. Crack down on employers that violate the law through huge crippling fines, especially for repeat offenders.

Motivate legal immigration:

1. Streamline the immigration process so those immigrating legally don’t have to watch folks jump in line and avoid the long waits and outrageous costs associated with legal immigration.
2. Increase the number of immigrants we welcome each year.
3. Provide a one-year grace period for all illegal immigrants currently residing within the country to begin the process of legally immigrating to this country.
4. Begin actually enforcing immigration laws including detention and detainment.

U.S. Has Never Occupied Mexico

 May 15, 2012 -  Tiffany Gabbay 

As it turns out, the Spaniards occupied Mexico for some 300 years and even the word Hispanic was one employed by the Romans when they occupied what now is Spain. So, the Spanish language that is spoken across Latin America is a result of Spanish occupation. Likewise, it was Spain that occupied Mexico for hundreds of years.

In 1846 the Mexican-American war began in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico considered Texas part of its territory despite the Texas Revolution nearly a decade prior. Mexico never acknowledged Texas’ independence.

Ultimately, the Americans won the war with Mexico but on February 2 ,1848, the two countries signed the Treaty of Guadalupe which stated that U.S. troops would withdraw from Mexico, including Mexico City and take ownership of the Southwestern United States.

What’s more, the U.S. agreed to buy the land from Mexico for $15 million, even though it was won squarely in victory and there was no obligation to do so. Not at any time did the United States occupy nor rule Mexico. The United States did not subject Mexicans to our form of government nor did it leave troops stationed in the country.



http://www.theblaze.com/stories/we-never-occupied-mexico-beck-schools-eva-longoria-on-her-mexican-history/