Like many of my ideological brethren, I’m a dedicated supply-sider, so the solution to our current illegal immigration crisis seems obvious to me: punish the companies that employ illegal immigrants.
Let me take a step back. I believe there are three parties primarily to blame for the current mess: the Mexican government, the US government and US employers. (There’s a second tier of blame that needs to be assigned to the illegal immigrants themselves, but I hold the enablers of their illegal behavior more responsible for the macro problem). The Mexican gov’t has made it their official policy to ferry the lower classes northward across our border, while the US gov’t has deemed it politically impossible to do anything substantive about it. US employers, meanwhile, seem to view illegal immigrants as a cost-cutting measure and employ them accordingly. We, the people of the US, have little-to-no ability to affect the Mexican gov’t’s policies, but we do have that ability with our own gov’t. We can also directly affect the businesses themselves, primarily by means of being careful consumers and directing our dollars to companies that don’t break the law.
My solution is three-fold and quite simple, really:
- Either mandate that any job in the US must be paid minimum wage or eliminate it (the minimum wage) entirely. The reason employers hire illegals is that, by dint of their situation, the immigrants are hardly in a position to complain to the authorities if they’re ill-treated or underpaid, thus the employers can get away with paying them far less than a legit American citizen.
- If illegal immigrants are being underpaid or mistreated by their employers, allow them a single shot at our legal system. Let them sue their employers for a sizeable, dare I say punitiveamount. Ensure them that they may remain in the US for as long as their civil trial takes, but as soon as they collect their jury award, they must immediately return to Mexico, where they can live like kings off the winnings.
- If employers are caught using illegal immigrants as workers, they should be fined double the amount of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Federal tax they would have paid per illegal worker used. If Wal*Mart would have owed say $2,000 per minimum wage employee for fiscal year 2005, then the Feds should collect $4,000 per head. States and localities should also get a crack at levying a double taxation on any such employers.
I think these solutions are eminently fair and in no way could possibly be construed as “anti-immigrant” or “racist”, which seems to be the Republicans’ primary concern in addressing immigration reform. This is completely pro-immigrant – we’re sticking up for the ill-treated illegals while at the same time protecting our national interests. Businesses already make a cost-benefit analysis when hiring illegals; obviously, it’s perceived as worth it for a significant portion of them at the moment. I want employers to see each and every illegal employee of theirs as a potentially damaging lawsuit. I want them to be terrified at the prospect of even accidentally hiring an illegal immigrant.
As for the whole “guest worker Visa” issue, I have one very simple solution: at no time shall they be available to anyone within the borders of the US. If you want a guest worker Visa, you have to return to your home nation, where a US consulate or embassy employee will be more than happy to help you obtain one.
Now if I could only find a couple of sponsors for just such a bill in Congress…
Now go tackle the abuse of the educational system in which we accomodate said immigrants by learning their language and even teaching classes in their language so that they can understand. Then you can move on to how our health care costs are on the rise due to their abuse of our medical system. While the average American goes about medical situations in the proper order, primary physician-doctor-surgery-etc…, the illegal immigrants and any other non-health care persons in the nation can walk in to an emergency room and HAVE to be treated. We see this all the time in the emergency room at the local hospital near the plant. Someone comes in with a laceration or major injury and they have to wait behind people who don’t have health care and their sore throats or hangnails while the government foots the bill covering the doctors who look at them and in turn raises health care. So yeah, preach on brother.
I agree with your assertation that the fault mainly lies with the governing bodies and the employers who willingly, and often knowingly, create the market for trafficing. I found it quite interesting that in our recent governor’s election, the Republican candidate was making a HUGE fuss over illegals in the state of Virginia. I don’t really see how it is a state issue to begin with, let alone a state without an international border.
I am not so sure that sending people back to their home country (you specifically call out Mexico, but there are many who are not FROM Mexico that come here THRU our southern neighbor), especially sending them back “as kings”. It sets a bad example: Go to America at all costs, find an employer, SUE THEM, then get rich. It would create false hope, because surely not ALL illegals will be involved in a suit, and probably not all of those who do get involved will win.
I do agree with your “illegal tax” applied after the fact.
It is my opinion that illegal immigration is a big problem, but in an entirely different way then most think. You see, it is my belief that they are not “takin r jobs”. They are working in jobs that the population of an area WON’T. Yes, they get taken advantage of, which is a very bad thing. But they ARE performing a service which others have refused to partake in, and more often then not, they do so willingly. If people (in general) did not have such a feeling of entitlement, if those who are really in need continue to refuse to really work their way into financial freedom, then there wouldn’t be jobs for illegals. So the problem with illegal immigration in my eyes is that is exposes the elements in our society which we would rather avoid – we need their labor because the pool we already have has decided NOT to work in certain fields of employment. If we can address those issues, and be successful in getting Americans to work, then the problem may very well go away…
I think you misunderstand me: I’m not trying to hold out false hope for illegals, I’m trying to make illegals nuclear as far as employers are concerned. I want the hiring of illegals to be so potentially painful as to become anathema to any employer desiring to continue to exist. I want said lawsuits to be a virtual scarcity, a virtual legal Bogeyman, a courtroom Headless Horseman so fearsome as to scare any Ichabod Crane & Company into utterly rejecting the use of illegals before the subject is even broached.
As I said, it’s not that the jobs are too “dirty” for we Americans to “stoop” to, it’s that legitimate American citizens must be paid minimum wage, whereas illegal immigrants are free of such a burden, so American companies are using illegal cost-cutting measures in order to increase their bottom line.
Would we be okay with Delphi illegally cutting tolerances on their auto products in order to save a few dimes? How about doctors using cut-rate pharmaceuticals in an effort to pocket some extra cash for themselves? I fail to see how employers using illegal immigrants, which places a huge societal burden on the legal residents of the US, is any different.
That’s weird. I just wrote a song about migrant workers. It’s basically about how they are taken advantage of and do the jobs that most americans can’t/won’t/don’t.
You have to wonder if illegal immigrants keep the average american rich. I will say that they certainly only go to the hospital when they are truly hurt or in labor. I’m probably more in aggreement with Andy on this one. I sympathize more with their plight than with my taxes.
As an American, I’m supposed to care more about my nation and capitolism, but as a Christian, I guess I just care more about the people. Illegal immigration certainly is problem, though. They should be paid more.
To Andy’s point about illegal’s working the jobs that Americans won’t, I have the solution. Make it harder to get on welfare or eliminate it en totale. Force the people to make some money which would eliminate the need for the immigrants supposedly taking the jobs. I don’t care if you like the work you are doing, but if you want some money the government aint footing the bill so you have to earn it. Of course I am a conceited white conservative so what the heck do I know.