Immigration: Legal vs Illegal
I believe strongly that illegal immigrants need to encounter the consequences of their actions. That is the simple part. What those consequences should be is much more difficult. I don’t really like outright amnesty, but if that is not granted, then what? There is much talk about “returning the illegals to their home of origin.” In theory, I would agree. How is that to be accomplished, however?
Almost by definition, no one knows the exact number of illegal immigrants currently in the US. I have heard reports that there may be as many as one million illegals in this county. If they were to be returned home, how would our government -indeed any government – accomplish that? Is this a problem for the Federal Government to solve – or the states?
Do we assign that task to our police force? If searching for illegal immigrants becomes a primary task of our police force, then which of their current tasks gets less funding and attention? Do the police stop searching for drugs? Do they stop working accidents or crimes? Where would the police put the seized individuals? In our city or county jails? In our state or federal prisons? Would we have to release current prisoners in order to make room for the illegal immigrants? Who would make those decisions?
Should we assign the task to the National Guard? The last time I looked, most of the Guard was either in Iraq, returning from there, or getting ready to deploy there. Should we keep the Guard home, but assign them the task of searching for the immigrants that are to be returned home? Would all the Guard be mobilized, or only the Guard in the states with the largest number of immigrant violations? Who makes that decision? The governors of the states? How would using the National Guard for an immigration issue affect Federal priorities?
Do we assign citizen patrols for this? Some people have started doing this. Who determines who gets arrested? Would there be a trial? How long would it be before a legal immigrant was arrested and a suit was filed that would keep the program in the court system for years? Would the immigration issue be at a standstill until that issue was resolved?
Who will pay for this? If even 50,000 people were sent home by bus, that is a lot of money that would be coming out of some governmental budget. Which level of government would fund the search, the keeping of the “prisoners”, and the tickets home? What other items would not be funded? If the Federal Government helped fund this, then what would this do to the national debt? If this were funded by the States, I wonder how the border states would feel if some of the States didn’t actively seek out the illegals. Would some of the immigrants move from a State actively involved in finding illegal immigrants to a State less involved in such a search? Wouldn’t that recreate something of the same scenario that this country encountered during the period prior to the Civil War?
What about the employers who won’t have employees? Many people would say “That is their problem” I can understand that, but I wonder what the reactions of those people will be when those same companies have to raise the prices on their products because they have to raise the salaries of their employees? Would legal residents of the US flock to jobs left behind by the deported immigrants? Do we have so many unemployed people that they would flock to the fields to pick crops, or would the crops be left in the fields, raising the prices of the crops that do manage to get to supermarket shelves?
I find myself in the awkward position of believing that illegal immigrants should not receive positive reinforcement for their illegal status, yet also wondering if the consequences of returning them home will be more severe on those citizens who are shouting so loudly to have them deported. The people who are shouting want the illegal immigrants to have consequences, but I suspect that those who are shouting will shout even louder at the consequences that will come from returning illegal immigrants to their home of origin. Even consequences have consequences.
