Immigrants should play by the rules

Theodore Fuller

Fuller is professor of sociology at Virginia Tech.

The vast majority of illegal immigrants in this country are decent, hard-working people who just want to improve their lives. They have every right to try to improve their lives.

At the same time, the United States government has every right to establish and enforce laws controlling who enters the country and how long they stay. While it benefits illegal immigrants to let them become citizens, the first priority for lawmakers should be whether the proposed laws are beneficial to citizens, not illegal immigrants. If there is a conflict between the rights of illegal immigrants and the rights of the U.S. government, I hope it is clear which should prevail.

President Bush and the U.S. Senate want to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. In my view, the first step on the road to citizenship should not be to break the laws of the United States by entering our country illegally. If illegal immigrants want to become citizens, the first step should be to return to their home countries and apply to enter the U.S. legally.

Being a United States citizen is a precious thing. It is illogical to reward illegal immigrants by making them citizens. It is also a slap in the face to all of those legal immigrants who play by the rules.

What problem is solved by allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens? If the problem is that we don't have enough immigrants, offering citizenship to illegal immigrants is an eminently reasonable solution. But if the problem is that we have too many illegal immigrants, then surely it is obvious to all that offering citizenship to illegal immigrants will only exacerbate the problem.

The Immigration Act of 1986 offered amnesty to illegal immigrants, when there were only a few million illegal immigrants. Now, there are 11 million or 12 million. If we again create a path for illegal immigrants to become citizens, this will just encourage millions more to come.

There is an unholy alliance among illegal immigrants, the business community and the federal government. The 1986 law made it illegal for employers to hire people who are in the country illegally. But many large corporations and small businesses hire illegal immigrants every day and rarely face any penalty. Businesses hire illegal immigrants because they will work for low wages and are a relatively docile work force.

For 20 years, the federal government has refused to effectively enforce the laws that make it illegal to hire illegal immigrants. Recently, a few companies that hire illegal immigrants were raided. That was so rare that it made headlines nationally.

One common rationale for ignoring illegal immigration is that illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans don't want. While some illegal immigrants have jobs that few Americans would want, many illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans would be happy to have, from construction to landscaping to carpentry and other trades.

A second, more subtle rationale for ignoring illegal immigrants is that they are here temporarily, to raise money and then go home. However, when hundreds of thousands march for "immigrant rights," apparently including citizenship, then one has to be skeptical of how many will remain temporarily and how many wish to remain permanently in the United States.

It is time to seriously enforce the 20-year-old law that makes it illegal for employers to hire illegal immigrants. And stop talking about allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens of this great country.

Building a 700-mile fence will not prevent illegal immigration. Immigrants will just go around the fence. Sending 6,000 National Guard troops to guard a 2,000-mile border will not stop illegal immigration either.

I am not advocating more troops or a longer fence. I am advocating that the federal government take the radical step of enforcing the 20-year-old law that made it illegal to hire illegal immigrants. If stiff fines are imposed on a few companies and if a few employers get some jail time, this should go a long way toward reducing the illegal hiring of immigrants, thereby reducing the incentive for illegal immigration.

I agree, at least in part, with President Bush's proposal for a guest worker program. Potential guest workers should apply from their home country, and could then be allowed to work in the United States for a fixed period of time