Thread: U.S. immigration system needs a major makeover (op/ed)

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/opi ... 232089.htm

Immigration problem referred to as a 500-pound gorilla

Posted on Sun, Mar. 27, 2005
U.S. immigration system needs a major makeover

President George W. Bush's summit with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts last week was more about form than substance. Each country's leader made overtures to heal the political rift stemming from American intervention in Iraq two years ago, and Bush, President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin promised - broadly - cooperation on a number of mutual hemispheric interests.

While the official agenda for the confab and pronouncements afterward alluded to the 500-pound gorilla in the room, little of substance came from the meeting regarding illegal immigration.

It is a growing national problem, intertwined with concerns about Homeland Security, terrorists, delivery of social services and education, driving privileges and much more, as an estimated million people a day cross the border between Mexico and the U.S.

Georgia is not a border state that must deal with the immediate problems stemming from these official and unofficial crossings, but it is a state that has benefitted greatly from the labor of legal and illegal Hispanic workers. They are a mainstay of the state's migrant worker population. They are heavily employed in the state's chicken processing plants. They landscape our lawns, build our houses.

And we are a state that must deal with service delivery to residents who speak and understand English as a second language, if at all.

Conservatives in Congress tend to favor stricter border controls, but President George W. Bush last year proposed a work amnesty policy and one where illegals could travel freely across our borders to work and then return home.

But little more than a study committee came out of talks between Bush, Fox and Martin.

Several new studies just released give an indication of the immediacy and magnitude of the problem. The Pew Hispanic Center study estimates there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. today; six million of them are Mexicans. (There also are about 6 million Mexicans legally in the country.) The study cites Georgia's illegal population as approaching 300,000, but other experts believe that number is low. Regardless, it is growing.

It also says 7 million of the 11 million total immigrants classified as illegal hold jobs in the U.S., making up 5 percent of the country's total workforce, most often holding the lowest paid jobs. About 1.7 million of the total are children, below 18 years of age, and less than a million are aged 40 or older. The median net worth of Hispanic households in 2002 was $7,932.

Illegals follow either jobs or family. While California and Texas have the largest numbers of undocumented migrant workers, Georgia and a number of other states, including North Carolina and several along the eastern seaboard, are attracting the largest number of undocumented aliens and their families, according to the Pew study.

And the population is not static. The Center for Immigration Studies found in an earlier study (1999) that for every 1 million new illegals who settled in the country each year, more than 200,000 already here pulled up stakes and returned home or died and another 200,000 illegals made it through the naturalization process. Only about 63,000 were caught and sent home by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. All that adds up to a net growth of almost half a million illegals a year.

American businesses have been willing to hire the immigrants, mostly young men, and have helped create immigration "incubators" for their friends and relatives.

But today's world, with its threats of terrorism as well as the economic impact of delivering social services to some of these 500,000 people, has a pressing need for new immigration policies.

An earlier U.S.-Canada-Mexico task force made some bold recommendations, according to news reports, including a North American border pass based on fingerprints or eye scans to speed border crossings. The Task Force on the Future of North America also advocated an "outer security perimeter" around the three countries, to be achieved by harmonizing visa and asylum regulations, integrating "watch" lists, conducting joint law enforcement training, setting up a "marine defense command" to protect North American ports and pursuing closer military cooperation with Mexico.

A new study commission came out of the talks between Bush, Fox and Martin. The solution will not come easy, but as an immigration advocacy group spokesman said, "We need to take the current disorganized, deadly and chaotic immigration system and replace it with a system that regulates immigration in a safe, orderly and legal manner."

That suggestion makes good sense.

"We need to take the current disorganized, deadly and chaotic immigration system and replace it with a system that regulates immigration in a safe, orderly and legal manner."

Great idea.
Now explain HOW you are going to do it and WHO is going to pay for the
services these immigrants will use.

That suggestion makes good sense.

I don't agree. Mexico has a booming baby production process. That is their business as long as it doesn't tread on me. But it IS treading on us, and it is part of the push we have from the illegal aliens.

While that is happening, Mexico is producing more babies, and if we all understand this, it becomes critical: the Church apposes birth control beyond the rythem method. The Unites States, in some sort of mutual agreement could easily wind up with all those children Mexico did not want prevented with Condoms. And while that is nice.. we also need to understand the Center of the Catholic Church has shifted from Chicago to Los Angeles. Los Angeles where a huge illegal, and catholic, population exists, and is actively helping more illegal aliens arrive.

NO! We have a shortage of water, power, and roads. The infastructure is very old, and the Civil Engineering Magzine pointed out our infastructure needed some 1.5 trillion dollars worth of repair. Add more people..; entangle our processes.. committe to a future filled with promises from Mexico... NO. And remember this folks, the Presidents of Mexico ran off with the National Treasury twice.. and there was a third attempt.

NO.. it does not make good sense. And a good history of Mexico, by the way, is very hard to find. You absolutly have to find a history written before 1979, and it is best if it is written in Spain. Mexico is filled with sins and sorrows. I do NOT want to be entangled with Mexico.

The Task Force on the Future of North America also advocated an "outer security perimeter" around the three countries, to be achieved by harmonizing visa and asylum regulations, integrating "watch" lists, conducting joint law enforcement training, setting up a "marine defense command" to protect North American ports and pursuing closer military cooperation with Mexico.
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Most recently, the elite Mexican Anti narcotics squad was purchased.. lock, stock and barrel. Mexico has not settled serous corruption problems and when we get mixed up with those people, I do not believe ANY good will come of it.