Immigrants must go through legal process
By John Rodgers
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The guest editorial titled “Immigration reform, take 2” in the Tuesday, March 6, edition of the Register piqued my interest.

Let me start by stating that I am sure that any thinking individual would agree that it is an obvious fact that immigrants are a most important part of the history, culture and fabric that make up our nation today. That is not my issue with the situation that we now face. I am writing about illegal immigration. I am of the strong opinion that immigrants to our country should go through a legal immigration process and that we have the responsibility to do our best to prevent illegal immigration. To allow illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. to “earn adjustment to legal status” is a slap in the face to those immigrants who did go through the legal immigration process. In my opinion, the only way illegal immigrants should be allowed to “earn adjustment to legal status,” or amnesty, as it really is, is to return to their home country and go through the legal immigration process. While I agree that our immigration procedures are inefficient and take too long and need to be improved, it must be understood that many who would like to immigrate to the United States will not be allowed to do so. I’ve seen polls that indicate that about half the population of Mexico would consider a move to this country if they could do so legally and safely. Millions around the world would prefer to live here as well. We simply cannot accommodate and assimilate an influx of that many people.

The argument is often made that there is no way that we can ever round up and deport all of the illegal immigrants in our country. While this is true, how does one justify that, therefore, we shouldn’t try at all? Imagine the results if this thinking were to be applied to other areas of law enforcement. Another false argument points out that our economy would collapse if all of the illegal immigrants were to be suddenly sent back to their home countries. In practice, the apprehension and deportation of illegal immigrants would be a slow, ongoing process, as opposed to a sudden mass deportation. There would certainly be some inconveniences, but the economy would have time to adjust. We would no doubt find that some products will cost more as their prices are adjusted to reflect the cost of fair wages. Maybe we should all be paying a little more for many of the items and services that we have become accustomed to acquiring for less than they are worth because our system has come to rely on a large supply of cheap, exploitable labor. Maybe we are all somewhat at fault here.

In 1986, we were promised a secure border if only we’d agree to an amnesty for a mere 3 million illegal immigrants. For more than 20 years, our government has failed to make good on the promise to enforce our nation’s borders and to punish employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. These businesses prefer to hire the undocumented over unemployed U.S. citizens because many of the illegals can be treated like indentured servant workers and paid less. Does anyone really believe it will be any different this time? Now, the same thing is about to happen all over again, except we now have more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. Very little of the rhetoric that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and simple truth: Politicians are afraid of losing a large voting block, and businesses want cheap labor.

The lessons should be obvious. I now reject any form of amnesty and insist on a combination of border enforcement, prosecution of businesses who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and apprehension and deportation of illegal immigrants. These are not quick fixes, but ongoing responsibilities. I do agree with and echo part of the last paragraph of the guest editorial; to which I refer:

“To have a hope of success, both as legislation and as policy, immigration reform must also establish much tougher domestic controls and sanctions for employers; means by which they can verify prospective workers’ status; and counterfeit-proof identity documents for workers. There must be a process by which new immigrants can come here legally in sufficient numbers to satisfy the obvious economic demand for them and according to rules that ensure that they will not become a permanent underclass.”

I believe that a certain amount of immigration is healthy and desirable, but when people are allowed to flood into our country at a rate faster than our society can assimilate them, we will eventually have two societies, each resenting the presence of the other.

(Rodgers lives in Napa.)

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