Opposing points of view: Offer illegal immigrants an earned path to citizenship through comprehensive immigration law reform
Aug 11, 2011
BY RYAN BATES

DETROIT FREE PRESS GUEST WRITER

Jose Vargas has lived in the U.S. for 24 years. He built his own landscaping business and employs several people working to clean up yards in many of Detroit's nicer neighborhoods.

He has two daughters, both U.S. citizens. The oldest is about to turn 21. Jose pays his taxes and his mortgage. He volunteers with his block club and his church.

Jose is exactly the kind of neighbor we wish we all had. Hardworking and community-minded, he is raising a family with his eyes on the American Dream.

Jose is also due to be deported in about a month.

When that happens, we all will lose a taxpayer, community leader and entrepreneur. His daughters will lose a father.

Why didn't Jose just "get in line" and emigrate the right way back in Mexico?

Quite simply, there is no line for Jose and millions like him. If you have hundreds of thousands of dollars or a skill like computer programming, there might be a line for you. If you have family already here with residency or citizenship, the line can be up to 13 years long. For working people like Jose, who built their lives by the sweat of their brows, there is no legal immigration process.

Why didn't Jose "get his papers fixed" during those 24 years? Surely there is a form he could have filled out?

For the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in the U.S., the sad reality is that there is simply no way to get their papers fixed. They're stuck.

We all understand that our immigration system is broken. Some politicians, with their eyes only on the next election, will tell you that we can simply "enforce the law" and be done with the matter. These hucksters are either lying to themselves or to you.

We simply cannot deport 11 million people. It is impossible.

To even try to deport 11 million people would leave our economy in tatters -- fruit would rot in the fields, meat would go rancid in the slaughterhouses, and all the vital, often invisible, work that immigrants do every day in our economy would simply go undone. And how many laid-off autoworkers do you know jumping at the chance to become migrant farm workers?

The 11 million should instead be required to register with the government, pay a fine and any back taxes, agree to learn English if necessary, and pass a background check. In exchange, they should be allowed to continue raising their families in the U.S. and get on an earned path to citizenship.

Then we need to fix our visa system. We need to create a way for needed workers to enter the country with proper documents and appropriate security checks, and continue our history as a nation of immigrants.

We cannot fix this with a wall in the desert. We cannot fix this with white-hot rhetoric and laws that turn every Latino into a suspected criminal. We can only fix this with comprehensive immigration reform.

Ryan Bates is director of the Alliance for Immigrants Rights & Reform-Michigan.

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