BY JIM N. TAYLOR
We finally know what Ruben Navarrette recommends as immigration policy?
Let’s see how well he would protect the USA (or not):
• Agreed: we should keep illegal families together so that we can deport them together; it makes it cheaper in the long run, especially if we make deportation mandatory and immediate if/when children arrive;
• Agreed: to making legal immigration contingent on employability, regardless of whether you call it labor, skill or educational levels; but this would automatically give skilled and educated a “leg up,” which Ruben says he’s against? Not clearly rational;
• Agreed: limit family reunification policy to spouse and children of U.S. citizens; but why allow parents and siblings, who may be either idiots or disabled, to immigrate, only to immediately become dependent upon taxpayers?
If a citizen wants to contribute to a dependent relative, he has my permission as long as my money is not involved. If he makes the request for immigration, let him be responsible; not me;
• Increasing legal immigration from 1 million to 3 million on a permanent basis is ill advised since it does not consider our future need for labor in light of the rise of artificial intelligence, the demise of our Social Security subsidies (the need for the elderly to remain employed longer).
• I have no idea as to why Ruben is concerned about skin color in regard to immigration eligibility of asylum seekers. There is no evidence that darker skin color makes one more employable, and employability is most important;
• Ruben does not offer rationale for his preference for a virtual wall of technology over a physical wall; why not both?
• He does not explain why we should allow some of the undocumented to remain in the U.S. or the criteria he would use to determine which ones could stay. Why should any illegals at all be allowed?
• Agreed: legal status without citizenship should be granted to long term invaders (10 years minimum presence) with a clear behavior record; but absolutely no subsidy/assistance should be available to these permanent noncitizens below the age of 70;
• Agreed: permanent legal status for the DACA kids (700,000?), but without possibility of taxpayer subsidy and no citizenship path until after acceptable education or military service completion (one year of community service is not enough);
• The use of National Guard or military personnel to assist Border Patrol or ICE should always be an option according to the threat level at the border and available personnel as determined between the departments or agencies involved and the President;
• Agreed: no govt. benefits, welfare or subsidy for those noncitizen immigrants either legally or illegally present;
• Agreed: the present process for citizenship for those legally present is acceptable, is not automatic, requires some effort, learning a minimum of English should be required;
• Those illegally present cannot be guaranteed Constitutional rights as are citizens; and quotas that require our agents to deport the numbers of those exceeding quotas are not unlawful as Ruben claims.
The Constitution does not guarantee its protections for the entire world.
• The voluntary assistance of local law enforcement in the identification, apprehension and detention of those illegally present must be encouraged by any and all means, even if incentives and/or disincentives are employed. It is stupid to ignore officers who probably live closer to the problem than the BP or ICE;
• The creation of a universal ID card for all citizens is already possible with the Social Security ID; all that is required is the same technology used by the credit card companies, who can teach the government how it is done.
If more digits are needed, that can be adjusted by the efforts of the SS Administration;
• Agreed: no employer should be exempt from the E-Verify requirement, including the household employer;
• Agreed: Eliminate the word “knowingly” from prohibition of employing illegal immigrants;
• Agreed: create sufficient punishment for employing illegals that it results in the elimination of any work for them;
• We have enough incentives already for US companies to move to Mexico without offering them more; that was what NAFTA was all about, but it didn’t work well enough;
• Agreed: better parenting to encourage a work ethic in our children was taken away from us by labor union lobbying for our present labor laws and by the lobbying of the ACLU which view child labor as an ill instead of the boon it always was.
Jim Taylor is a Harlingen resident who regularly writes and is published in the Valley Morning Star.
