Posted by
Nerdus Maximus on Sunday, July 09, 2006 10:45:37 PM
One of the most
important rules you can learn in life is to clean up your own
messes. This is a major topic in Kindergarten, where you also
learn that the rule also applies to group messes. If you are part
of the group, you help clean up the mess even if you didn't contribute
greatly to the making of the mess.
We have government "of, by
and for the people". The "by" part means that when the government
makes a mess the people have made a mess. A mess has certainly
been made of immigration.
Also like in Kindergarten, it
doesn't take long for people to figure out that a rule that isn't
enforced isn't really a rule at all. Lax enforcement has led to
huge numbers of illegal immigrants who came into a country that just
winked and went about its business. By doing so the government,
and by extension we the people, sent the message that it was really OK
to come in without the proper papers.
So now we have a mess, but
what do we do about it? An obvious first step is to start
enforcing the rules go forward. Yet
it seems unfair to now punish people who came in when we were sending
signal that we weren't serious about our immigration laws as we should
have if we had been serious about immigration laws all along. So
what is fair?
You get more of what you reward, so be clear what
you want and reward it. I would give first preference to people
who want to become law abiding U.S. citizens. That means staying
here and staying out of trouble. Those who come forward and
register the intention to become a citizen would begin a waiting
period. Leave the country for more than a month, just stay
out. Convicted of a serious crime or a series of lesser crimes
and back to Mexico you go. Fail to become a citizen within a set
period of time and you get to go where you ARE a citizen.
Those
who don't want to become citizens would have two options.
Register now and go back to Mexico to get in the front of the line for
a long term guest worker slot. Choosing to register and stay here gives
you a short term stay. Don't register and get caught - gone
forever. Commit a crime while here - gone forever.
We the
people, through our government, have made a mess. It is our
responsibility to find a reasonable way to clean it up. The next
thing is to address the gross unfairness to those who want to come to
this country but don't happen to live within walking distance.