Immigration
America is a country of immigrants and their descendants. If we hear about people that are against immigration this is misleading. Nobody (well, almost nobody) is against immigration. However, many people feel that American immigration laws are wrong and they have a point. (By the way, I immigrated to the US less than 20 years ago; hope this saves me from accusation that I am against immigration.) The situation when millions of people reside in the US illegally is far from normal. (Nobody knows the exact number of illegal immigrants;some people think that it is close to 12 millions.) It is obvious that American economy needs them. However, it seems that the way we are dealing with them today and the existing suggestions to solve the immigration problem are not satisfactory.
What do we want from immigration? First of all we would like to deal with law abiding citizens and taxpayers, we do not want to get criminals and welfare recipients. Stating the same in different way, we can say that the immigration should be beneficial not only for newcomers, but first of all for natural born American citizens. The immigrants made important contributions in many areas; there is no doubt that everybody benefited from their work . However, this is not always true at the level of individual immigrant; the goal of a good immigration law is to guarantee that we get the best people that are able to integrate into American society and become useful members of it.
How could we achieve this goal? Today government officials decide the fate of prospective immigrants. I believe that the right to decide should belong to employers. If a foreigner can find a steady job in the US without taking it from American, if he pays taxes and does not commit crimes, he should be able to stay legally in the US, to become a permanent resident and later a citizen. In all other cases he has no room in the US.
It should be easy to visit the US with tourist visa : only people with criminal record should be rejected. It should not be a problem to stay legally in the US to work or study. Hence only people without legal sources of income will have an incentive to stay illegally and these people should be deported.
It should not be a problem to get a permission to stay (temporarily or permanently) for family members under the
condition that all expenses (including
health insurance) are paid by the immigrant.
The main problem is to guarantee that the competition of foreigners will not drive down the salary of American workers. I support the suggestion to tax employers of immigrants. Then it will be more profitable to employ domestic workers (if they can be found). Together with existing laws protecting American workers this tax will leave to immigrants the jobs where they will not present an unfair competition to Americans.
Would the flow of immigrants increase if they could easily come to the US looking for job? This depends on the amount of tax employers should pay. One can adjust this amount to regulate the number of foreign workers in every industry. Of course, some employers could try to compensate themselves reducing the salary of foreigners. This should be illegal. Probably, employers will expect harder work from immigrants; this is not too bad , taking into account that we would like to get hard workers as new citizens.
The tax paid by the employers should be considered as the main proof of employment, that is necessary to get an extension of legal status of an immigrant. This provision will not allow tax avoidance if the foreigner has an intention to stay in the US.
It is clear that tax incentives can regulate the flow of immigrants if the foreigners unable to find a job will leave the US. If INS discovers that the foreigner is not able to support himself by legal means, this person should be required to leave the country. He can come back in a year or earlier if he is able to find a job. However, if he disobeys he should be deported immediately without the right to return. The deportation should not require any court decision. Is this cruel? Probably. However, one should take into account that the only thing necessary to avoid this cruelty is to comply with the request to leave the country for some time. The cost of compliance is so low that every reasonable man should leave and come back instead of staying illegally. It is impossible to arrest and deport millions of immigrants that entered the country illegally, but did not commit any other crimes. Their deportation would be disastrous for American economy. The laws about immigration are violated every day, because they are not reasonable. However, reasonable laws can be enforced.
The number of people succeeding in the job search will be much less than the number of foreigners trying to find a job. The main problem of INS will be to keep track of immigrants and to guarantee that they leave if they are unable to find a job. To keep the legal status the immigrants should regularly inform INS about they job situation and INS should have a way to contact them if necessary. In other words, in exchange for almost complete exclusion from the process of granting visas INS should get a very active role when the immigrants are already in the US.
After several years of legal work in the US
an immigrant should have a right to apply for permanent residence; his tax documents should constitute the basis of application. If it is clear that he can become in the future a useful citizen of the US he should get a green card.
The above proposal is not realistic at present time when due to the fear of terrorism it is difficult to enter the US even with tourist visa. However, in any case one should start with the immigrants already residing in the US (legally or illegally). They should get a legal right to stay in the US and their employers should be taxed. (However, an illegal immigrant should never get American citizenship). In the very beginning the tax should be negligible, however, it is important to have it if INS would like to know the employment history of immigrants.
As long as the tax on employers is so small that it works only as an accounting tool the legalization of undocumented immigrants is almost equivalent to amnesty. However, an amnesty of illegal immigrants gives only a temporary solution of the problem: new people come illegally and the problem reappears. Taxing employers will permit us to control the flow of new immigrants and raising the tax we will be able to get rid of immigrants that are not useful for American economy.
Of course, not every foreigner looking for a job in the US has an intention to stay here forever. The policy concerning temporary workers should be the same , but employers should pay lower tax.
What do we want from immigration? First of all we would like to deal with law abiding citizens and taxpayers, we do not want to get criminals and welfare recipients. Stating the same in different way, we can say that the immigration should be beneficial not only for newcomers, but first of all for natural born American citizens. The immigrants made important contributions in many areas; there is no doubt that everybody benefited from their work . However, this is not always true at the level of individual immigrant; the goal of a good immigration law is to guarantee that we get the best people that are able to integrate into American society and become useful members of it.
How could we achieve this goal? Today government officials decide the fate of prospective immigrants. I believe that the right to decide should belong to employers. If a foreigner can find a steady job in the US without taking it from American, if he pays taxes and does not commit crimes, he should be able to stay legally in the US, to become a permanent resident and later a citizen. In all other cases he has no room in the US.
It should be easy to visit the US with tourist visa : only people with criminal record should be rejected. It should not be a problem to stay legally in the US to work or study. Hence only people without legal sources of income will have an incentive to stay illegally and these people should be deported.
It should not be a problem to get a permission to stay (temporarily or permanently) for family members under the
condition that all expenses (including
health insurance) are paid by the immigrant.
The main problem is to guarantee that the competition of foreigners will not drive down the salary of American workers. I support the suggestion to tax employers of immigrants. Then it will be more profitable to employ domestic workers (if they can be found). Together with existing laws protecting American workers this tax will leave to immigrants the jobs where they will not present an unfair competition to Americans.
Would the flow of immigrants increase if they could easily come to the US looking for job? This depends on the amount of tax employers should pay. One can adjust this amount to regulate the number of foreign workers in every industry. Of course, some employers could try to compensate themselves reducing the salary of foreigners. This should be illegal. Probably, employers will expect harder work from immigrants; this is not too bad , taking into account that we would like to get hard workers as new citizens.
The tax paid by the employers should be considered as the main proof of employment, that is necessary to get an extension of legal status of an immigrant. This provision will not allow tax avoidance if the foreigner has an intention to stay in the US.
It is clear that tax incentives can regulate the flow of immigrants if the foreigners unable to find a job will leave the US. If INS discovers that the foreigner is not able to support himself by legal means, this person should be required to leave the country. He can come back in a year or earlier if he is able to find a job. However, if he disobeys he should be deported immediately without the right to return. The deportation should not require any court decision. Is this cruel? Probably. However, one should take into account that the only thing necessary to avoid this cruelty is to comply with the request to leave the country for some time. The cost of compliance is so low that every reasonable man should leave and come back instead of staying illegally. It is impossible to arrest and deport millions of immigrants that entered the country illegally, but did not commit any other crimes. Their deportation would be disastrous for American economy. The laws about immigration are violated every day, because they are not reasonable. However, reasonable laws can be enforced.
The number of people succeeding in the job search will be much less than the number of foreigners trying to find a job. The main problem of INS will be to keep track of immigrants and to guarantee that they leave if they are unable to find a job. To keep the legal status the immigrants should regularly inform INS about they job situation and INS should have a way to contact them if necessary. In other words, in exchange for almost complete exclusion from the process of granting visas INS should get a very active role when the immigrants are already in the US.
After several years of legal work in the US
an immigrant should have a right to apply for permanent residence; his tax documents should constitute the basis of application. If it is clear that he can become in the future a useful citizen of the US he should get a green card.
The above proposal is not realistic at present time when due to the fear of terrorism it is difficult to enter the US even with tourist visa. However, in any case one should start with the immigrants already residing in the US (legally or illegally). They should get a legal right to stay in the US and their employers should be taxed. (However, an illegal immigrant should never get American citizenship). In the very beginning the tax should be negligible, however, it is important to have it if INS would like to know the employment history of immigrants.
As long as the tax on employers is so small that it works only as an accounting tool the legalization of undocumented immigrants is almost equivalent to amnesty. However, an amnesty of illegal immigrants gives only a temporary solution of the problem: new people come illegally and the problem reappears. Taxing employers will permit us to control the flow of new immigrants and raising the tax we will be able to get rid of immigrants that are not useful for American economy.
Of course, not every foreigner looking for a job in the US has an intention to stay here forever. The policy concerning temporary workers should be the same , but employers should pay lower tax.
posted by Republican-against-Bush at 10:08 PM
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