Who Knew All It Takes is Money

This new immigration policy the administration has come up with strikes me as very odd. In a nutshell it says all they have to do is go back to their native country, apply for legal status, pay a $5000.00 fine and stay out of trouble.

If all it takes is money I wonder how much it would cost for homosexuals to become real citizens with the same rights as everyone else? But I digress.

I’ve done a bit of thinking about this immigration issue and here is what I came up with. We have a lot of illegal immigrants in our country for one reason only – we were ineffective at monitoring our borders, ports, and airports. We basically dropped the ball when it comes to protecting our borders and a lot of people are here now. Do we really believe that these people will now just go back home and pay a fine and come back? Do we realize how much $5000.00 is to the poor immigrants that are here? According to President Bush, they are here doing the jobs Americans don’t want when in fact they are here doing the jobs we won’t do at those low wages. And they are supporting their entire families here and at home with those low wages. $5000.00 is a lot of money for this group of people. Who would volunteer to go through such a hassle when they are already here, already working, and already hard to track down? And I think requiring a fee like that will only promote the business of smuggling. It won’t work.

I hate to say it but I think the only solution we really have is amnesty for those already here. Then we need to figure out a way to give those already here a legal way to work and a way to tax them accordingly. We also need to do a MUCH better job of protecting our borders, ports, and airports. If we continue to fail in that mission, we will always have this problem. Our schools, hospitals, police force, and all social programs will be taxed to the limit by those that don’t pay taxes. By addressing the cause of the problem (the borders) and not the symptom (the illegal immigrants already here), we not only get closer to solving our immigration crises but also our terrorist crisis. Monitoring our borders is expensive (not as expensive as war) – but well worth the cost.