Immigration Reform is one of today’s hot topics. Often lost in this are some of the more interesting questions, such as how far does our amnesty extend? We also might wonder how far this goes into simply having open borders, and why even bother with an immigration policy? And once those Undocumented Americans arrive, how do we handle removing and keeping out the ones who we don’t want in the country? I’m not even going to try answering these questions, as I don’t have anything resembling an answer. I do have one idea that is a cornerstone around most conservative ideas on the subject, and that’s securing the border first. One of the issues we’ve seen is in funding the effort.
To offer a relatively simplistic solution to part of the issue of securing the border, there are parts along the border where the terrain is too rough to build an actual fence. This is where a “virtual fence” was planned to be built, as a combination of border patrols assisted by radar stations. To make a long story short, a huge obstacle to this approach is having radar equipment tuned in sensitive enough to pick up someone trying to cross the border while not sending an alert for every piece of sagebrush that blows through. Why not start using our military to assist with this? With all of the talk of drones in the news and scaling back overseas why not use our own military in the historically traditional sense of using it to defend its own nation’s borders? And of course, we can continue building the wall, at least in parts where it’s not just getting hopped over regularly by Undocumented Democrats.
So far none of this probably sounds all that innovative, but what I haven’t addressed yet is how we pay for this. At some point the financial house of cards our Federal Government is running will come down, and when that happens we’re going to experience some painful cuts all around. And no, I don’t mean fake cuts like the silliness around the Sequester, or “austere” reductions to the rate of growth of government spending, but real cuts. So it’s important that for us to secure the border we find a way to make it self funding, and I’ve found it.
Estimates have around $22 billion in remittances going from the US to Mexico each year, so why not use a portion of those remittances being sent back to Mexico to protect the security and job opportunities of those who are living here? We could call it a user fee for our border’s biggest violator, or closing economic loopholes to capital outflows, or whatever dishonest term leftists are using this week when they’re trying to not say that they’re raising taxes. Taking a reasonable 5% cut would fund $1 billion for securing our border, and if this extra fee reduces the amount of remittances going abroad this will have the added fringe benefits of incentivizing Mexico to clean up it’s own act and make it a better place to live while keeping more of the money earned in the US here to be spent in the US economy – win-win.
For that matter, since there are few individuals who oppose legal immigration, why not raise the remittance tax to 10% and use the additional $1B to fund our own immigration process? This combination will make illegal entry more difficult while making the legal process easier and a more desirable option. Does all of this sound crazy? Maybe, but is it really any less crazy than an effort to put more middle class Americans on government assistance by raising taxes on the poor?
Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
A Modest Proposal was deep satire wherein Jonathan Swift suggested England’s food shortage could be solved by young orphans cooked, thus slowing the population growth while, at the same time feeding the poor.
Your modest proposal lacks humor.
And Big Sis has already thrown a monkey wrench in:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/secretary-napolitano-scraps-border-security-as-pre-condition-for-amnesty-200115771.html
Obama has no intention of securing the border. This is part of his agenda of enacting his father’s revenge on America.
Hundreds of thousands of people are unemployed, thousands more are upside down on the mortgage, thousands more are in foreclosure. People are suffering because gas, groceries and other products have gone through the roof. All of this is tied to the economy. So why in the hell is immigration in the top block? Frankly I don’t give a rats ass about immigration (just send them back to their homeland), I do care very much about the economy. IMHO the ILLEGAL (which means against the law) problems has exacerbated the issues with the economy. Case in point. California spent over 2 BILLION dollars last year on illegals just for medical related.
Make the illegals into taxpayers. Immigrants are VITAL to the economy of CA.
@john: For the second month in a row California has earned the right to be called the state with nation’s highest unemployment rate. Mississippi and Nevada both tied California for the honor at 9.6 percent. – March 29, 2013.
Last month, California and Rhode Island shared the nation’s highest unemployment rate at 9.8 percent, but Rhode Island dropped its rate an impressive .4 points, all the way down to 9.4 percent.
California is also home to the nation’s highest poverty rate, the nation’s most welfare recipients.
So, CA doesn’t need another several million illegals added to the non-taxpayer mix.
And, under a certain legal income amount, these people pay no income taxes.
And, in CA, a huge amount of income is under-the-table, off-the-books, untaxed.
So, these illegals can afford a better lifestyle than their taxpaying (suckers!) neighbors in CA.
I have an alternate – J Swift like proposal.. that will not go over well with either the illegal immigrants from mexico at least and probably a lot of US citizens.
However, I would suggest that all those clamoring for proper border control to ask those against it… the J Swift suggestion
Annex Mexico
1 – If we do this, then all mexican citizens will become automatically US Citizens. So the Mexicans who are living in the US now can stay here .. as legal citizens … because they are
2 – Mexico currently deals harshly with illegal (south of their border) as they LOCK them up and leave them there when found.. According to 3rd and FoF remarks.. do not Mexican law. but heard the stories
3 — Is not hte plan of LA RAZA to re-unite the southern states / territories taken in 1836 back … well this sort of does it
I await the comments
@John Hardesty: Don’t expect a lot of comments, as I think the Boston story has pushed this to the wayside.
While your idea could never happen it’s a fun proposal!
Brother Bob,
thanks for the comments. I too am more concerned about Boston
First, I thank all those who assisted the victims – the bombing victims
Second, I thank law enforcement for doing their job
third, I thank the impromptu celebration by the residents in Watertown as the police came back with – e.d. –
Finally, I am also quite saddened… mainly because we all are seeing the cry babying, gnashing and selling the two brothers as victims … too…. start by the Useful idiots and their idiot minions