The 10 Steps America Should Take on Immigration Reform

[Joshua Farrell]

So, I thought that this would be a good debate topic, for the immigration debate.

At the Daily Signal, a sister site to the Heritage Foundation, David Inserra offers 10 ideas on what we could do for immigration reform. One of them being that the president should actually start enforcing the actual law, instead of trying to do a executive action, that goes against the laws he is supposed to be upholding.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/11/29/10-st ... on-reform/

What do you think of the article? Any good ideas from it? Any bad ideas?

 

[R44]

Bring back the dictation test.

Although it was horribly racist, and was used in Australia during the 'White Australia Policy", it had it's good points.

 

[Cosmic]

The list in the article seemed to be a pretty straightforward way of implementing a strict immigration system. I'm not sure that the article is really about whether or not we as a country should increase or decrease illegal immigration, but it instead seems to outline how the country could go about preventing illegal immigration.

Anyway, I think that if the government really wanted to stop illegal immigration then they could do it (not just Obama, but Bush too). Our technology is really good at detecting people in vast, open spaces, and also, as the article points out, the government could very easily crack down on businesses. However, I'm not sure that the government has that as a goal.

They can't legalize illegal immigration, though, because that would be unpopular. It's the kind of issue where you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. If you announce that there's going to be a crackdown on illegal immigration there will be an outcry. If you announce, as Obama did, that there's going to be major leniencies on immigration, then there is a major outcry.

As to whether Obama's executive orders are legal, I'm not a lawyer so I don't know. However, prosecutorial discretion is built in to our system at a fundamental level. Prosecutors in cities all over the country decide not to prosecute crimes for various reasons, and the same applies to whomever prosecutes immigration cases. Several states still outlaw sodomy, but no one enforces those laws. In the case of those laws, it's another case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. Politicians don't want to make people angry, so they take the path of least resistance, which is to stop enforcing the law. It's pragmatic, yes, but it's how things are often done.