Radical Immigration

My father's father was a naturalized US Citizen.  An immigrant.

Tom Sheppard

7/20/2018

The picture above was taken when my grandfather was working and living as a trapper in the Northwest Territory of Canada, many years before he emigrated to the US and married my grandmother.  After becoming a citizen, he built, bought, and sold several businesses.  He owned a ranch for a while, until Roosevelt's New Deal made it more profitable for him to not plant wheat or run cattle and sheep.  Then, he became a store owner and drilled water wells.

His three sons all went off to war during World War II.  They all came back alive.  The oldest boy was among the "Battered Bastards of Bastogne" who withstood the German siege of Bastogne, France during The Battle of the Bulge.

My point in telling you this snippet of family history is to let you know that I have very personal knowledge of the contributions immigrants make in this country. 

In addition to my personal knowledge of the contributions of immigrants, I lived for nearly two years in Ecuador, South America.  Ecuador is a wonderful country, and it is, in many ways, very typical of the third-world countries all over the world.  This experience, living in a third-world country, not just passing through as a tourist, gave me intimate, first-hand experience with real poverty, political turmoil of the sort that makes our elections look like family picnics, and  the hearts, minds and lives of ordinary people who live in these circumstances.

All of these experiences, as well as what I see in the history of the US shapes my views on immigration.  Because of these experiences and study, I have come up with a pretty radical view on immigration which might shock many of those who know how politically, economically, and socially conservative I am in my views.

Before I explain my radical immigration proposal, I want to share a little bit of the history of immigration law in America.  We all understand that the first Europeans in America were immigrants.  In fact there was no real immigration law in America until the US was founded.  Even then, for a long time, the only real immigration law was that the President of the US had to have been born in the US.  He or she could not be a naturalized US citizen.  Alas, my grandfather's political ambitions were capped. :-)

The Constitution authorized Congress to establish immigration and naturalization laws.  They left the open borders policy of the Founding Fathers pretty much in place.  However, it is relevant to note that from its very start, the immigration and naturalization laws of the US had a racist bent.

Those who know me well will be surprised to hear me say that something is racist.  I believe the term is not only over used, but often misapplied.  However, as your read on, you will see why an acknowledgement of racism (or ethnicism, to be more accurate) is applicable in this case.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 prescribed the manner in which "free white persons" of "good moral character," could become US citizens.  The wording expressly excluded anyone who was not of European descent.  As you will see later, this was narrowed at some points to provide the easiest path to those of Northern European descent (people like me and my family).

In 1868 the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, granting citizenship to children born of parents in the US.  In 1870 the law was broadened to include blacks, but explicitly excluded anyone of Asian descent.  One step forward, and one step backward on the ethnicism front.

In 1882, Congress got even more explicit against the Asians with The Chinese Exclusion Act (everyone of Asian descent was, of course, considered Chinese).  This Act was the true beginning of our current immigration laws.  It should resonate with many anti-immigrationists that the term "Yellow Peril" was popular at this time, as a shorthand for describing the threat to the US posed by any permanent settlement of the folks who helped build the transcontinental railroad.

The act was tightened in 1884 and renewed again in 1892.  In 1902 it was made permanent, not requiring any further debate to renew it.  It wasn't repealed until 1943.

In 1907 we clamped down on Japanese immigration, particularly into Hawaii.

In 1882 immigration law banned folks with poor mental health, physical health, or lack of education.  In 1901 they outlawed the immigration of Anarchists, after one of the assassinated President McKinley.  The Immigration Act of 1917 (note the timing with the First World War), a literacy requirement was added to the immigration law.

Things really got going on the institutionalized ethnicism in 1921 when Congress enacted the Emergency Quota Act.  Immigration quotas were set for pretty much all countries outside of Northern Europe.  The quotas were intended to limit the number of "undesirables" coming from the countries of Eastern Europe, since Asia and Africa had already been effectively prohibited.  The quotas were revised by Congress in 1952.  The UK, Germany, and Ireland were the favored countries for immigration.  Everyone else were pretty much personae non grata.

Immigration laws were used to strip Indians of their citizenship and to remove the property rights of Native Americans (not the same folks as Indians, who come from India).  Those property rights were later restored, but I think anyone can now see the pattern our immigration laws have followed for a very long time.  From the very early on they were aimed at ensuring that the majority of people in this country had Anglo-Saxon ethnic origins.  This meant that, as noted before, Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, and Germany were given preferential immigration treatment, with the countries of Sweden, Norway, and Finland not far behind.  In contrast with these favored ethnicities, everyone else was put on a quota system.

The quotas restricted all Eastern and Southern Europeans and they almost excluded African, Asian and Middle Eastern.  

Although in 1965, they ostensibly abolished the quota system based on national origins, for the first time,  they implemented quotas on immigration from countries in the Western Hemisphere, and it gave preference to immigrants with skills that were desired to fuel our economy.

For those who mistakenly believe this all came about as a result of Republican Racism, alas no less than Senator Edward Kennedy was a primary architect of this bill and is quoted as saying, in defense of this bill, "the bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."  So, the racist/ethnicist inclinations cross and crisscross the aisle of Congress.  The hands of neither major party are clean in this ugly history.

In my view, the quotas on immigration from the Western Hemisphere are a response to the "Brown Peril."  Unfortunately, the fear of having whites drowned in a flood of Hispanics is not without some foundation.  No less than the President of Mexico has endorsed the "Reconquista", the taking over of the Southwest United States by Hispanics, specifically by Mexicans.  The avowed aim of this movement is to return those lands to Mexico, or to turn those states into pro-Mexican puppets within the United States.

The term Reconquista has its origins in Spain as the Christians of Spain worked for about 780 years to retake the peninsula from the Muslim (AKA Moorish) forces which had conquered it.  Now, it is about the cultural and political retaking of the US Southwest by pro-Mexicans.  

Regardless of the aims of the Mexican Reconquista, the way to combat it is not through overt or covert discrimination in our immigration laws.  Rather, it is by doing what Americans do best, leading by example.  The reality is, if things in Mexico and other countries in the Western Hemisphere were so great, their people wouldn't be beating a path to get into this country.  We have something they want, and it isn't land, it is freedom.

In this country, if the police pick you up off the street, you get a phone call.  You don't disappear, as happens in so many other parts of this hemisphere.  In this country, you can disagree with the President, or the Government in general without fear that some pro-government para-military forces are going to drag you from your bed in the middle of the night and execute you in front of your family, or kill your family in front of you, and then kill you.

In this country, if you are born into what we here call poverty, you are not automatically condemned to a life at the bottom economic rungs of society.  Interestingly, a recent study of the top 1% in the US found that not only are they not the idle rich, they are working hard for their money, but fewer than 10% of them inherited their wealth.  That means that 9 out of 10 of the top 1% rose from lower economic positions to attain great wealth.

Immigrants to this country are four times more likely to become millionaires than are native-born citizens.  Why?  Because those immigrants have lived in societies where their status at birth capped their opportunities for advancement.  They were ambitious souls, so they came to America, where no one can utterly block the advancement of their ambitions.

By the way, don't confuse being a millionaire with being in the top 1%.  The top 1% are billionaires and hundred millionaires.  In this country, more people around you than you might imagine are millionaires.  The book, The Millionaire Next Door outs them very well. 

Photo (C) NBC News

The Road So Far

1. Our Immigration Laws Are Ethnically and Socially Discriminatory
2. Immigrants Tend to Boost Our Economy

My Radical Immigration Plan

My plan has a few simple (but not easy) points.

1. Build a digital wall
2. Abolish all quotas and immigration number limits
3. Deny immigration requests only on the basis of criminal activity or for national security reasons.
4. Make US Citizenship a Desirable Privilege
5. Give Aliens Clear Paths to US Citizenship

Let me elaborate on each point.

Build a Digital Wall

We have technology to create a digital, biometric registry of every person coming into the US.  Every person seeking entry to the US, including diplomats, should have their fingerprints, retinal scans, facial scans, DNA, and all other biometric information, along with their name and other identifiers loaded into a national registry which is accessible to all law enforcement agencies in the US.  Each entrant should receive an Alien ID Card with a unique identifying number.  Possession of this card would allow them the legal right to work at any job in the US for which they can get hired, be that picking lettuce, or being a brain surgeon.

Aliens would be required to update their addresses whenever they moved.  This could be done with a simple box and bit of info on mail forwarding materials with the USPS.

This registry should be constantly cross referenced to databases of crimes and criminal evidence.  Anyone attempting to enter who is found to have been deported due to criminal activity would be denied entry.

Abolish All Quotas and Immigration Number Limits

This is very simple, and means just what it says.  We will let as many people into our country as want to come, as long as they are not criminals or national security threats.

Deny immigration requests only on the basis of criminal activity or for national security reasons.

The Alien Registry would need to be constantly accessed by our national security forces and intelligence services to screen out known threats to national security and known criminals.  Criminals might be known either internationally, within our own borders, or to the security and police forces of their country of origin.  Anyone who triggers a flag from this check would either be automatically denied, or require a security review and a waiver before being admitted to the US and issued an Alien ID card.

Make US Citizenship a Desirable Privilege

As controversial as my earlier points are, they probably pale by comparison with this one.  The short version of this point is that Aliens should not enjoy all the rights and privileges accorded to US Citizens.  Their basic judicial rights, trial by jury, right of appeal, right against unreasonable search and seizure, etc., would be provided.  But none of the taxpayer funded financial programs available for US Citizens would be available.

• All government entitlement programs, be they at the municipal, state, or Federal level are reserved solely for US Citizens.  This would also include things like unemployment insurance and workmen's compensation.  
• Aliens would be able to attend public schools, but would not enjoy resident rates at state funded colleges or universities.  
• They would not be eligible for any voucher programs for state funded schools.  
• Their wages and earnings would be subject to Social Security and Medicaid Taxes, just like everyone else, but they would be ineligible to participate in those programs as recipients, no matter how many years they had paid in.
• Obviously, they could not vote in any municipal, state, or Federal elections and could not hold any publicly elected office.
• They could not lawfully purchase, sell, or possess firearms or weapons of any kind.
• They could enlist in the US Military, which would provide a fast-track for citizenship.

None of these restrictions on taxpayer funding for aliens would hamper private charities from extending any form of aid they desired.

Are these restrictions unfair?  Absolutely.  They are deliberately calibrated to deny to Aliens many of the most desirable rights under the US Constitution and the laws of the land.  This makes US Citizenship a desirable privilege.

Give Aliens Clear Paths to Citizenship

The short version of what follows is that Aliens need to keep their noses clean while they are here.

• Anyone desiring US Citizenship should be required to speak, read, and write English at a minimal level.  Perhaps 6th or 8th grade level of competency?
• They should be able to pass a basic test, showing that they understand their Constitutional rights and responsibilities as citizens.
• They should be required to sign an oath of allegiance to the support and defend the US Constitution, much like that which is required of those who take public office and those who enlist in the US military.
• They should have resided in the US for at least 5 years with no history of violence or drug crimes.
• Any Alien currently under a felony indictment is ineligible for Citizenship until the indictment is dropped or they are either pardoned or acquitted in a court of law.
• Aliens who enlist in the US Armed Forces can apply for Citizenship after just 2 years of residency.  All other requirements apply.
• Any Alien convicted of violent crimes, drug crimes, or any Felony will be deported immediately after their release from prison, regardless of whether that release is due to completion of their sentence or probation, and they will be ineligible for reentry into the US.

For all Aliens that are present in this country at the time of enactment of these laws, they would have two paths open to them.

1. They could immediately proceed to an Alien Registration Port and become Registered Aliens.
2. They could return to their country of origin and apply for entrance from there.

All Aliens currently residing in the country would have 12 months to get their Alien Registration ID and become a Registered Alien.  After that twelve month period, if they are apprehended and determined to be an illegal alien, they would be deported with no possibility of readmission to the US.  Their evasion of the law would be a de facto admission of ill-intent toward the US, its laws, its government, and its citizens.

Unregistered or illegal aliens who have been residing in this country prior to the enactment of these laws, and who subsequently register, would have no shorter path to citizenship than the 5 year requirement.  All other restrictions would also apply until they attain their US Citizenship.  It would be as though they had arrived in the US on the day they received their Alien Registration ID.

Conclusion

The United States of America is the greatest nation on earth.  Our Constitution is a marvel of world history and both an example and bulwark of liberty for people all over the world.  Our Constitutional Rights are worth shedding blood to defend.  They are also worth protection from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Immigrants have helped make America great.  They continually inject new energy into our country and our society.  We need to abolish the racist/ethnicist underpinnings of our current immigration laws and replace them with laws which honor the principles which have made this country great.  They need to embody the principles and sentiments expressed in the poem New Colossus, which is associated with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I have my doubts that my Radical Immigration ideas will ever get read by President Trump, or anyone in power in the US Government.  But, I will put them out there anyway, and go on the record.  Perhaps my friend Eric Trump will see this post and show it to his Dad.

Tom Sheppard and Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump

Perhaps one of you will share it and it will find its way to the eyes and minds of those who can make this happen.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

Visit Tom's Amazon.com Author's Page

(c) Copyright 2018 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

 Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

The Real Problem with DACA

Tom Sheppard

9/6/2017

Today, I saw lots of angst and anger on social media because of President Trump's announcement to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA, AKA The Dream Act).  Many folks have categorized the President's action as racist and anti-immigration.  Actually, it is neither.

The Constitutionally defined role of the Executive Branch of our government is to execute the laws of the land.  The Executive is not to make laws.  Nor is the Executive to determine if laws are just, or unjust, constitutional or unconstitutional.

The role of the Legislative Branch of our government is to make laws.  The role of the Judiciary is to determine the justice or constitutionality of the laws.

In June 2012, when President Barak Obama implemented DACA as an executive order, he was making law.  He was impatient with the Congress and their inability to provide any meaningful action on this important issue.

The issue of people who were brought here illegally as children and have known no other country since their early childhood is one which tugs at both the heartstrings and purse strings of our country.  Statistics reported in connection with this group of about 800,000 people show that they are great contributors, not drains on our country.

Is it any wonder that the overwhelming sentiment regarding these people is that we need to find a way to make them legal residents within our country, preferably with a path toward citizenship?

While I sympathize with President Obama's frustration, when he implemented DACA, he was violating the constitutional separation of powers.  It is for actions like this that he was accused of being Emperor Obama.  In a monarchy, all three branches of government converge in the person of the monarch.  When a US President starts making laws, that president is taking upon his office the powers of the other branches of government.  That violates the US Constitution and is a serious threat to the freedoms we all enjoy.

Rather that ascribing foul motives to the President's actions, which may or may not be true, let's address the facts of the matter.  When President Trump issued an executive order to countermand DACA, he was undoing the unconstitutional act of his predecessor.  In doing this, he strengthened constitutional government in our land and he put the onus for dealing with this issue squarely onto the Congress, where it belongs.

He effectively gave Congress a six month deadline to take action.  If they fail to pass a law to address this issue in the interim, that is their failure, not his.  The fact is, all they really need to do is to adopt the DACA as President Obama put it forward and make it the law of the land.  They will have made a law that many people like, and the Executive will be happy to enforce.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2017 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Learn more about Tom Sheppard at his Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Sheppard/e/B0073GEHIK

Get your own copy of Tom's blockbuster Godvernment today.

Pathway to Citizenship for Illegal Immigrants

Out POTUS-wannabes are making a lot of press about illegal immigration and a pathway to citizenship for illegals.  Most seem to want to give the illegals a pass on their law-breaking, calling it amnesty.  And they believe this is a first step toward citizenship.  In one regard, they are right, for someone to become a citizen, they must first find themselves here legally.

What all this amnesty chatter ignores is that there is a viable pathway to US Citizenship for illegal immigrants.  The "amnesty" crowd seems to ignore this existing pathway in favor of their disregard for the rule of law, in favor of the "we must be kind at all costs" soft-headed thinking.

The path is simple, but not easy.  I have outlined the steps below:

1) Return to the country of your origin.

2) While in the country of your origin, apply for a visa to the US

3) After entering the country legally, and while the visa is still in effect, apply for US Citizenship.

4) Follow the directions of the US to obtain legal citizenship

5) Obey the laws of the US and the state(s) where you live while in the US

It really isn't as complicated as all the politicians make it out to be.  However, I will admit it isn't easy.

In addition to requiring all aliens to enter the US legally, I believe there are several reforms that should be made to current US immigration laws.  Before I offer my reforms, it is useful for people to understand how we went from "send me your poor, your huddled masses" on the Statue of Liberty to the state now where a company has to prove (under the H1B visa program) that there are no qualified US applicants for a job before they can hire someone with an H1B Visa.

According to Wikipedia (not the most reliable source, but a very convenient one), naturalization (the process of becoming a citizen) was written into the Constitution.  This means it was considered a fundamental enough issue that they didn't even wait to put it into The Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the Constitution).

"The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.^"

Even though they made mention of naturalization within the actual Constitution, they did not define how it would be done.  Rather, they left that to be written up as (easily changeable) laws to be enacted (and altered) by Congress.  I am guessing, they recognized that naturalization laws might need to be more reactive to the needs of the country than is allowed by making amendments to the Constitution.

Wikipedia goes on to explain the general structure of the laws that followed.

"Pursuant to this power, Congress in 1790 passed the first naturalization law for the United States, the Naturalization Act of 1790. The law enabled those who had resided in the country for two years and had kept their current state of residence for a year to apply for citizenship. However it restricted naturalization to "free white persons" of "good moral character"."

We can see in the limitation to "free white persons" that the slavery issue was very much on the minds of our Congress in 1790 and that immigration law was used from the start to maintain certain elements of the current situation that were deemed important at the time.  Giving non-whites citizenship could tip things at the ballot box.  Anything that affected the functioning of slavery had both economic and racial impacts.  

Five years later, they made more changes.  And again three years after that.  Both times they made it harder for people to become citizens by increasing the period of probation.  Presumably, this was to prevent criminals from coming here and then becoming citizens.

"The Naturalization Act of 1795 increased the residency requirement to five years residence and added a requirement to give a three years notice of intention to apply for citizenship, and the Naturalization Act of 1798 further increased the residency requirement to 14 years and required five years notice of intent to apply for citizenship."

"The Naturalization Law of 1802 repealed the Naturalization Act of 1798.

"The act of 1802 was the last major piece of naturalization legislation during the 19th century. A number of minor revisions were introduced, but these merely altered or clarified details of evidence and certification without changing the basic nature of the admission procedure. The most important of these revisions occurred in 1855, when citizenship was automatically granted to alien wives of U.S. citizens (10 Stat. 604), and in 1870, when the naturalization process was opened to persons of African descent (16 Stat. 254)."

Once the Civil War was ended we see that the laws were amended to align with the principles underlying the Emancipation Proclamation. 

"The Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868, protects children born in the United States. The phrase: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside" was interpreted by the Supreme Court in the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark as covering everyone born in the U.S. regardless of the parents' citizenship, with the exception of the children of diplomats. See the articles jus soli (birthplace) and jus sanguinis (bloodline) for further discussion.

"In 1870, the law was broadened to allow African Americans to be naturalized. Asian immigrants were excluded from naturalization but not from living in the United States. There were also significant restrictions on some Asians at the state level; in California, for example, non-citizen Asians were not allowed to own land."

Again, we see that immigration law was used to maintain the status quo and "protect" the established against the encroachments of the newcomers.  Wikipedia goes on...

"After the immigration of 123,000 Chinese in the 1870s, who joined the 105,000 who had immigrated between 1850 and 1870, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 which targeted a single ethnic group by specifically limiting further Chinese immigration. Chinese had immigrated to the Western United States as a result of unsettled conditions in China, the availability of jobs working on railroads, and the Gold Rush that was going on at that time in California. The xenophobic "Yellow Peril" expression became popular to justify racism against Asians.

"The act excluded Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States for ten years and was the first immigration law passed by Congress. Laborers in the United States and laborers with work visas received a certificate of residency and were allowed to travel in and out of the United States. Amendments made in 1884 tightened the provisions that allowed previous immigrants to leave and return, and clarified that the law applied to ethnic Chinese regardless of their country of origin. The act was renewed in 1892 by the Geary Act for another ten years, and in 1902 with no terminal date. It was repealed in 1943, although large scale Chinese immigration did not occur until 1965."

It is interesting to note that the law was used to allow for the inflow of cheap labor, without granting them the benefits of citizenship.  I am going to make a guess here and suggest that the repeal  in 1943 had a lot to do with China being our ally against Japan in World War II.  So, the repeal was probably a political issue, rather than a labor and economic issue.

What Wikipedia skips over in this article is the implementation in 1921 of immigration quotas.  After World War I a lot of Southern European and Eastern European people came to the US to escape the recession that hit Europe.  The immigration quotas established in 1924 were designed to specifically limit, but not totally prohibit, immigration from these areas of Europe.  Jews too were singled out for discrimination.  However, Arabs and Asians were totally prohibited, because the Act disallowed migration of anyone not elegible to become a citizen.

The 1924 Act also gave the State Department its first role in immigration, establishing the Consular Visa system we use today.    

Apparently, the motives were politcal, ethnic and economic.  In addition to trying to limit cheap labor and competition for jobs, there was a lot of fear that these immigrants might support communist ("Bolshevik") movements in the US and foment a revolution such as happened in Russia.  The ethnic element was expressly acknowledged in a State Department communication which mentioned preserving the homogenity of the American character. 

I could go on, but I think this information provides enough data points to establish the fact that immigration policies in the US have always been about race, economics and politics.  That is as true today as it was in 1870.

Rather than engaging in a fruitless argument about how the motives should be changed (an attempt to change human nature), instead, let's look at how those underlying factors are going to play out in the next few years and adjust our immigration policy proactively to manage those issues.

Labor - Regardless of complaints to the contrary, most immigrants don't take jobs from citizens.  The citizens aren't applying for jobs that immigrants take.  They prefer to sit at home and collect welfare instead of cleaning houses and tending yards for rich people or cleaning offices, and trimming bushes for businesses.  Too many of our natural born citizens today think that hard work and low pay are somehow beneath their dignity.  They remind me of the idle rich and nobility of Europe, only without the money or the fancy titles.  

Realistically speaking our birth rate is declining along with that of every other industrialized nation in the world.  Our labor pool is not large enough to support the boomers who are retiring.  Expanding the labor pool is the easiest "fix" for Social Security.  Just like any other Ponzi Scheme if you get more contributors to Social Security you can keep paying benefits to the early entrants into the scam.

Economics - I already mentioned the benefits to Social Security from increasing our labor pool with legal immigrants.  Added to that is the fact that a great many immigrants to this country start small businesses.  Often, they open them to serve their own ethnic community initially, but they also expand into the community at large.  Small businesses are the largest employer in our country and provide the greatest amount of economic fuel than all the big businesses together.  

Did you know that immigrants are four times more likely to become millionaires than natural born citizens of this country?  And they do it by starting small businesses.

Race - I believe the argument for "racial purity" was lost a long time ago in the US (even before the Civil War) and it is both a lousy and immoral argument.  In my opinion there is no place in the teachings of Christ for racism.  While it is true that Christ limited his ministry to the Jews, there were covenant reasons for that.  And, after his resurrection, he commanded his Apostles to "go into all the world," thus lifting any further prohibition against allowing non-jews to enter the waters of baptism.

In this country, when Texas was liberated from Mexico and later when the Southwest was taken from Mexico, we effectively made all those hispanics in those areas into US citizens.  From that point on, we were no longer truly an "anglo-saxon" nation.  A significant portion of the US population is hispanic by descent and were never immigrants.  The whole community character of the Southwest US and California is heavily influenced by the hispanic culture that is native to that area.

Immigration, legal and illegal, has strengthened that sub-cultural identity and will continue to do so.  We can either follow the path of brutal Balkan nations and opt for ethnic cleansing and mass murder, or embrace our American ideals and assimilate this segment fully into our national tapestry and "Americanize" it.

Economic and political conditions in Mexico as well as the rest of Central and South America will not change for the better any time soon.  The corruption and drug cartel wars will continue to make life for ordinary working-class folks perilous for the forseeable future, until the rule of law can truly be established there.  Given that threat to life and liberty, many will continue to seek the greener grasses on the north of the Mexican-US border.

As our labor pools shrink due to declining birth rates, in a near decade the US will be competing to bring cheap labor to the US.  We should take appropriate advantage now of the cheap labor just over our border and instead of sending factories down there, take steps to legally allow workers to come here.

The labor unions won't like that solution.  The racial elitists won't like that solution either.  But, the reality is that we need what they have (labor), and they need what we have (stability and prosperity).

Now, to my proposed immigration law changes:

1) Eliminate the quotas for all countries that are not totalitarian, communist, sponsors of terrorism, etc. - the political stability (not to be confused with electoral stability) of our system is a legitimate reason for immigration restriction.  All other quotas are inherently racist and should be eliminated.

2) Create a biometric database (fingerprints, DNA, etc.) available to all US law enforcement agencies and require all entrants to the US to be registered in this database (even "visitors").  Their information remains in the database until they become citizens. 

3) Routinely grant work visas to all applicants unless they are on a watch list or from a restricted national origin (see #1 above).

4) Any "visitor" or immigrant who is convicted of a felony is immediately inelegible for citizenship and is deported.  Once deported for a felony, they are never again elegible for re-entry to the US under any status.

5) Any visitor or immigrant who is found here without an authorized visa is guilty of a felony (see #4 above).

6) Require applicants for citizenship to attain English competency in reading and writing and speaking and to live here for at least 5 years with no felonies (pending indictments or convictions)  and demonstrate that they have been gainfully employed for the majority of that time before they are elegible for citizenship.

7) No publicly funded welfare benefits of any kind (including college tuition subsidies) are availalble to non-citizens.

8) All working immigrants must pay all the same taxes as citizens, but they get no benefits from those taxes.  Not even unemployment.  In other words, if you aren't a citizen, you don't get any government benefits and none accrue until you actually become a citizen.

9) Declare English as the official language of the United States of America.  Some may feel this is racist, but it is actually just a practical step.  Establishing an official language for the nation will avoid future contention over the language of contracts and official documents.  It also enforces a defacto standard language for use in business and schools in order to function effectively.  This does not in any way forbid ESL efforts or foreign language classes, but it does eliminate any right to having public school courses taught in a language other than English.

So, what do you think about my immigration reform and my pathway to citizenshp?

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

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