Difference Between Legal & Illegal Immigration

Doug Bandow has a great article at The American Spectator on the benefits legal immigrants bring to our shores, as opposed to the costs imposed to our society by the illegal crowd, and the issues this raises regarding our offical immigration policy. First the benefits:

"Researchers at Duke, Harvard, and New York University have been studying the impact of immigration on economic competitiveness. They discovered that between 1995 and 2005 immigrants founded one in four engineering and technology firms, which in 2006 generated $52 billion in revenues and employed 450,000 people. The largest number of entrepreneurial immigrants came from India; United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, and Japan followed as sources of productive immigrants.

The latest study by the same researchers found that immigrants "were named as inventors or co-inventors in 25.6 percent of international patent applications filed from the United States in 2006. This represents an increase from 7.6 percent in 1998." The rate of increase has been rising, growing fastest since 2004."

Next, the issue with the official policy's limitations.

"Yet for all of these benefits, the U.S., a nation of more than 300 million people, awards only 120,000 employment-based visas for permanent residence every year. Moreover, fewer than 10,000 are available for any one country, even those, such as India and the United Kingdom, which provide so many talented entrepreneurs. Yet there are about 560,000 principals and 620,000 family members, for almost 1.2 million overall, in employment-based categories awaiting visas."

Overall, the wait time to get a visa application approved is approximately 4 1/2 years. The primary issue is the low number of visas, which needs to be increased (how much is certainly debatable). The second is the horrible wait times in processing the applications, and the solution might be to turn it over to a private firm (IMO). Certainly something has to be doen when up to 1/3 of those waiting are considering dropping out of the process entirely and returning home.

Long story short, we have to make distinctions on who is allowed to both enter the country and who is to remain, and the better we can control this entire process, the btter off we will be.

A Different View on Immigration

via The Washington Post, Senator Arlen Specter, (R-PA) has a new idea on the immigration debate I haven't seen yet. His proposal is to give all 12 million illegals temporary green cards while increasing border enforcement and employer sanctions.

While it is a new approach, I'm not sure where I stand on this - more or less, it again rewards people (by giving them legal status) for flouting our laws. However, it is not citizenship, nor does it spell out a path to citizenship. The Senator's proposal also appears to hint at some type of National ID card as well, not sure how that will go over either. However, I'm willing to take a look at the proposal in more detail if and when those details become available and our Congress critters revisit the issue.

Unexpected Evidence in the Capability of Fencing

Meant to post this a while back before the holiday and never got to posting it.

via National Geographic, of all places. Arizona's Organ Pipe National Monument is seeing unprecedented foot traffic by illegal immigrants and drug smugglers - after a fence was built preventing vehicular traffic through the park. Seems more fencing might be in order, don't you think?

"Fred Patton, chief ranger at the monument, said that since the 30-mile (48-kilometer) barrier was completed in July 2006, it has been almost 100-percent effective in keeping out illegal vehicles. The remote monument had been a popular crossing point for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers since 2001, Patton said. Upwards of a thousand people a day were crossing through the park, as vehicles loaded with people and drugs barreled through the desert.
"We were getting multiple vehicles that were bringing in either narcotics or illegal entrants," Patton said."

Of course, it can also be pointed out that the traffic near San Diego has dropped considerably since the fencing there was put up at the border as well. Thank you, Congressman Duncan Hunter (my preferred VP candidate for Fred!). Now you could argue that the fence just shifts the traffic elsewhere, which is true to some extent, but if you built a fence along the entire border, it would have to substantially inhibit traffic travelling north. Some people would still be so desperate they would still try, of course, but it would certainly inhibit many of those traveling north from even trying, and perhaps pressure the government of our southern neighbor to get its own house in order economically, so that its very productive and hard working citizens it now exports to our nation could succeed economically at home, where they belong.

Immigration Issue May Solve Itself

Interesting article @ TCS Daily on the demographics south of the border - the fertility rate of Latin America is dropping through the basement, leading one to believe that the immigration problems on our southern border may wind up solving itself over the next decade or two. Of course, that still doesn't substantially address the problems we are experiencing today.


"There has been a stunning decline in the fertility rate in Mexico, which means that, in a few years there will not be many teenagers in Mexico looking for work in the United States or anywhere else. If this trend in the fertility rate continues, Mexico will resemble Japan and Italy - rapidly aging populations with too few young workers to support the economy. According to the World Bank's 2007 Annual Development Indicators, in 1990 Mexico had a fertility rate of 3.3 children per female, but by 2005, that number had fallen by 36 percent to 2.1, which is the Zero Population Growth rate. That is an enormous decline in the number of Mexican infants per female."

In effect, the addition of women to the work force in Latin America is having the same effect on these nation's demographic makeup that the US and Europe have experienced. As female work participation grows, and educational and job opportunities expand, these women have fewer children than gthe previous generation. Very interesting.

Reforming Immigration

Now that the "comprehensive" bill on immigration has been sunk, perhaps the infinite wisdom of our legislative overlords could perchance address little issues like this one. Here is a family who has been here eighteen years, tried to follow the rules and yet faces deportation because of a bureaucratic snafu from a period when the government's program allowing these people entry was all of 45 days old. The really bad part is that the father's family worked for the US government in Laos.

As the family's lawyer puts it:

"Peltz said the fact the Guy Vang’s family worked for the U.S. government for many years should come into the play, as well as the fact that the rest of his entire family is legally here — either with refugee status, valid green cards or other documents. "Their case took 14 years to come to a decision. During this time, they had work authorization, they were allowed to stay here, they were allowed to work and they built this life here … they had two other children who grew up just in the United States," Peltz said. "The government messed up in this case but there’s no recourse when the government messes up. And that’s the biggest issue in this case — there’s been a 14-year delay and they built a life." It would have been one thing if the government decided the Vangs were illegal and deported them even a few years after arriving in the United States. But throughout the whole legal ordeal since then, Peltz said, there has been no good explanation of why it took so long for their asylum application to be processed."

Again, as I've stated before, the status of people fleeing political repression have to be treated in a far different manner than those fleeing economic circumstances, particularly in cases like this one.

Immigration Bill Fails Cloture

We killed it, the Immigration fiasco is apparently been staked through the heart - for the second time. Thanks to Senator Nelson for having the common sense to vote against cloture.

"On the cloture vote — the test to end debate and move to passage — the Senate voted 46-53 not to carry the motion. Sixty votes were needed for forward progress. The tally is a turnaround of 18 votes from two days earlier. Six Democrats and 12 Republicans changed their votes to no from a Tuesday vote that allowed the Senate to take up amendments on the bill."

Immigration Battle, My Thoughts

Well, Senator Nelson disappointed me (I won't mention the other disappointing Senator from NE) and voted for cloture yesterday, but there is still a chance that the bill will fail with another cloture vote scheduled Thursday after the various amendments have been debated.

Meanwhile, Heritage's Robert Rector, who has been one of the point people arguing against the bill, answer his critics (in the link above) from the administration. Once again, the pro-amnesty crowd confuses (or attempts to confuse) the issue by grouping all immigrants together, rather than properly separating them into the illegal, little educated and low wage group and the legal, highly educated and high earning group (like those coming into the country on H1-B visas).

AGAIN, I am personally all for the latter group - the ones that follow the the rules, wait their turn, and contribute so mightily to our society. We need more doctors, engineers, software developers, etc. And I would personally like to allow more of that kind of immigrant into our nation, even to the point of (possibly) doubling the legal limit. I also think we have to take into account where they are coming from - are they fleeing a despotic dictator, or are their old societies unwelcoming or violent toward minority ethnic groups? If the answer is yes, then we should seriously consider making a place for them in our own society. People in such dire straits, where they are at risk in their own nations, should merit some additional consideration, in my view. (Think nations like Cuba, China, Venezeula, Zimbabwe, or any individual Christian or Jew living in a predominantly Muslim nation).

But we would have to drastically curtail the other type of immigrant, the ones that are a net drain on our society and resources, before I'd agree to that. I understand they are coming here for opportunities that do not exist in their home countries. That is the unifying thread of all immigrants, all the way back to the beginnings of this country and even before into pre-history. But up until the last 30 to 40 years, immigrants generally followed the prevailing rules that the US government established for the entry of new Americans. We have to control our own borders before we can face the questions of which people merit admittance to our society. Right now, we don't have any control over who arrives, where they are from, and what their behavior is when they arrive here. We also have no clue if they have the skills we need for the advancement of our economy and society.

I do not now, nor will I ever, support the notion that we should just accept the fact that all these people that are here illegally and reward their behavior with immediate citizenship. I can accept the fact that there should be a path to citizenship for such persons, but it should be long, difficult, and expensive, just as it is for the legal immigrants today. They have to prove themsleves worthy, as it were, for the price of cheating their way to admission. And those here illegally should start at the back of the line, not the front. If we are going to address such issues in legislation today, then we also need to make it easier to gain citizenship for the people that are following the rules, and set the bar very, very high for those that decided to come here not in accordance with US laws and regulations.

From what I have seen out of the pending legislation, it does not meet my criteria, nor does it come anywhere even close to it.

Immigration Bill

Senator Nelson is apparently on the fence in voting for cloture on the Senate Immigration/Amnesty bill, but I am slightly encouraged by the tone of his Senate website on the matter. We'll see if how he follows through with his vote tomorrow. I've both emailed and signed an online petition on the matter asking for a vote against cloture. I may call his office as well.

"Nelson believes that too many reform proposals will not work because they attempt to tackle too many issues at once. As any Husker football fan will tell you, even the best Blackshirt can’t tackle four running backs at the same time. Ben Nelson’s smarter, more effective, play is to take aim at one problem at a time and start where the problem starts—at the border.
Ben Nelson knows from visiting with Nebraskans how important the issue of illegal immigration is to them, and the national attention on this issue is proof that Nebraska is not alone.
Nelson authored bipartisan Border Security First bills in the 109 th Congress that would, among other things, double the number of border agents over five years and provide for the construction and installation of effective border security measures from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico."

Immigration Issues

Russian born Candian citizen Ilya Shapiro writes at TCS Daily of the trials and tribulations of people wanting H1-B visas to the US. An H1-B visa allows a foreign citizen working in particular high skilled professional occupations to work for a US employer for a period of three years, renewable once.

"The problem is that there aren't enough of these visas: Congress limits the number of H-1Bs that can be granted each year, and that magic number has been set at 65,000 for four years now. Before that, and in response to the technology boom of the late '90s, Congress temporarily raised the H-1B cap to 195,000. But that expansion expired in 2004, and the cap has been reached earlier and earlier each year since.

In 2005, that meant August. Last year, it was May 26. This year, the cap was reached on... April 2 -- the very first day you could file. Yes, by that Monday afternoon, USCIS had received over 150,000 H-1B applications. Officials quickly announced that it would randomly select 65,000 petitions from all those it had received April 2 and April 3."

So, Congress limits the number of high skilled workers with jobs waiting for them, but won't build a fence or crack down on employers who hire unskilled foreigners here illegally. Worse yet, the people that DO get H1-B's have to leave the US after six years no matter what - unless they happen to marry an American citizen. Being Candian, Shapiro does get one break - due to NAFTA, the number of H1-Bs available to Canadians is uncapped, but last only one year. None of the Immigration Reform bills now before Congress touch upon this issue whatsoever.

Brilliant, isn't it? As Shapiro says, it's like some sort of bad April Fool's Day joke - one that we cna't stop repeating.