Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Immigration Reform

This is an interesting debate for me. My parents can here as immigrants from Panama -- legal immigrants. They met and got married here. I was born here. They went to college here. They became citizens and they've never been on welfare. They pay taxes. In fact, my father worked as an IRS agent for over 30 years.

But enough about me.

The focus of the current immigration debate is whether to deport the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, or allow them to stay here as "guest workers" for the next six years after which they must leave the country, then apply to come back in.

Neither of these proposals seem doable to me.

How much manpower will it take to find, confine and deport the 11 million illegal immigrants? And how much will it cost? What happens to their children who were born here? Do you potentially add millions of children to the foster care system?

As for the guest worker idea, if it was me, why would I voluntarily leave here after six years? And isn't this amnesty a slap in the face to everyone who followed the rules and applied to come here legally?

1 comment:

Michelle Pessoa said...

My aunts and uncles, as well as some of my cousins, got to this country the way you describe. Family members established themselves here and then they sent in the paperwork to legally sponsor their siblings one at a time. It took decades, but it got done.

I don't see anything wrong with that. That's better than using false ID and living in fear of the police.