Dear Friends,
It seems to me, one possible solution to the illegal immigration problem Obama’s policies have visited on us, would be to import one legal immigrant who is on the waiting list, for every illegal that is deported, and if the deported person returns illegally it would be a year in prison, then permanent deportation. All problems in human society exist because of negative incentives. Replace those negative incentives with positive incentives and many of the most intractable problems can be turned from a bad into a good. Change the incentive and you change the behavior. Our standard of living, our children’s welfare and even our very republic are in jeopardy if we don’t do something about illegal immigration.
Everyone agrees legal immigration is one of the factors that has made America great. Just think of how much Tesla brought to the US when he immigrated. Immigrants who take the time to come here legally, bring new ideas, new ways of thinking, they have persistence and have a strong work ethic. The US benefits greatly by legal immigration, illegal immigration however, brings with it many negative consequences. Some of these negative consequences are, an underclass, lowered wages, diminished economic outcomes for everyone, all forms of abuse, human suffering at every stage of the process, etc…
All policies, especially ones that directly impact human lives, must be fair. As I have said before Justice is the golden rule and the golden rule is fairness. The moment a person is treated differently by governmental edict than another – there has been an injustice done. That is self evident. So when someone files the paperwork, jumps through all the hoops and gets in line to enter the US, and another jumps the fence and is caught but allowed to remain, an injustice has been done to the person who is going the legal route. That injustice is magnified if the person who jumped the fence gets amnesty, the person waiting in line’s life is on hold, as they grow old, meanwhile guy who jumped ahead gets rewarded with amnesty.
Our market system, such as it is, requires honest people to function efficiently, therefore we should encourage honest people to come here. If no one could be trusted there could be no commerce. How could you trust a check if it was almost certainly bad? How could you work for someone if it was most likely you wouldn’t get paid? The economy requires, as a prerequisite, a basically honest people. Those who try to enter the US by the legal route, their very actions prove, they are more honest than someone who jumps the fence, who by their actions show, that law and morality are lower on their list of priorities than naked chaotic self interest.
The problem with illegal immigration is that it creates an underclass. The entire American experiment as well as the Western world view is based on all human beings being created equal, in the eyes of God and in the eyes of government. An underclass, especially a tacitly accepted underclass, is the antithesis of that moral foundation. An underclass in a society create a whole host of negative incentives to abuse those in the underclass. Why pay the going wage when you can get what amounts to a slave… to mow your lawn, tend your baby or vacuum your floors? The only ones who benefit by an underclass are those who plan on exploiting them.
Incentives always work, whenever human beings are the actors, incentives are the answers, here is how the incentives of replacing illegal immigrants with legal ones will function. When someone is caught in the US for any reason illegally, they would be immediately deported and someone who is on the waiting list would be given a green card. If someone who has been deported is found in the US again they would go to jail for a year and then be deported without being replaced. If anyone is caught a third time they would go on a permanent banishment list. They wouldn’t even be allowed to come here legally. Lastly, the teeth of Reagan’s amnesty program would be replaced, businesses that are caught hiring illegal aliens would face jail and huge fines. As the list of people waiting to come here legally gets shorter, and the list of those sent home gets longer, the incentives will become clear. People are smart and will take the path of least resistance.
The US needs immigrants, immigration policy must be fair, it needs to encourage honest people to come here, and one of the problems with illegal immigration is that it creates an underclass with all the negative effects on human beings of an underclass. Today, with Obama waiving his magic dictator’s pen, claiming he will give anyone who jumps the fence a free pass, the US has become a giant magnet to millions of iron filings. It has become foolish to try to follow the law to come here legally, all one needs do is get here by whatever means and Obama will grant you amnesty, and so, the US is being flooded by illegal immigrants. The elite that encourage illegal immigration must know the negative consequences to it, and therefore, they must also be accepting of those consequences. Imagine, destroying a nation’s economy, impoverishing working people by driving down their wages, creating an underclass to be exploited and abused, encouraging people to risk their lives and the lives of their children, to be that underclass… all so some multimillionaire new class progressive elite, can get their lawn mowed for a few dollars less.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
