Stray Idea
Aug. 16th, 2005 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayshaperoI posted the original of the following in a discussion on a mailing list, regarding immigration to the USA, legal or otherwise. Figured I'd share it here, too.
Personally I'd like to have a special deal for our two neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Anybody who lacks a felonious criminal record and hasn't done something to make Homeland Security nervous can come in for a year, and are given the right to work. By the end of the year they must check in and prove that they have a visible means of support (a good job, a mate with a good job, parents with a good job - a student can just point to parents back home supporting them). After this they can check in yearly and tell the government where they are, for the next 7 years. By that time they should know if they want to stay here or not. So they must either file for citizenship, or leave. Anybody who fails to check in yearly gets booted as soon as they are located, no questions asked (well... if they couldn't check in due to something excessively weird presumably they'd just do it then). They can get a driver's license and it does say that they are non-citizens - if they don't like it, it's not like they can't file for citizenship earlier than the 7 year limit. If it isn't already, disallow Welfare for non-citizens. (Do not disallow Social Security or Unemployment Insurance - if they work, they pay into it like everybody else.) Employees who are here legally cannot be taken advantage of, so maybe the wages will go up and the conditions improve; somehow I doubt this is really going to make the cost of food go out of sight, regardless of who claims what. Waiting a year or so to get your paperwork through to prove you don't have a felony record beats killing yourself travelling through some of the nastiest desert on this continent or suffocating in the back of a semi or similar things.
Probably have to make it easier to get citizenship - but then this only requires filing for it, so whatever time the government spends bureaucritizing around doesn't get the applicant into trouble.
Not that I expect anything like this to be done, at least not while the current administration is around. My profound apologies to anybody who's tried to visit this country lately and gotten harassed. If it makes you feel any better, they hassle us too. :(
Personally I'd like to have a special deal for our two neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Anybody who lacks a felonious criminal record and hasn't done something to make Homeland Security nervous can come in for a year, and are given the right to work. By the end of the year they must check in and prove that they have a visible means of support (a good job, a mate with a good job, parents with a good job - a student can just point to parents back home supporting them). After this they can check in yearly and tell the government where they are, for the next 7 years. By that time they should know if they want to stay here or not. So they must either file for citizenship, or leave. Anybody who fails to check in yearly gets booted as soon as they are located, no questions asked (well... if they couldn't check in due to something excessively weird presumably they'd just do it then). They can get a driver's license and it does say that they are non-citizens - if they don't like it, it's not like they can't file for citizenship earlier than the 7 year limit. If it isn't already, disallow Welfare for non-citizens. (Do not disallow Social Security or Unemployment Insurance - if they work, they pay into it like everybody else.) Employees who are here legally cannot be taken advantage of, so maybe the wages will go up and the conditions improve; somehow I doubt this is really going to make the cost of food go out of sight, regardless of who claims what. Waiting a year or so to get your paperwork through to prove you don't have a felony record beats killing yourself travelling through some of the nastiest desert on this continent or suffocating in the back of a semi or similar things.
Probably have to make it easier to get citizenship - but then this only requires filing for it, so whatever time the government spends bureaucritizing around doesn't get the applicant into trouble.
Not that I expect anything like this to be done, at least not while the current administration is around. My profound apologies to anybody who's tried to visit this country lately and gotten harassed. If it makes you feel any better, they hassle us too. :(
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