Scott Allan’s World

The government has failed us again. Politicians were unable to come to an rational, pragmatic solution for Immigration Reform so nothing will be done. Politicians are too handcuffed by their own political ambitions and rhetoric to cooperate on anything. To me the status quo is unacceptable and I believe the average citizen and blogger agree.

As a result, I am starting a grass roots movement to solve this problem in the blogosphere. I believe there is common ground that we can all agree to that will make us safer and solve the problem of illegal immigration. This will require some compromise and no one will be able to get everything they want, but I am confident that we can come up with something that is better than the current legislation and better than doing nothing at all.

There are a few principles we can all agree to that can get us started.

1. First and foremost, we need to control who we let in the country. If we can’t protect our borders, any other reform is pointless.

2. We need to address the status of the 12 million illegal people.

3. We need to provide a way for migrant workers to be able to legally enter and work in this country such as a work visa to keep our economy strong. We need to eliminate the incentives to sneak into the country.

And that’s it. Doesn’t sound too hard.

This is what I would personally propose to meet this criteria and remember this is a rough first draft that I am more than willing to compromise on.

1. Build a fence on both borders including surveillance. I care most about the danger from radical Islamic terrorists and they can enter from both the north and the south. Securing the southern border is not good enough. No more visas will be issued for anyone traveling to the United States from Islamic states for vacation or for education. The danger of letting in a few dangerous people is too high. We should probably fingerprint everyone who is issued a visa to get into the country. We need to know everyone who is here. With Mohammad soon to become the most popular boy’s name in Britain, we must even track visitors from allied countries. No other reform measures can occur until this step has finished.

2. On this issue I am willing to compromise quite a bit. Some people want instant citizenship and some want mass deportation. I believe the correct path would be to provide conditional residency without a path to citizenship. This would be one of the penalties for breaking the law to enter the country. There of course would be a substantial fine to be paid upon application for residency. I believe this should satisfy the punitive requirement that most people desire short of deporting everyone which I believe is unrealistic. If no one can become a citizen then we don’t have to worry about which party they are going to vote for. The residency is conditional upon respecting our laws. No one convicted of a crime will be allowed to become a resident and will be deported. Any resident who commits a crime will have their residency revoked and will be deported. There are no more “anchor babies”. Children cannot become citizens unless their parents become citizens which is not possible in my plan.

3. We need to provide work visas based on what is needed to keep our economy running smoothly. Employers would need to apply for a certain number of visas and have workers already screened and ready to work. Secure id’s will be provided to all workers. There will be a time limit set to a certain number of years before they must return home. I’m thinking 3-5 years. Employers will be severely punished for hiring illegal workers. Since these people will obey the laws and enter the country legally, they may apply for permanent residency and citizenship just as any other legal alien can right now. If they overstay their visas, they will be deported and never issued another work visa.

So is this something we can agree to? If not, I’m sure we can work it out and show Congress the power of the people. Shortly I will start up another site dedicated to this movement. Please stay tuned.