Lax Enforcement Causes Our Immigration Problems; Obama Encouraging Anarchy

Ronald Reagan signed into law an immigration "reform" in 1986 giving amnesty to about 3 million illegal immigrants.  He did it because he was convinced that there would be tighter enforcement of the border and tougher rules on employers who hire illegals. In sum, he hoped that it would prevent a similar problem in the future. 

Well, it failed.  Now we have 11 million illegals. The tighter rules were promptly watered-down and Reagan was fooled.  Now Liberals are hoping for another round of Amnesty with no concern whatsoever in fixing the root cause of the problem. Our politicians are so stupid, they don't even understand the real causes of the problem.  In fact, they don't care! The DemocRATS are only hoping to curry favor with these low-IQ, low-information people (the core of Democratic support) and even hook this group on government handouts to keep these people dependent on them. It's just cynical politics.

We have an immigration problem because would-be illegals know that we have very lax enforcement -- meaning that they know that they can come in on a visa and just overstay (or walk across our southern border and stay) -- with little risk of consequences. The Federal government has even worked against effective enforcement; which essentially gives immigrants a green light to come or stay here illegally.

Biden, Obama and others, have recently signaled even more lax immigration law enforcement and even a halt in deportations. It could hardly get more lax. From Daily Caller: "In June 2011, the administration began applying “prosecutorial discretion” to many deportation cases. This has led to a 40 percent decrease in the number of deportations."

For example, again from Daily Caller, "A total of 36,007 criminal illegal immigrants that were being processed for deportation were freed in 2013. Together, they committed nearly 88,000 crimes, according to the report, published Monday.  “I was astonished at not only the huge number of convicted criminals who were freed from ICE custody last year – an average of almost 100 a day — but also at the large number of very serious crimes they had committed,” said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, in a statement."

Our derelict administration has even 'hinted' that immigration enforcement would be effectively stopped and this has lead to a recent series of immigrant surges at border crossings that seem intended to overwhelm the border patrols. There were suspicious surges of Mexicans claiming "asylum" which is very unusual and caused the border patrol to house "asylum-seekers" in nearby hotels in Southern California.  

Obama said today (13th May '14) from Daily Caller: 

Enforcing immigration law “isn’t smart,” President Barack Obama told law enforcement officials Tuesday, just one day after the public learned he had released 36,007 illegal-immigrant murderers, rapists, thieves and other criminals into the nation’s communities.
Cops should be going after major criminals, not the many illegal immigrants that are quietly living in their districts, said Obama, who has twice sworn to uphold the nation’s laws.

“You’ve got to spend time dealing with somebody who is not causing any other trouble other than the fact that they were trying to make a living for their families,” Obama said.
“That’s just not a good use of our resources. It’s not smart. It doesn’t make sense,” said Obama, who has already directed immigration police to minimize enforcement of illegal living far from the border.

The above quote from the chief executive supposedly in charge of enforcing our laws!! It's a complete dereliction of duty! You could more correctly say that we have an executive branch filled with anarchists -- the anarchist-in-chief being Obama himself. Hey, isn't that what community organizing is???!!

Real Solutions

But on both sides of the aisle, there are no correct solutions being discussed.  And no, the sole burden for enforcement should not be put on border patrols.  Our borders are too long and porous.  It didn't work before and won't work now.  We need a nation where citizens, local/state governments, local law enforcement and the national government stand together to enforce a rational, effective and objective immigration policy.

If we don't fix our attitudes and reverse our nonsense "political correctness" about widespread "checking" of immigrant status, we'll have millions more illegals in the future and be forced to give amnesty again. We need to fix our poor policies, we need to fix poor attitudes, and we need to fix the problem of ignorant politicians.

Here's some suggested solutions to fix our immigration issues:

1. Adopt an Immigration point system that ranks all potential immigrants with regard to skills, education, work experience, and English language capability against various categories and quotas of immigrants.  There should be appropriate qualifications for the various categories for immigration.  Canada has this kind of system and it works.   Existing illegals should be asked to declare themselves and apply to this point system.  A temporary visa (1 year) could be given at that time while their applications are processed.
2. Any Immigrant with 6 month, 12 month or longer visas should be required to periodically return to immigration offices (every 3 to 6 months) to produce their passports and fill out paperwork to update current phone and address information.  We need to have current information on immigrants.  No exceptions.  If they don't show up, then local law enforcement (or ICE) should visit the last known address and, if necessary, swear out arrest warrants.  
3. Local, State and Federal governments should work together to enforce immigration laws -- not the Federal government attacking States or Local efforts.  There are already Federal laws on the books the encourage local law enforcement as partners with the Feds.
4. We must engage local law enforcement to check immigration status during the course of local or state police actions.  If the subjects don't have paperwork on them, they must produce them within a day.   
5. It should be OK for local police to check workplaces to check for immigration policy compliance. Again, if someone can't produce documents or passports at that moment, then they should be allowed to promptly do so.   It sends the message to would-be immigrants that we are NOT lax on enforcement and would take pressure off the border patrols. 
6. When visas expire, we need to accurately check that people have left the country.  If they have not, they should receive a visit by immigration or local law enforcement officials. Penalties would apply.
7. There should be financial penalties for each day of over-stay.  There must be penalties for non-compliance.
8. Since state drivers licenses are the closest thing to a national ID card, States should agree to make the Drivers License expiration date the date that an immigrant visa expires.  Proof of immigration status should be required to even obtain a license.  Duh!
9. Outlaw "sanctuary cities" as illegal.
10. We should be inviting students with college and advanced degrees to immigration interviews if they wish. 
11. We need to be sure that our business community, and especially STEM businesses, are getting the quota of skilled immigrants that they need.  To do this, we need a government that works with businesses not attacking them.

None of this will happen. It's because we don't have serious or competent politicians in Washington DC (which in turn reflects an increasingly incompetent population). Without a comprehensive, fair and logical approach, many States and Locales would refuse to participate in the strategy shown above. To get the required national cooperation, we would need for the President and the administration to believe it and sell it. But this administration is extremely un-serious. They are only interested in expedient political gains with no concern about fixing any problem or even discussing potential solutions. We need a serious President one of these days.