"Comprehensive immigration reform"

[Elijah John]

For Americans, and those interested in American politics...

One hears both Democrats and Republicans speaking of the need to achieve "comprehensive immigration reform" and that we need to "fix our broken immigration system".

For debate.

What do they mean when they use these phrases? What does the phrase "comprehensive immigration reform" mean to a Democrat? To a Republican?

What would "fixing our broken immigration system" look like to a Democrat? To a Republican?

Do they mean the same thing? Or are they talking past each other, and mean two very different things?

[Divine Insight]

For Americans, and those interested in American politics...

As an American I don't think in terms of Democrats and Republicans. In fact, I personally believe that to even speak in those terms only incites tribalism and causes people to mentally choose a "side" in a make-believe political war.

So for me, the issue of immigration reform simply means that our current immigration system isn't working and that we need to change it so that it does work. Never mind inciting make believe political wars between so-called Democrats and Republicans. That's only going to distract from the actual problem of what to do about immigration.

So here's my proposal for immigration reform.

To begin with I hold that immigration is a very good thing for America. It's not only desirable, but it's actually essential for the continued growth of America both economically and technologically.

So immigration reform should begin with the premise that the more immigrants we can incorporate into America the better.

Of course, just allowing people to come into America willy-nilly without due process would not be an effective system of immigration. So we don't just drop our border security and allow anyone to freely come into the country without due process. That would not be good for anyone, including the immigrants themselves.

What we need is an effective process that can process as many immigrants as possible in the shortest amount of time. I have a very detailed plan for doing just that.

I'm not about to try to detail it here, but I most certainly can outline the basic ideas.

To begin with when immigrants first come into the USA they are not US citizens, and therefore the constitution of the United States does not apply to them in terms of citizens rights. After all, if they are not yet an American citizen why should American citizen rights apply to them?

I propose that in order to come into the USA an immigrant must first move into special places designed and built specifically to house immigrants. Who's going to pay for this? Well, to begin with we could use Trump's Wall money.

However, once a camp is set up the immigrants themselves should be expected to become the workers who do the actual construction and maintenance work on their own facilities. Even private corporations could donate materials for them to us. After all, the USA already contributes billions of dollars to humanitarian causes, why should this be any different. We want the immigrants to succeed.

The immigrants must build these towns in places that are clearly challenging to build on. Places where American citizens aren't even interested in living. There is plenty of room for these immigrants.

The Immigrants must live and work in one of these camps for a minimum of 5 years. (again this is just a rough proposal, the actual plan should be worked out by a bi-partisan congress, or even a special committee set up for that purpose.

The immigrants must work for extreme "minimum wages" during this first 5 years. (remember this can be lower than the minimum wage of actual American citizens.

They should be expected to create a productive community during this time. Including creating their own police department, schools, and businesses. And they will be held accountable for how well they can control their immigrant society during this time.

At the end of their 5 years (assuming that they haven't broken the laws and they have done all the community service expected of them) they are then free to become full-fledged American citizens. At that time they MUST LEAVE the immigrant community they had helped to build and move out into mainstream America. Obviously they must also have arranged to have a job and a place to move to by then. But they would have had their entire 5-year-term to get all of this prepared.

And so this is how I would handle the immigration problem.

Again, I must point out that my short explanation above is extremely brief and does not even begin to address all the subtle issues that would be included in the aforementioned process.

In short, it would basically be that the immigrants must pass through a 5-year term in an acceptable fashion in order to become full-fledged American citizens.

Processing immigrants in this way would assure that violent gang members, and sex traffickers, etc, would not slip into the country unchecked. These 5-year immigrant camps would weed them out because the vast majority of immigrants would not put up with the bad apples who are threatening to destroy their chances of becoming American citizens.

~~~~~~~~~

I must also add, that this would be in addition to other alternative method of legal immigration that we already have in place and are working. In other words, recognized citizens from other countries who have arranged to move into the USA and go straight into a college or corporation (as they currently do) should still be permitted to apply for those normal channels of immigration that have already been proven to be effective.

My proposal above is for immigrants who are coming into the USA seeking asylum and cannot demonstrate their previous character, not do they have skills or money to jump right into a college or corporate career.

My proposal above is for the "problematic immigration" of masses of migrants seeking asylum.

~~~~~~

From my perspective this is such an easy and simple problem to solve the fact that it even remains a problem only demonstrates the ignorance, and ineffectiveness of our current government.

In fact, this would totally solve Donald Trump's unnecessary fear of "bad people" coming into the USA. My solution above would solve this. The "bad people" he claims must be kept out would never make it through my 5-year mandatory immigration community. You could even think of this as a kind of temporary "incarceration" of sorts. Not for the purpose of punishment, but for the purpose of successful and productive immigration reform.

The solution to immigration reform is simple. But it's never going to be solved when our politicians and our citizens are quick to use immigrants as an excuse to create artificial partisan tribal warfare against each other.

I can't imagine any intelligent Democrat or Republican not being able to support my proposal above. If all they can do is complain about it and throw mud on it then they aren't contributing to the problem. Instead all they are doing is creating tribal warfare against each other using immigration as an excuse.

If all they can do is hate on each other they'll never be able to solve anything.

[2Dbunk]

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

Good question, and I think DI's response is an excellent one. If you don't mind, DI, I will forward such to my congress people -- I guess, as an anonymous source.

What do they mean when they use these phrases? What does the phrase "comprehensive immigration reform" mean to a Democrat? To a Republican?

What would "fixing our broken immigration system" look like to a Democrat? To a Republican?

Do they mean the same thing? Or are they talking past each other, and mean two very different things?

The last of the three questions is by far the most true. DI mentions tribalism (and I'm guilty of that!), but I like to think I can rise above the fray. It's not only that immigration is broken -- our entire governing system is broken; American Democracy is on its heels, well over the ropes! That is the question that sorely needs answering -- and quick! (especially before Russian cyber manipulators have their way with us yet again).

[Divine Insight]

The last of the three questions is by far the most true. DI mentions tribalism (and I'm guilty of that!), but I like to think I can rise above the fray. It's not only that immigration is broken -- our entire governing system is broken; American Democracy is on its heels, well over the ropes! That is the question that sorely needs answering -- and quick! (especially before Russian cyber manipulators have their way with us yet again).

I too believe that the system is broken entirely, and the USA may indeed be about fall. Ironically we have a powerful military to protect us against external physical attacks, but our democracy is totally ill-equipped to protect us from an internal take-over by a power hungry demagogue.

Good question, and I think DI's response is an excellent one. If you don't mind, DI, I will forward such to my congress people -- I guess, as an anonymous source.

You're more than welcome to that, but I seriously doubt that congress is intelligent enough to see that brilliance of such plan, as well as the flexibility of it. As I said, my plan doesn't need to apply to all immigrant, only those who are seeking asylum. That's the crux of the problem. So they need to realize that they can have more than one immigration police. One for people who have legitimate reasons to want to immigrate, and those who are just desperate to flee from a bad situation. There is no reason why both of these type of immigrants would need to be treated by the same policy.

But I'm not sure of our legislators are intelligent enough for this. Because, after all, if they were this intelligence they should have come up with this solution long before now. It would be a win-win situation for everyone. Who wouldn't want that?

[2Dbunk]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

I have forwarded your idea along to my senator. Since she is newly elected and may lack the impetus to follow through at this time, I recommended that she might want to forward your idea along to Beto O'Rourke who is passionate about immigration reform.

I'll give her several weeks to respond and if she doesn't I'll forward it to Beto myself.

[2ndRateMind]

...What do they mean when they use these phrases? What does the phrase "comprehensive immigration reform" mean to a Democrat? To a Republican?...

...Do they mean the same thing? Or are they talking past each other, and mean two very different things?

Yes, just so. I don't think anyone, anywhere, is a champion of gratuitous immigration, for the sole economic benefit of the immigrant.

But I think we can all get behind the concept of rescuing people from oppression, if that is how it is put to us.

So far as I can make out, democrats put that question, and republicans just seek to arouse racist prejudice.

Best wishes, 2RM

[Elijah John]

So far as I can make out, democrats put that question, and republicans just seek to arouse racist prejudice.

Best wishes, 2RM

I don't think that's a fair or a true statement. Wanting control of one's borders is not racist.

[Elijah John]

What does it mean when each of the opposing parties say that our immigration system is "broken"?

Again, I doubt "broken immigration system" means the same thing when Democrats use the term as when Republicans say it.

Do the Democrats want to "fix" it by letting in even more people, and legalizing most if not all of the illegal aliens?

And do the Republicans want to fix it by increasing restrictions and deporting illegals?

[Divine Insight]

I don't think that's a fair or a true statement. Wanting control of one's borders is not racist.

Comprehensive immigration reform has nothing at all to do with controlling one's borders.

Desperate asylum seekers are requesting asylum in the USA. Refusing to accept them using the excuse that we need to control our borders is hardly a meaningful argument.

[AgnosticBoy]

For Americans, and those interested in American politics...

One hears both Democrats and Republicans speaking of the need to achieve "comprehensive immigration reform" and that we need to "fix our broken immigration system".

For debate.

What do they mean when they use these phrases? What does the phrase "comprehensive immigration reform" mean to a Democrat? To a Republican?

What would "fixing our broken immigration system" look like to a Democrat? To a Republican?

Do they mean the same thing? Or are they talking past each other, and mean two very different things?

After watching the Democratic debate last night, not one Democrat touched on a common problem. The problem in my view is that anyone can come to our border and gain access by just "claiming" asylum. The obvious problem with this is that anyone can say this to access the United States.

To resolve this problem it would be obvious that we need a faster way to look into asylum cases. We also have to acknowledge that we can't let an "unlimited" (exaggeration for LARGE number) of people into the country at one time. We do not have the resources for this. Just releasing anyone onto our streets who "claims" asylum is a huge security risk. And it's not just Central Americans who are using and potentially abusing our asylum laws at the border. There are also reports of Africans, Asians, and I'm sure terrorists are taking note.