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Opinions are fun. My friends tell me I am someone with lots of opinions and that's fine since I don't get mad at others when they disagree with me. In this same spirit I am interested in hearing yours views as long as you are able to share your views without boiling over. I look forward to hearing from you. I tend to write in the form of short essays most of the time, but contributions do not need to be in this same format or size. Some of the content here will date itself pretty quickly, other content may be virtually timeless, this is for the reader to judge.

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The Illegal Immigration Challenge                                                                                    

Posted at: Jun/09/2009 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: The Law,

First let me say that I am in favor of immigration. This countries history is built on the hard work and zeal of immigrants looking for the chance to create a better life for them selves. Not allowing the same opportunities to a new generation of immigrants that we have offered to a previous generation is simply not fair. On the other side of this issue is the notion of resources.

Many things come down to money, and immigration is no exception. Some would argue that the illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from current citizens. That is an interesting question but I am unsure we could ever effectively measure it. There are those who argue that illegal immigrants are taking jobs and working salaries that current citizens would not want. Again, this would be difficult to measure.

My concern is that if you are here, you need to be all way here. As I don’t want to rant I will focus on a few details. If someone is in California they are using our roads, using our hospitals, sending children to our schools, generally leveraging our infrastructure while making money. All this infrastructure cost money to create and maintain. Paying an illegal laborer at a construction site with cash means there is no with-holding of taxes to support all this infrastructure. If this person is in country with an apartment somewhere, they are not paying for the roads they use, they are not helping pay the emergency room care they may receive, they are not paying for other services such as schools that their children may be attending. In the case of the medical care example our doctors and hospitals are driven by their Hippocratic Oath to provide care to any and all whether they have insurance or not. The bill for the care of these uninsured will be forwarded to the state and the rest will end out paying.

I am sure that with a slowing economy, the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has fallen, but this condition will not last. With an eventual rebound to the economy they will return. I am not arguing for blocking illegal immigration. Accomplishing this would require virtually militarizing the borders to a level similar to the Berlin wall of the 1950’s and 60’s. Very expensive and impractical besides being a very inhospitable image of what we want the United States to be. Depending on whose research you read the number of illegal’s in the U.S. at any one time is approximately 12-14 million. My recommendation focuses on the other side of this equation which is the employers.

The number of employers paying these illegal immigrants for their labor is going to be a substantially smaller number. At these employers, whether farmers, construction, food processors, or anything else the focus should be on enforcement of state and federal payroll tax policies. This has a couple of interesting effects in my vision. The cost of this immigrant labor goes up making home grown labor more palatable. Money starts coming in for the state, federal, and local services these immigrants receive. Obviously, we already have tax laws in place that allow for immigrants to file tax returns at the end of the year and get back some portion of the taxes they paid even if they have left the country. Services cost money and if they are here making money here, they should be able to pay for some of those public services. We already have a large force working for the INS and the IRS and with this model they could be redirected to focus on the employer. Employers who do not comply would therefore suffer fines and penalties.

I don’t want to argue whether or not illegal immigrants should be in this country working. I just feel that competitively they are at a price advantage because they are not paying taxes for services available to them. Additionally, they are potentially receiving services they are not paying for. Let’s start policing the employers for their payroll records and ensure everyone who is working in America is paying into our infrastructure.

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