How About This Immigration Compromise
Posted: Thursday, May 08, 2008
by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com
What to do with the illegal aliens who are already in the United States? That's that the debate currently going on in Congress. One thing is for sure -- they are not going to be deported. Some kind of compromise will be reached that will allow them to remain in this country. Call it amnesty if you want, but something will be worked out to let them stay here. Everyone seems to have their own ideas about what it should entail, so I'll offer one of my own. Any compromise that allows illegal immigrants to remain in this country should include the following requirements:
2) They should be required to sign a statement acknowledging that they have committed a criminal act by entering this county illegally. That statement should include an indication of contrition, i.e., that they are truly repenting of what they did.
3) They should be deemed ineligible during their lifetime for welfare, food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, and other government giveaway programs. However, they would be eligible for earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare.
4) They should be subject to deportation upon their first conviction of a felony.
5) They should be required to wait at least five years to become U.S. citizens.
6) Employers should be exempt from having to pay them the minimum wage during the time they are waiting to become U.S. citizens.
7) They should not be eligible for any in-state college tuition rates before becoming citizens of the U.S.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Hmmm . . . that's a big penalty for merely being born in the wrong country. Consider the following: if you rent a car and an apartment, you're doing better than 90% of the rest of the world. If you make more than $3 / day, you're doing better than 60% of the world. Oftentimes the immigrants break our "laws" (meaning an arbitrary statement of condition) because they have no choice: starvation, political persecution, life threatened. I know first hand of those in my family (mother's side Portuguese; wife's Colombian) who've come here because of dire straights. Both my grandmother and wife stated that they have no desire to go back to their countries because of the corruption and squalor. All I ask is that every citizen live a year in South or Central America, the Middle East, an Asian country of choice, only taking the essentials to see if the "privileged" attitude changes. We are beyond spoiled and need to learn of how the "other" lives. For a country that has more than 50% of the world's wealth and only makes up 6% of the world's population, what we need more than anything else is proper perspective, and then we can make more informed, humane, and just decisions.
The answer lies in what everyone professes but many ignore for their own purposes. That is the law, religious or civil. No society can survive if there is a breakdown in the law. No society can maintain its security, culture or identity without secure borders. So are we to be responsible for every nations woes? I truly feel we go way past any other nation on the face of this earth in giving. So where is that old cliche charity begins at home? Are we a wealthy nation, certainly. So that makes it all ok, robin hood style? Rhetroically when it works for me I guess I only see it my way? So what do I tell my relatives waiting 20 plus years to come legally, "screw the law" and come.
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