Prioritizing is defensible and a needed response to an absolutely clogged immigration system. Walls are so unsympathetic to the American image of freedom and opportunity as to essentially Balkanize our own citizenry into disparate camps of varying degrees of racism.

America is more than a gated community among the world’s nations. We are better than that, but what we have in place is no longer working, immigration-wise. So I propose a two-level solution to a multi-level problem:

First, an immigration policy toward the world outside our continent based, as the rest of the world bases immigration, upon needed skills and individual circumstance; essentially, those whom we value for their talent, be it technical, artistic, economic, etc.

Second, open work visas for all North Americans. Canada is not and never has been a problem, it’s Mexico we’re talking about in this discussion.

• A huge number of Mexican aliens are trapped in our country because of their lack of documentation. They simply cannot go back to Mexico for fear of not being able to re-enter the U.S. An open visa policy would solve that, taking an enormous welfare load off our hands.
• The undocumented are ‘black’ workers, an underground underclass. Among the ‘unders’ are under-paid, under-taxed and under-repatriated. Documents (visas) are the key to both taxing and keeping track of this spectral society.

• Mexico, desperate to not lose its access to American jobs, would be required to provide state-of-the-art passports to all who apply. America, desperate to solve the economic and social disaster that has dogged Mexican migrants seeking work here, would be required to visa any Mexican passport-holder appearing at the border.

Visas would be for workers, not families. Visa-holders must hold jobs, pay taxes, have health insurance and remain felony-free in order to remain in the U.S., just as in other nations of the world. Emerging from the shadows of an alien existence should allow sufficient levels of income to support those requirements. Undocumented Mexican workers now hidden in America would have to return to Mexico for appropriate papers and any found not to have done that would be deported without return access for two (?) years.

This will not satisfy everyone. But it will raise wages (both Mexican and American), provide tax income, reduce the load on welfare and education systems and allow Mexicans and Americans to look one another in the eye with a degree of pride and evenhandedness.

Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, the hero of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, “Mr. Chertoff, tear down this wall.”
__________________________________________________________
Media comment:

• Washington Post-For Republicans, Contest's Hallmark Is Immigration
• Political Crank-Quietly Ignoring Bad Law
• San Francisco Examiner-Iowa rules immigration debate
• Arizona Republic-Immigration will be on Legislative Breakfast agenda
• North Jersey Media Group-Immigration officials say raids on illegals are within the law

 1  |  2