Quote:If you really want to end the issue of illegals coming across the boarder:
Fine the living (bad word for poo removed) out of those that hire them.
Get rid of unnecessary regulations.
Dump these free trade agreements.
Place high enough tariffs on all imported goods to bring real jobs back to America
I agree almost entirely. The way to stop illegal labor is to beef up e-Verify, fine the living crap out of companies that are using it improperly (or not at all), fine the living crap out of first-time offender companies that are caught employing illegal labor and build in penalties as high as being shut down (and criminal charges brought up against corporate officers) for habitual offenders.
Want to see illegal labor fall off a cliff? Fine Trump a few billion dollars and send him to prison for a year. That'll pretty quickly leave those here illegally out of work.
I'd take it a bit farther, though. I'm in favor of a guest worker program that would allow people
already here illegally--not those caught crossing the border tonight--to register for ID, pay taxes and legally go to work for smaller companies (like CA Imperial Valley farms). There would be a separate, lower minimum wage for guest workers, and they would be exempt from benefit requirements. There would also be a cap on company size (revenue and workforce) in terms of eligibility for hiring these workers. That's to keep Walmart from hiring 10,000 guest workers at $4.50/hr. and displacing legal residents in those jobs.
The idea would be to fill the jobs that Americans don't want and employers can't fill (like farm work, for example) with a willing and able workforce that's currently forced to hide in the shadows. The eligibility would be a one-time thing, say a period of one month in which illegal immigrants can report to any number of facilities and be granted an ID, the ability to live here legally and the ability to work for employers that are part of the guest worker program. There would be strict limitations, too. Commit any offense that results in a criminal conviction (i.e., not a speeding ticket) and you're deported, no questions asked, and not allowed to return to the US under the guest worker program again. The enrollment window would only be opened on rare occasions, as needed, and anyone who doesn't report for enrollment is considered here illegally and subject to deportation upon discovery.
Tariffs are a touchier subject to me. Even though they protect American jobs, they also damage international relationships and can result in equivalent tariffs being placed on American goods. The tariffs we'd need to compensate for a kid in a Guatemalan sweatshop stitching together soccer balls at $1.00 per day is pretty dramatic when you consider that we're probably paying an American at least $80 per day to do the same time. I do believe that tariffs are a viable tool for bringing American jobs back over, but I think there are legislative ways to do it as well. Companies that ship jobs overseas make a lot of money: why not simply introduce tax penalties for companies based upon what percentage of jobs are filled overseas vs. at home?
Oh, wait, that would require pissing off the corporate lobby. Never mind. Better just crap all over our international trade relationships, then.
Bottom line, the solution to illegal immigration isn't a fence, mass deportation or whatever kind of frightening ideas Drifter's cooked up, it's legislating it out of existence through increased accountability and penalties for companies that employ illegal labor, then making it legal for small businesses, farms, etc. to employ immigrants
who are already here at lower wages and without Obamacare requirements in play. If illegal immigrants know that there's no work for them here and no opportunity to get work, I think we'll see the numbers start to fall off, and more of those coming across actually
will be the drug runners and human traffickers that we should be focused on.
