Paid for by Spivack for Congress
 

IMMIGRATION/BORDER SECURITY POSTION PAPER
By Dennis Spivack

The Senate and the House recently passed bills which, in my opinion, were seriously flawed. The House bill, for example, was unduly punitive. Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill that made all illegal immigrants felons. In addition, those individuals who helped “illegal immigrants” would also be guilty of a felony offense which would include clergymen, social service workers as well as union officials. Union officials already have an obligation under “The Duty of Fair Representation Act” to assist both union and non-union workers. By complying with their fair representation obligation, union officials would be violating the House Immigration Bill as a result of their assistance to workers who are illegal immigrants. 
The one good thing to come out of the recent debate is the fact that Congress now realizes that our borders need attention. The debate cannot address immigration reform without first seeking a solution to border security.  The United States needs to be fair and reasonable, but we also need to be tough on those who break the law.

The current immigration crisis was created by the failure to enforce existing laws intended to regulate the guest worker program. This program was enacted in 1986 when there were an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants in this Country. At that time, many small businesses tried to comply with the guest worker program by paying higher salaries and offering better working conditions and benefits. However, those businesses that tried to comply quickly realized that they were putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage because other companies continued to hire illegal immigrants and thus were able to offer lower wages and inferior living conditions. 

Those non-complying companies realized that it was cheaper to do business by hiring illegal immigrants since the chance of their being caught, prosecuted, and fined were remote. There were laws on the books that the corporate violators knew would not be enforced because the government never sufficiently funded the enforcement of the guest worker program and basically “looked the other way.” 
Before considering passage of any new immigration legislation, my first question is, if Congress passes new laws dealing with border security/immigration, are they then willing to commit the funds necessary to enforce those new laws now and in the future? If Congress is willing to commit the necessary funds, then I would propose that any new border security/immigration legislation address the whole picture and include the following recommendations:

1. For those illegal immigrants already in this Country, the government should commit to work with them to become legal and taxpaying members of our society. It is impractical to deport over 11 million people to other countries. It is also almost impossible to try to make a distinction as to whether someone has been in this country two, three, or five years. After all, if these illegal immigrants were able to forge papers allowing them to find work and housing, then it is clear that these workers would also be able to provide false records showing they have been in the Country for whatever the pre-determined cut-off period is. All illegal immigrants must register within a set period of time. Preconditions for citizenship would include but not be limited to (i) learn English, (ii) take a citizenship exam, (iii) maintain employment, (iv) have no criminal record other than minor traffic citations or the like, (v) undergo a complete physical examination, and (vi) pay a set fine to help offset unpaid taxes. None of the illegal immigrants would gain a priority over those individuals who are already on a citizenship list, as they would be added to the bottom of this list, and would not become full-fledged American citizens until their time is legally at hand.
2. We must state unequivocally to our neighbors that our borders will be closed off to future illegal immigrants. All future immigrants will have to apply for citizenship using the normal channels. Any illegal immigrants who are in this Country after the registration date will be deported – no exceptions.
3. We must strengthen our border security on all borders, north and south and along our coastlines. In the post-911 world, it is not only a question of who might cross our borders but what may come across. While any program will never be foolproof, we should be doing the very best that we can to safeguard all of our citizens.
4. While we can certainly erect a fence, to denote our border, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that a fence will stop border crossings. If we can send a man to the moon and have a space station, then we should be able to optimize the use of technology to work in conjunction with a funded mobile border patrol. We need to insure that our elected officials set aside funding for the necessary technology and border patrol. We should not be pressing the National Guard into border service because those resources are already stretched too thin, and those National Guard resources are needed in their respective states.
5. We must insure that all neighboring governments are playing a greater role in preventing illegal immigration in this Country by creating better working conditions for their people – after all, that was the purpose of the various trade agreements that were passed during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
6. Action against companies who continue to hire illegal immigrants must be fully enforced and funded. As noted above, this problem would not have risen to this level if there had been enforcement of the guest worker program in 1986. I propose a three strike program for companies who continue to hire illegal immigrants once the above measures are taken. Those companies can rely on government registration cards to verify a worker’s status. If there is a question as to whether a registration form has been forged, the company can check with the appropriate governmental agency. There should be no more excuses about reliance on documents which turn out to be forged. For the first offense, there would be a warning, substantial fine, and targeted governmental oversight. For the second offense, the company’s business license would be temporarily revoked for a set amount of time, for a third offense, the company would have its business license revoked permanently.
7. In conjunction with any new immigration bill, there should also be legislation passed making it easier for unions to organize such as through the “card check” procedure. Such legislation is imperative because unions need to be strengthened so that they can protect their existing members from what could become a “domestic outsourcing” of jobs to the illegal immigrants. In addition, such measures would enable unions to attempt to organize the newly registered immigrants and provide them with the same protections that are made available to existing union workers.
8. For those women who cross the border specifically to have their children in this Country, a policy should be enacted so as not to allow those families to automatically garner citizenship in this Country. If a child is born in this country, and his/her parents are not American citizens, the family must be returned to the country in which the parents originated from.

I do not support the argument that the illegal immigrants are doing work that American workers don’t want to do. What I do believe is that American workers do not want to do the work at an unlivable wage, in deplorable working conditions or with nonexistent benefits. Such living and working conditions should not be forced upon anyone be they an American worker or a newly registered immigrant.