The Great Melting Pot

From its foundation, the United States has been a country of immigrants.  Whether fleeing persecution, seeking opportunity, or in some cases, brought against their will, people have come from all parts of the world to settle and build the USA.  We have earned our nickname of “melting pot” because of the broad diversity that makes up our population.

Because we originate from so many countries, our national mindset includes ideas, beliefs, and backgrounds from nearly every major religion, philosophy, and culture.  Our diversity is a blessing to the country, and without this breadth of background, we would be less than we are today.  Many still dream of coming to America to find a better life, and we want to welcome those that will help continue to build our country’s greatness.

To reach our country’s full potential, and to protect the opportunities for those that will immigrate in the future, we need to ensure that our policies and processes support our goals.  How to best support immigration is a highly-debated topic in our country today.  Let’s cut through the rhetoric and the partisanship, and talk about the merits of the different potential solutions.

The Wall

Few ideas are more visible, or more controversial, than the proposal to build a wall (along with sophisticated monitoring) along the southern border.  For a moment, put aside what you think you already know, and consider the following questions.

Do you lock your door at night?  Do you close your garage and lock your car?  If you have a yard, is there a fence around it?  My guess is that most of you at least locks the front door at night.  Why?  Do you hate your neighbors?  Do you want to prevent everyone from visiting your home?  Do you hope to exclude anyone else from enjoying the benefits of a home or apartment?  I doubt it.

We lock our doors because there are criminals in the world.  We lock our doors to feel safe.  We also lock our doors and put up fence so we know who is in our home.  We want to greet them, welcome them, and treat them as guests.  If your mom came for a visit, would she be offended that you had to unlock the door first?  Unlikely.  (In fact, most moms would probably be upset if you weren’t locking your door!)

Finally, if a friend or family member is coming to visit you, do they come in through the door? Or do they sneak in through the window?  Similarly, immigrants from other countries who are coming here legally (and whose talents and skills and ideas we want) enter through airports and highways and checkpoints.  (They enter through the “doors” and “gates” in the wall.) 

National security

Countries have a responsibility to protect their citizens.  In the medieval times, this meant castle walls and moats.  In the industrial age, these protections included the screening at Ellis Island.  (Even in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, we turned away those that were bringing disease or other dangers to the country.)  Those protections now include identifying and vetting visitors to our country.  In a world where terrorism is a realistic threat, we cannot afford to admit people that may want to do harm.  We need to have robust processes to ensure that potential threats are excluded.  That process may have to be different for different countries of origin, based on history and reliability of information. The process also requires strong borders – if someone can enter without going through an immigration check-point, then the vetting is useless.

The term “illegal”

You can often tell what someone believes about the immigration debate based on the terms used in the discussion; specifically, is some an “undocumented worker” or an “illegal alien”?  Furthermore, as policies are crafted that focus on removing “criminals,” we need to consider the legality and impact of "undocumented" immigrants.

First, federal law very clearly shows it is a crime to enter the country: 1) at an unapproved location; 2) without examination / inspection by immigration officers; or 3) by lying in that inspection process.  The law, and the related criminal penalties, are defined in US Code Title 8.  By this definition, many of these “undocumented workers” have broken the law. 

Another form of “undocumented worker” is someone who entered the country legally (e.g. – on a student visa), and who has stayed past the visa expiration, or who has been expelled, but has not left.  Depending on the situation, simply being here after the expiration (called “unlawful presence”) may or may not be criminally punishable.  However, these situations are still unlawful, and carry at least civil penalties.  (In other words, you cannot go to jail for them, but you can be sued, and you can be deported.)  Those that have been expelled and return without authorization are also likely guilty of both civil and criminal offenses. 

To summarize (since reading the actual US Code can make you go cross-eyed), any non-citizen present in the US without authorization is at minimum guilty of unlawful behavior, and is very possibly guilty of criminal behavior.  By definition then, many of these individuals are “illegal.”

Criminal behavior

Many argue that these individuals are only guilty of the illegal entry or unlawful presence, and are otherwise upstanding, productive members of society.  I don’t know all 11 million individuals under the “illegal immigrant” umbrella, so I can’t judge their individual character.  I believe there are likely many that are doing the best they can, and do positive things for their community.  I do however see strong evidence that most are also likely guilty of additional crimes.  Before you call me a racists or xenophobe, consider the following list of criminal acts:

• Failure to register: Under US Code 8 (8 U.S.C. § 1302), any alien in the US more than 30 days who fails to register is guilty of a crime.  The majority of the undocumented are unregistered.
• Driver’s license fraud: In most states, it is a crime to lie to obtain a driver’s license.  This fraud also includes lying about your citizenship or presenting counterfeit documents to receive a license (example).  In many states, obtaining a license while unlawfully present is a crime.
• Driving without a license: If a person drives without a proper operator’s permit, this is a crime. 
• Insurance fraud: Lying to obtain auto insurance is a crime, and driving without insurance is a crime. 
• Document fraud: Presenting any document that is illegally obtained or illegally created is a crime.  This includes counterfeit identification papers and birth certificates.
• Claiming US Citizenship: A person who falsely claims to be a US Citizen (e.g. – on an I-9 work authorization, or on a voter registration form) commits a felony (18 U.S.C. § 911).
•  Social Security Fraud: Using a false SSN is a crime; related, claiming social security benefits without a valid number is a crime.
• Government benefits fraud: Government benefits are not limited to social security.  To receive any government benefits (welfare, unemployment, student loans, CHIP, Medicaid) requires an application.  Lying on that application, or submitting improper documentation with the application, is a felony.
•  Identity theft: If someone uses another person’s name, SSN, or other identifying information, the person is guilty of identity theft, which is a felony in most states.
• Tax fraud: Failure to file income tax returns and to correctly pay income taxes is a crime. In fact, tax evasion was the crime that brought down Al Capone.  Many who are “undocumented” do not correctly file and pay taxes because they would be identified as illegal, or because they would have to break one of the other laws listed here.

Looking at this list, most, if not all, of those unlawfully present in the US have committed additional, criminally-punishable acts.  If a US citizen were to commit these types of fraud, the person could be detained, criminally charged, tried, convicted, and incarcerated.  Note that this list does not include other crimes that are potentially found in any population (e.g. – violence, drugs, theft).  I am not implying that illegal immigrants are any more likely to commit those crimes than an average citizen.  I am only pointing out that in order to drive, work, receive benefits, and otherwise live a “normal” life in the US will very often require an unauthorized immigrant to violate some criminal statute.

Victims and costs

How often have you heard someone say, “well, yeah, he did that, but it was a victimless crime.”  I am sure some of you read the list above, and thought something similar.  “Is there really any harm to me if someone does those things above?”  “Why should I care if someone lied on their driver’s license application?” “What difference does it make to me?”  Law-abiding citizens (AND non-citizens) pay the costs of these crimes over and over and over.  Let’s look at a few examples:

·         Do you have any concerns about how high your taxes are?  Or the growth of the national debt?  When someone applies for benefits (e.g. – welfare), the funds come from either your taxes or government debt.  If someone applies illegally for benefits, you pay.

·         Can you believe what health care costs?  While there are many reasons for high costs, one of them is illegal immigration.  Illegal immigrants often do not carry insurance, but they still get sick. When that uninsured person goes to Urgent Care, they have to pay or the provider doesn’t get paid.  Now, do you think the hospital decides to just lose that money?  Not a chance!  All the unpaid bills get divided across those that do pay.  That means your costs (or your insurance company’s costs) just went up. 

·         Insurance costs are not only impacted when it comes to medicine.  Auto and other property insurance rates rise due to uninsured populations.

·         Do you worry about the class size in your child’s school?  According to a Washington Post article, citing Pew Research, 6.9% of public school students have at least one illegal alien parent.  And that number is a whopping 17.7% in Nevada.  Illegal immigration puts additional stress on our education system, which is compounded if those parents are not paying taxes.

·         Having trouble finding a job?  Pew research indicates that about eight million illegal aliens are in the US work population.  That means about 5% of jobs are being filled by someone who is not supposed to be in the country and is not authorized to work in this country.

·         Undocumented workers allow employers to pay at or even below minimum wage.  Eliminating the unlawfully present work force would help increase the average wage in the country.

The question of humanity

One common concern with any immigration policy is the impact on lives, especially the lives of children and families.  Detention and deportation can have enormous, lasting impacts on everyone involved.  And many of the results unfairly punish others, including innocent children.  How can anyone support policies with that kind of negative outcome?

Negative impacts to families, friends, and children are an unfortunate outcome whenever a crime is committed.  Imagine if a father (a US citizen) lies and steals at work.  He goes to jail, and many of the family assets are seized.  What happens to his wife and children?  They lose their home.  They have to move, likely to a place they have never been.  The children could even end up in foster care.  The children lose friends.  The family may have to deal with the negative stigma from the father’s actions.  The children will have their lives turned upside down, and possibly ruined, even though the children did nothing wrong.  When someone commits a crime, innocents suffer.

As a society, we can’t stop enforcing laws just because it has negative impacts.  What would happen if any parent could avoid legal punishment because of what would happen to their children?  Should we let theft, drug trafficking, fraud, DUI, and every other crime go unenforced because of the impact on families?  Unfortunately, we cannot as a society ignore criminal behavior in an effort to protect the innocents from the consequences.  In the long run, we would create a more negative situation.  We make society less safe.  We also teach those innocent children that it is okay to commit a crime, because you won’t be punished. Criminals face consequences in our society – and that has to include illegal immigrants.

A lesson from sports

For decades, sports have faced the negative impact of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).  The Soviet bloc Olympic teams of the cold war, the winners in cycling in the 80s and 90s, the baseball players of the home run era, the Russian Olympic team of this past year – all were accused of using PEDs to gain an unfair advantage.  Some were caught, which fed the belief that everyone in the sport was dirty.  Each of these groups has had to introduce tough standards and policies to eradicate the use of PEDs in the sport. 

The tough policies were necessary to protect the honest players for two reasons.  First, by allowing PEDs, the sport was punishing the clean athlete.  Records were erased, payroll was unfairly allocated, opportunities were taken from the honest athletes by those that cheated.  PEDs had to go so the honest players had a fair change.  Second, the specter of cheating painting the entire sport, hurting the reputation and families of the honest athletes.  When the public sees cheaters in cycling, and doesn’t see the cheaters being caught or punished, people begin to think that all cyclists are dishonest.  Tough enforcement against the cheater protects the reputation of the innocent.

The same holds true for legal immigrants.  When illegal immigrants are able to break the law without punishment, they take opportunities from legal immigrants.  The illegal immigrants also create a false impression that all immigrants are criminals, or dishonest, or trying to cheat.  We need the positive benefits of legal immigration in this country.  The only way to protect and support that legal path is to enforce the laws regarding the illegal immigration.

The missing link

Massive steps need to be taken to address the immigration issues in this country.  We need to enforce the laws that we have.  As we enforce these laws, we will create a better environment for those who are here legally.  Just cleaning up the current issues is not enough however.  We still want the influx of people that want to come here (legally) to continue to build our country.  To achieve this, we need to streamline our processes for legal immigration.  We currently have one of the longest waiting periods for visas in the developed world.  We need to increase our efforts to admit legal immigrants.

Conclusion

Illegal immigration is a serious issue for our country, with large, negative consequences.  The desire to address this issue and enforce the laws does not make someone racist or xenophobic.  Enforcing laws on criminals does not indicate a hatred of legal immigrants or minorities.  The process will be difficult, and will result in many sad stories.  However, the results of not enforcing the laws and fixing the process will result in even more sad stories in the future.