My Two Cents Worth

[Editors Note] At long last, Joe Harvey has been able to settle down long enough to write his first post. Agree or disagree, comment and don't be disagreeable. - GM]

Having lived most of my life somewhere along the Rio Grande, the Latin culture runs deep in my blood, at least as deep as it can for a male gringo. But there are some realities we need to be honest about. We have winked and nodded for 50 years as undocumented immigrants have crossed our southernmost border and worked in our fields, food processing plants, textile mills, and other sweatshops. Some employers have treated them well, but most have not had to. Why? The reasons are numerous: there are some jobs we don’t want to do; we limit the work we allow our own children to do; we are materialistic, greedy, and sometimes perhaps lazy etc.

There are people that came here just to have a child so that child could have the privilege of citizenship. Families are a mix of immigration status. Some are allowed to stay on special visas that say they can live here with family but they are not allowed to work and earn money to help support and raise the children they have and or are having. Some of the families I have worked with even use citizenship as a way to enslave their own children. They will intentionally not file for citizenship or a social security number for a child born here or who immigrated here and had both older and younger siblings be aiding in gaining citizenship, but the “identified child” was never brought to meetings with authorities aiding the family. Why? Just like dysfunction within families of all citizens, a parent hates the child who looks like a lover who abandoned him/her or father who abused him/her.

Because we’ve poorly protected our boarders we have a 25-70 mile wide area along our border which seems it is a mix of U.S. and Mexico in its makeup, but it is nonetheless, U.S. and it is where the above occurs the most. It is where many of the underserved are mostly citizens of this country. This underserved area’s limited resources are drained by legal residents of both countries and by those of various immigration statuses in this “don’t ask don’t tell” zone.
At the same time there are now people trying to get in our borders who do not want to work hard but want to kill us, destroy our way of living (even the worthwhile part), and create as much mayhem as possible. Of course we have politicians of all stripes trying to do this as well. However, they have to be beaten down in civil ways. These others, properly known as terrorists, need to be kept out of this country.

While there are many complicated factors in all of this, I will not discuss them all, and I likely do not know or understand them all. Nonetheless, I see some realistic but difficult solutions, that can be done.

1. Build walls, erect cameras, and encourage citizens to report and stop anyone crossing any of our borders illegally. We have a right to protect our boarders and control who gets in and out of this country.
   
2. Line people up who are currently here illegally and give them 6 month visas. But keep track of their whereabouts particularly their exit. If they don’t make sure our authorities know they’ve left then they lose the right to return and if found here they are immediately deported, period.
   
3. If someone has family here they do not want to be separated from whether here illegally or illegally, if they are not a violent person or security or health risk, then give them a permanent family visa, which means they can live and work here. However, they will never be allowed to become a citizen and they will never be able to vote above the city level. I believe they should have some input about those who govern their immediate surroundings, but no more.
   
4. If someone wants to become a citizen they must leave the country and begin the process legally once their work visa is up.
   
5. We need to make our citizenship and visa processes more efficient for those playing by the rules and who have any skills we chose we want to utilize to be matched by those who want to come in legally.
   
6. A child who can prove they grew up here because of their parent’s choice or some other person who brought them here and has no knowledge of how to live in another country or culture should be given legal residence immediately and possibly citizenship immediately or an opportunity to become a citizen within 10 years if they remain a resident who does not commit a violent crime.
   
7. Businesses should be fined $25,000.00 per undocumented worker found at their business during the first offense. For the second offense, a fine of $50,000.00 per undocumented worker. The third offense leads to your company being taken over by the government/state for 5 years with a CEO and board appointed by them and/or it is sold or closed immediately. We need to highly discourage hiring illegal immigrants, without jobs, the flow will slow to a trickle.
   
8. We need to accept that this may cause us to turn towards unpalatable solutions such allowing our children to work in the fields up to two hours a day. Require our teens to work a job at least 5 hour a weekend. Nothing builds character and encourages children to earn good grades as picking cotton, chili, or cleaning toilets. If first period class at the local elementary school involved walking out to farmer brown’s filed to pick cotton or do something of limited danger then farmer brown could pay the school the money he’d normally pay the illegal immigrants. It might also help us with our obesity problem with school aged children.
   
9. If you’re born in this country of a mother who is not a refuge or of legal entry then you are not granted citizenship, and you and that mother should be returned to your country of origin soon as possible so you can grow up and learn the skills needed to live in the country that is your legal nation.
   
10. Once these rules have been in place for 6 months people will know that if they are found in this country without documentation showing that they are here legally then they will be deported swiftly (another problem that needs to be corrected—we have to be willing to put tax money into manning the implementation of such a program). This doesn’t mean if you’re not found before this that action will not be taken but we will not enforce everything fully and aggressively until after that specific date by which everyone will have had the knowledge and opportunity to leave or get identified as someone who wants to be processed properly under one of the above rules or legal processes already in place for those here illegally or who have overstayed a shorter visa.
    
11. If someone were abused by an employer or human trafficker they could also apply for asylum, but not necessarily citizenship.
    
12. Citizenship and the right to vote should be reserved for those who entered legally or who appealed to this nation for help and we chose to provide it.

Porous boundaries make for unhealthy dynamics in individual relationships, families, and nations.

Joe Harvey (that’s certainly not the rest of the story, but that’s how it could go if we were serious.)