Be wary of simple solutions to complex immigration problems
Reno Gazette Journal, 5/13/10 - There is just one sure-fire way for a nation to stop illegal immigration: an economy so poor that no one wants to migrate there, legally or illegally.
Like water seeking its own level, migrants go from where it's difficult to make a decent living to where it's easier -- if not necessarily easy -- and no country with a halfway decent economy has yet to figure out a way to successfully stem the tide.
That's why voters should be wary of any candidate who promises easy solutions to the very complex problem of illegal immigration. If it were easy, countries with easier borders to defend than the one between the U.S. and Mexico would be doing it. They're not.
The No. 1 goal of immigration reform should be to gain control of the nation's borders. Absent that simple-sounding measure, anything else that's done to deal with the immigration problem is meaningless.
Yet, politicians all seem to want to try.
One candidate hoping to oust Sen. Harry Reid, for instance, proposed preventing illegal immigrants from being treated when they're sick. Republican Danny Tarkanian, trailing in early polls to former state Sen. Sue Lowden, said this week that care should be denied to any illegal immigrant except in an emergency. If they come in with a cold, he said, they should be turned away. Once treated, he said, they should be turned over to immigration officials for deportation.
Fair enough.
But how exactly might that work?
Will a triage nurse determine whether the patient is sick enough to warrant being an "emergency" case, or will it take a doctor? Perhaps it'll have to be a government official who'll make the decision whether to treat the patients and then ship them off to the Customs & Immigration Service or to just call the cops.
Another question: Will medical professionals, defenders of the Hippocratic Oath, cooperate, or will they do what they are trained to do, treat the ill and let others worry about such things as green cards?
These are serious questions, and they point to even bigger questions:
How far are we willing to go to tackle this difficult problem?
Will we force doctors to violate their principles?
In the middle of an economic downturn, will we really throw business owners in prison for hiring workers who they should have been suspicious about but weren't?
And, at a time when taxpayers are in rebellion over federal government spending, how much are we willing to spend to turn the nation's porous borders into an impenetrable barrier -- how much to finish the "wall," how much to increase the size of the Border Patrol and provide the equipment it needs, how much to keep the Coast Guard patrolling thousands of miles of coastline?
Those are the kinds of questions that voters should ask the candidates who seek their votes with promises of solving the immigration problem. Unless we're willing to pay the price, after all, a strong American economy will defeat our best attempts to keep people out.
Read the whole article
Be wary of simple solutions to complex immigration problems
Reno Gazette Journal, 5/13/10 - There is just one sure-fire way for a nation to stop illegal immigration: an economy so poor that no one wants to migrate there, legally or illegally.
Like water seeking its own level, migrants go from where it's difficult to make a decent living to where it's easier -- if not necessarily easy -- and no country with a halfway decent economy has yet to figure out a way to successfully stem the tide.
That's why voters should be wary of any candidate who promises easy solutions to the very complex problem of illegal immigration. If it were easy, countries with easier borders to defend than the one between the U.S. and Mexico would be doing it. They're not.
The No. 1 goal of immigration reform should be to gain control of the nation's borders. Absent that simple-sounding measure, anything else that's done to deal with the immigration problem is meaningless.
Yet, politicians all seem to want to try.
One candidate hoping to oust Sen. Harry Reid, for instance, proposed preventing illegal immigrants from being treated when they're sick. Republican Danny Tarkanian, trailing in early polls to former state Sen. Sue Lowden, said this week that care should be denied to any illegal immigrant except in an emergency. If they come in with a cold, he said, they should be turned away. Once treated, he said, they should be turned over to immigration officials for deportation.
Fair enough.
But how exactly might that work?
Will a triage nurse determine whether the patient is sick enough to warrant being an "emergency" case, or will it take a doctor? Perhaps it'll have to be a government official who'll make the decision whether to treat the patients and then ship them off to the Customs & Immigration Service or to just call the cops.
Another question: Will medical professionals, defenders of the Hippocratic Oath, cooperate, or will they do what they are trained to do, treat the ill and let others worry about such things as green cards?
These are serious questions, and they point to even bigger questions:
How far are we willing to go to tackle this difficult problem?
Will we force doctors to violate their principles?
In the middle of an economic downturn, will we really throw business owners in prison for hiring workers who they should have been suspicious about but weren't?
And, at a time when taxpayers are in rebellion over federal government spending, how much are we willing to spend to turn the nation's porous borders into an impenetrable barrier -- how much to finish the "wall," how much to increase the size of the Border Patrol and provide the equipment it needs, how much to keep the Coast Guard patrolling thousands of miles of coastline?
Those are the kinds of questions that voters should ask the candidates who seek their votes with promises of solving the immigration problem. Unless we're willing to pay the price, after all, a strong American economy will defeat our best attempts to keep people out.
Read the whole article
