I posted an article on Daily Kos on March 16, 2007, over the name Jersey Grandpa, and entitled “The Immigration Bargain”. It received 12 comments. I responded to these in the comment below on March 18.
As I write this there have been twelve comments on my post The Immigration Bargain. These are thoughtful and constructive and I thank the authors. My response follows.
Support: Some noted that Congressional movement to deal with immigration is slow. The bargain proposal is for a program that will resolve two key parts of the problem of illegal immigration. Neither of these parts by itself will get sufficient political support to fly. Coupled together they have a chance, if people on each side are willing to make a concession to the other.
Because issues relating to legal immigration and citizenship are deliberately left for another day and not addressed in the bargain, it should be possible to move ahead rapidly and gather Congressional support for the two key proposals. I believe it should also be possible to win support from a large majority of Americans for the bargain. The program will be successful if this support is achieved, but only if it is achieved.
Process: Gooserock notes that the process for dealing with current illegal immigrants “must be dead simple, extremely convenient and highly affordable to the poorest of the poor”. I agree.
I suggest a short period, say three months, in which those without legal status come forward, apply for legal status, and agree to a set of conditions like those outlined in the proposal. I propose that local law enforcement agencies administer this first stage of the process. They have facilities for photographing and fingerprinting. They are accustomed to setting up and maintaining personal files.
The offices are in the communities where the immigrants live and should be relatively accessible. During the application period they should be open seven days a week and staffed to meet the application demand. The federal government should pick up the tab for any extra costs.
The process should move quickly, because the local agency will only collect information offered by the applicant. It will not try to verify anything. The agency will assign temporary legal status for a period of 1-2 years, issue a temporary ID card, and set up a file for each applicant.
When word of the program gets out, there will be a stampede for the borders to get in before the application window closes. [This may be happening now because of discussions of amnesty.] Extra efforts should be mounted at the border to stop this flow until the window closes. This is the reason for the short window.
The INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] has been absorbed into DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and its functions divided. Some DHS agency should take overall responsibility for reviewing each applicant file, ruling on the legal status, approving the application, and issuing a permanent visa and ID card. [It may also reject the application for some reason and move down a different path.] The DHS may delegate some of the work to other agencies, such as FBI, IRS, or state law enforcement.
The approval process can move at a more leisurely pace, but the DHS should plan and budget to complete the process for routine applications in a reasonable time, say two years.
We need to get over our pessimism regarding the ability and the willingness of DHS to do its job. I said above that success in this program will require support from a large majority of the American people. We can insist that Congress provide the necessary funds and that the DHS do its job.
ID Card: The temporary ID card for successful applicants will ultimately be replaced by a permanent, standardized, “national” ID card. This should be issued by the federal government, or by the states so long as the same standard is used by all. It should be as forgery- and tamper-proof as technology permits and contain biometric data.
Biometric data includes fingerprints, DNA, and other things. Here’s a quote from Senator Chuck Schumer’s book Positively American that I am reading now. “It is now possible to create a largely forgery-proof national employment card. This card would have a little chip that recorded unique biometric identifying information such as an individual’s retinal or facial features. It is possible to affordably mass-produce biometric IDs that would be prohibitively expensive to counterfeit.”
The FBI maintains the AFIS [Automated Fingerprint Identification System] database for fingerprints. DHS is setting up a database for DNA. Local police have fingerprint capability, and they will probably use this method to identify applicants for legal status in the first stage. Biometric technology is evolving. I don’t know what will be best for the permanent ID card. DHS can decide.
An ID card with biometric data facilitates conclusive identification. Schumer recommends that all workers have one, and that all employers be required to confirm that their employees have one. I believe a standard “national” ID card will be convenient for general use and that all citizens should be encouraged [not required] to carry one.
The information on the permanent ID card will be stored in a federal database and be available for use by law enforcement and other agencies as appropriate. It would be reasonable to merge this with AFIS under FBI management. New entries in the database will be screened [via computer] to assure that one person does not take on a new identity or the identity of someone else.
The information should be limited to what is necessary for identification, such as name, sex, date of birth, biometric data, and residential address. This database should not contain information about such things as employment, taxes, credit history, or criminal record. That data belongs elsewhere. These limits on the data in the ID database should remove most privacy concerns.
Misrepresentation in the application for a national ID card, or in its use, will be a crime, as will forgery or modification of a card.
Sentido: You wrote that a national ID card that all citizens would carry “sounds awfully creepy to this citizen.” In our daily lives we frequently identify ourselves, and do this with things like credit cards, driver licenses, and passports. A standard ID card will simplify this process and make it more reliable.
Enforcement: Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer and Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner are politically far apart, but they agree that that the key to stopping illegal immigration is to remove what the latter calls the “magnet of jobs”.
The ID card will give employers a reliable way to check legality, the law will direct them to do it, and there will be penalties if they don’t. Schumer says: “If employers knew that they would be arrested whenever an illegal immigrant was on the premises, the jobs would dry up real quick. Once the jobs dry up, the workers will stop coming. … Without all the illegal workers, we will finally be able to focus on preventing drug runners, terrorists and other dangerous predators from getting in.”
Removal of job opportunities for those without legal status should be the first priority. Some other measures will help.
• Residence in the US without lawful status should be made a crime with appropriate penalties. [I will let others decide whether this should be a misdemeanor or a felony.]
• Allow local law enforcement officers to check residential status and to take action when it is not lawful. [The city of Hazleton in PA wants to do this now, and is being sued by the ACLU and the US Chamber of Commerce.]
• Relieve government agencies of the requirement to provide services for those without legal status.
• Encourage charitable organizations to not help illegal immigrants.
Fairness: When she was young my second daughter sometimes said in exasperation: “That’s not fair.” With more logic than sympathy, I said that the world is not always fair. We can only try to make it so.
Two writers wondered if it would be fair to grant legal status to those who entered illegally when others entered legally or are waiting to do so. No one can argue that what we have now is fair. But we can not undo the past, and we need to move on.
Granting of legal status to those already here does not hurt those who entered legally, and it will not slow the progress of those are still waiting to enter legally. In fact, if those who entered illegally had instead got into the legal line, then the wait for everyone would have been longer