Not giving up on immigration control: when it comes to immigration reforms and tight immigration controls, many say it can't be done. But they are wrong.

The assertion that we can't curtail exploding illegal immigration is based on the false notions that our government is already doing the best it can to control the problem, that our borders are too long to be effectively controlled, and that finding and evicting the illegals would demand too much of an investment in terms of time and money to be worthwhile. But these assumptions are flawed, and the government can solve the immigration mess as soon as it decides to do so.

Yes, our borders are long, but we can secure them without putting a guard on every square foot of territory. Barriers such as walls and fences, and technology that alerts border patrollers to the presence of illegals, can radically reduce the need for manpower. Moreover, we don't have to catch and expel every illegal attempting to sneak into the United States in order to solve the problem. We can also reduce the flow by getting rid of the incentive to come here, including limiting the ability of illegals to obtain employment.

However, instead of honestly trying to solve the problem, Democrats cater to illegals to get the Hispanic vote, and Republicans cater to them to get businessmen's votes--Hispanics provide cheap labor. Despite the cries from many politicians that the border is virtually uncontrollable, the deployment of a multifaceted approach on immigration that sought to hinder the freedom of illegals near the border and in the interior of our country could surely remedy this problem.

Implementing Change

The first step that would need to be taken is to implement changes at the border so that crossing into our country is much more difficult. The Minuteman Project showed that this could be done effectively if some manpower is added to the border. By hiring more border patrol officers and building barriers at highly used crossing points, we could effectively contain and stop border crossings if the number of would-be crossers is held to moderate levels.

To reduce the number of illegals trying to cross our southern border from the present rate of one to three million a year to a more manageable size, we need to make their lives in the interior of the country as untenable as possible. To begin with, illegals need to be cut off from all types of welfare programs. When illegals have a child in this country, their children are immediately eligible for Medicaid. Because the bulk of incoming immigrants are poor, they qualify. Also, according to Madeleine Pelner Cosman, a medical lawyer, illegal immigrant children "have inordinately high incidences of disabling mental disease" that include behavioral "disabilities such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder." Because of their "disabilities," they get Social Security Disability Income.

As part of making life as an illegal alien untenable, cities deemed "sanctuary cities" for illegals--like Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles--which do not report illegal immigrants to the federal government, must be required to detain illegals for deportation. Pressure brought to bear on state legislators could bring about this result. To enlist the aid of local law enforcement personnel in deporting illegals, statewide standards need to be set for what does and does not constitute racial profiling (to prevent the ACLU from suing cities for doing their duty), and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs to do its job.

A report by the Center for Immigration Studies, entitled "Officers Need Backup," lists numerous instances when immigration officials either refuse to pick up illegals from local law enforcement or turn them free after they pick them up. In fact, illegals end up in our legal system constantly, only to be released. When European, Asian, and African illegals are caught at the southern border, unless they are suspected terrorists, they are immediately released because Mexico will not take them--they are not Mexican nationals--and Customs considers it too costly to fly them home. When Hispanics get caught in our country, they are usually given a "notice to appear" at a future court date, and they are let free. Over 88 percent don't show up for hearings. In cities near the border the no-show rate is often over 98 percent.

To make immigration controls work, we must lock up the illegals (in tent cities, if necessary) until it is time to deport them, and we must end or greatly simplify the appealing of deportations by illegals, by which illegals clog the federal holding facilities and bring deportations to a virtual standstill. Only the federal government can make the Bureau of Immigration do its job, and so congressional representatives need to hear that we know about this.

Also, many more immigration officers need to be hired to patrol the interior of our country to arrest businessmen who hire illegals and do not report the workers for tax purposes, breaking tax laws. To stop employers from hiring illegals who have managed to obtain forged identification documents, thereby giving employers who hire them the veneer of legality, and to catch illegal aliens, immigration officers should investigate every company that turns in an invalid Social Security number on tax forms because most illegals who have forged immigration documents are using fake Social Security numbers.

Fouled Federal Policy

As an added method to foil the free movement of illegals through our society, the federal government and state governments must stop accepting foreign I.D. cards for important transactions: buying a house, taking out loans, enrolling children in school, and getting a driver's license. There is no reason to accept them. If a foreigner is here legally, he has proper identification such as a passport or a green card.

The identification most often used by illegals from Mexico is the matricula consular card. These cards are so widely abused that illegals already in our country go to consulate offices and are basically handed a card. They are a completely insecure form of identification, and Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) has testified that illegals have been caught with as many as four of these cards, all with their pictures on them but issued under different names. Almost unbelievably, under President Bush, the Treasury Department told banks to accept the cards as legal identification.

Without the enticement of employment opportunities to draw them or the ability to live here with impunity, illegal immigrants will be discouraged from coming to America. Likewise, the knowledge that they will be swiftly deported if they ever come in contact with a government official (think police) would also discourage many.

To further add to the effectiveness of our immigration policy, the citizenship lure must be used to our advantage, instead of our disadvantage. In the United States, if an illegal immigrant bears a child, that child is considered to be a citizen and immediately qualifies for welfare benefits--Medicaid and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income. These babies are called "anchor babies" because the government seldom sends their families out of the country. Between 300,000 and 350,000 are born each year.

Congress can remedy this problem by clarifying the principle of the 14th Amendment (which is used as the justification behind giving citizenship to illegals) to, in essence, make the 14th Amendment "mean what it means." According to George Detweiler, a lawyer specializing in constitutional issues, the 14th Amendment was never intended to "extend citizenship to someone born in America to parents who are here illegally." (See article on page 30.)

Congress can make the clarification about citizenship and then forbid the federal courts to hear cases dealing with similar legislation to stop the courts from becoming "activist" and reinterpreting the meaning of the 14th Amendment to suit its whims. As part of the carrot and stick approach to immigration, Congress should pass a law that says that no person who is caught in the United States illegally will ever be granted U.S. citizenship.

Visa Reform

Finally, we should eliminate several types of immigration visas--not create new types of visas, as many congressmen are proposing, whereby illegals can easily hop from one type of visa to another and essentially make their stay permanent by taking advantage of government bureaucracy.

A type of visa that should be eliminated entirely is the Diversity Visa. This type of visa allows 50,000 people annually to immigrate to the United States from countries where we do not usually get many immigrants. Its purpose is strictly to enhance immigrant variety as to geographic regions, and it requires almost no real educational requirements. This is a foolish feel-good policy. Visas that the United States gives out should be based upon the idea that the immigrant will provide a real tangible economic benefit in a field where there truly is a shortage of qualified American workers.

One type of proposed visa that needs to be avoided, which has the support of the White House, is the "W" visa, short for World Visa, which would supposedly match willing workers from around the world with willing employers throughout the country. This is basically a visa that provides for unlimited immigration of low-wage workers so that employers can drive down wages in job markets.

Going hand in hand with limiting visas, immigration officials need to immediately follow up on people who have overstayed their visas to evict them. Before the present mass influx of illegal immigrants from our southern border, more illegals got into our country by overstaying their visas than by crossing our borders.

The fact that we need to regulate and limit immigration is common sense. Besides the present and future negative economic consequences of mass immigration, we have suffered the devastation of September 11, 2001 and know that various terrorist and criminal groups actively seek to attack our citizens.

Amnesty plans, like the one President Bush is pushing, leave our citizens extremely vulnerable by encouraging mass illegal immigration to such an extent that our border patrol cannot stop the human rush. Plus, the increased numbers of foreign-born residents provide myriad potential safe-havens for terrorists and criminals, making them hard to catch. These approaches to immigration are not in the best interests of the citizens of this nation.