While at the Leadership Institute, I had the pleasure of
meeting many interesting people. One of
them was Brad Young, from Stone Mountain, GA.
He was very passionate about politics and standing up for the
issues. While he addressed the class, I
learned about his story. He emigrated from
Canada at the age of 4 and has been a Georgia resident since. Please feel free to go to his website to
learn more about Brad,
While on break during one of the sessions, Brad and I
started talking about immigration and how this hot topic could be fixed. Right now, especially after the media got a
hold of Jeb Bush’s comments and twisted them, it is important for many of us,
especially those who are either immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, to stand
together and come up with good solutions in order to implement them and make
this a non-issue. But what is the right
approach?
The first thing many people bring up is amnesty. Putting it simply, amnesty for illegal aliens
forgives their acts of illegal immigration and forgives other related illegal
acts such as driving and working with false documents. The result of an amnesty
is that large numbers of foreigners who entered the United States illegally are
rewarded with legal status (Green Card) for breaking immigration law. One of the main issues with this approach is
that it rewards those who came and did whatever they wanted, instead of
following the rules. Many immigrants,
such as my parents, came to this country legally and did not work until they
had a work visa. We came to this country
with enough savings to be able to survive.
This approach is obviously not feasible every time, as many immigrants
come to the United States for better economic opportunities or fleeing an
oppressive government. So what should we
do then? Should the country that was founded by immigrants, built by immigrants,
and which was once synonymous with the Emma Lazarus quote “Give me your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” just kick all illegal
immigrants out?
Rather than an all or nothing approach, we discussed doing
some sort of phased approach. One
suggestion was having all illegal immigrants register with the US without the
fear of deportation, unless they have been arrested before or have some
disqualifying factors. Next, the
government would give them a work permit and allow them to start working and
paying taxes, perhaps while also paying an extra fee as an immigrant attempting
to gain legal status. After a set amount
of time, they could gain legal resident status, then they could proceed to
apply for citizenship according to the existing process. This process would also only apply to people
who apply for the program by the specific date, in order to discourage
additional illegal immigrants from continuing to illegally cross our border
thinking that they will be eventually forgiven, and encourage immigration
through the proper channels.
What are your thoughts on dealing with immigration?
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