There’s been a fair bit in the news about immigration reform, and its attendant problems. I am the descendent of immigrants, legal as far as I know. My grandparents emigrated in the 1920’s to head for a land of opportunity. (Ireland was no great shakes at the time)

My first thoughts were, why not just open the borders? All someone would need is a passport or official documentation of the country they are coming from and they can enter the US. The US may even have agreements with its free-trade partners that Driver Licenses or national ID cards would be accepted in lieu of passport. Once the immigrant is in the States, they can get jobs and work per US Labor laws, i.e. they get at least minimum wage and they can report improper working conditions without fear of deportation. This may help to get rid of some sweat shops and some black-market employment practices. Additionally, they would have their FICA and income taxes withheld and fed into the governmental maws. They would even be eligible to collect SSA if they ever become citizens.

States could issue Driver licenses to these immigrants, probably with a code that identifies the country of origin, or at least non-US citizenship. The immigrants could get insurance, their families could enjoy public schools and take advantage of most things that citizens can.

Then I thought some more. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. My idea works fine for minimum wage workers, but what about the skilled professionals, the workers whose jobs are being out-sourced overseas? Suddenly, there will be a large influx of professionals (trained in US colleges) coming to work at salaries much lower than what US Companies pay today for US citizens, but much more than what they might receive back home. Then what? they’re going after my job now.

Not only that, with the depression of the middle class economy, the consumer society will evaporate; the US will end up as second or third world country (but with nucular weapons)

So maybe my idea isn’t that good and we need to start over again. Maybe we can open the borders to non-college immigrants. Make the educated ones stay at home and take the outsourced jobs.

All right, let’s rethink again. Let everyone in but employers must offer the job to US citizens (right of first refusal) and only then can they hire immigrants, if the US citizens decline, and then they must pay the immigrants what they offered the US citizens, or industry standard wages (whichever is greater.) Any employer who violates this law will be sentenced to a minimum of ten years.

I think I’m getting closer. It will behoove the educated to stay in their home countries since there will be a limited number of skilled jobs available here and those jobs will be filled by US citizens, and the employers will still be outsourcing jobs overseas. But we will have a steady flow of immigrants to handle the scut work. And their children will learn the American way and become the next generation of citizens.