I came home the other day and noticed that this immigration bill issue is the big news.
I read Hugh Hewitt's breakdown by section.
Complex does not even begin to describe it. Hugh points out, among other items of interest, the vast amount of paperwork mandated by this bill and the distinct lack of funding or personnel increases to handle it. That's always a recipe for stunning, spectacular failure.
The immigration debate makes me scratch my head. I cannot fathom why we haven't secured the southern border - it strikes me a basic responsibility of government and I'm quite certain that it's another one of those problems that should be solvable if we used the throw huge amounts of money at it solution.
The Border Patrol is woefully understaffed. It seems there's authorization and money for it to grow, but it's just not happening. I wonder why not...
There's a helpful online outline of the Border Patrol Agent hiring process. An excerpt:
If you pass the written test, your name will be placed on an inventory. The inventory is maintained in score order by geographic location regardless of when you took the test. Referral for a position in a selected geographic location is dependent on the scores of the applicants that are available on the inventory when a list is issued. If you are selected, you will be sent a tentative selection package. That package will explain the further requirements for forms submission, the oral interview with a panel of Border Patrol Agents, medical and vision examination, drug test, background investigation, etc., which will need to be satisfactorily completed before a firm offer of employment can be made.I'm counting about 14 weeks to get from Step 1 through Step 4 of the process as they outline it. And there are more steps. I'm thinking that might be part of the problem. How much time do you want to put into getting hired into a position that pays $35,595 and for which you have to relocate (with no reimbursement)?
I don't have a idea for fixing the entire immigration problem. I recognize we've got people in this country illegally, and we need to find ways to either normalize their status or get them out. Although it's convenient for business and, at the far end, consumers, to have a pool of super-cheap labor, it's not worth the cost in security, and it's not right to place desperate people in a position of doing our nation's bitch work for far less than we'd pay Americans.
It's not right to put anyone through what some folks I know went through to get here illegally. The "coyotes' who smuggle people across are vicious, evil people. The crossing is not easy - people die lost in the desert. Getting here is not cheap - these immigrants sell everything they own, sell their bodies, sell their futures into indentured servitude, to get here.
We have to find a way to do this better. Step one is closing that goddam border. Step two is unfucking the process to come here and work legally.
We've got to hold our representatives' feet to the fire on securing that border. There's money involved - so they're not going to want to do it effectively or decisively. But we have to remember that the border isn't just a "Mexican issue," it's a security issue. Undocumented workers are a problem that pales in comparison to what we need to worry about coming across that border.
Our elected officials chuckle about our provincial concern with undocumented workers and take campaign contributions from companies and people who profit from that cheap labor. They spend months crafting bills that placate us and provide loopholes big enough to drive a Ryder truck through. At the same time, the next group of terrorist savages may well be slinking across that stretch of empty desert, from Nogales up to Tuscon, from Tuscon into Vegas, with far worse intent than picking oranges and sending money back home.
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