worldwidetraveler said:
Which western county has a quicker path to citizenship? 7 years sounds normal if you compare other countries.
Making something easier so others don't cheat the system is a somewhat dubious thought process.
Maybe as a matter of principal. You could say the same thing about drug policy.
Government policy only goes so far. The will of the individual human is greater than any government entity.
You can imprison half your population; people are still going to smoke weed. And what's happened in recent years? More and more legislation de-criminalizing marijuana.
In regards to immigration, there should be less attention placed on illegal immigrants and more attention placed on employers. There's got to be a better way to sponsor an employee for citizenship or an extended work visa as the current process is too costly and bureaucratic.
I'll give you my personal anecdote:
Dishwashers are hard to find. It's insane. Even Mexicans are over it. It's rare that I get a Mexican dishwasher that speaks fluent English. If they can speak English, they've got a better job somewhere else. So I only get guys from dusty little northern towns in Sonora or Chihuahua that speak zero to little English. If and when these guys leave, I've got a job opening. I know with 100% of my heart that job will be filled by another non-English speaking Mexican, Central American, or Filipino.
Sometimes they're legal; most of the time they're not. There seems to be this rhetoric that all illegal immigrants come here and take cash-under-the-table jobs. I'm sure that's true in some fields, but not here. These guys can go to MacArthur Park and there are a few guys there that sling fake I.D.s and social security cards for 50 bucks. So they get their cards, show up to the hotel, "Estoy buscando un trabajo", and I get them started. I fill out an I-9 and W-4 so they're in the system just like a regular employee. We deduct income tax which goes straight to Uncle Sam, the only thing that gets iffy is their Social Security tax since they're using an alias, but the money goes in regardless.
So these guys are illegal, but they're paying into the system. They're taking a job no-one else will. They're making sure our rich folks in the restaurant get nice clean plates to eat off of. For the most part they live a quiet existence, don't drink, and live with 5 of their cousins and send half the money back home. In some cases they move the family up here, some of them have kids, and bingo it's a new round of American citizens living the dream.
What exactly is the problem with this scenario? Before you answer with "They're sending money outside of the U.S." keep in mind there are no white kids that apply to dishwashing positions. I've seen like 2 in 13 years, and these guys were one foot out of jail. Even if the job paid $15 an hour I promise you I would not be getting white dishwashers. I've put job postings on recruitement registries with agencies that get people off the streets. They'd rather live on the streets than wash dishes.
This is the scale we're working with. These are not retail jobs where you stand around in slacks and sneakers. This is old fashioned manual labor. The jobs are so shitty that you can barely find legal immigrants to take them, you have to go with illegal. It takes some hardworking grunt from the deserts of northern Mexico, a gang infested town in Central America, some skin-and-bones kid fresh off the boat from Haiti, or a guy living in a 3rd world cinder block in the Philippines to want to work as a dishwasher.
America has always been a nation of immigrants. It's the very basis of our economy. Instead of having a closed door policy, it would be wiser to regulate it in a sustainable fashion.
