Letters: Getting real on immigration
Read what FORTUNE readers had to say in response.
By Justin Fox, FORTUNE editor at large

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - My request for a "better idea" on immigration ("Let's Get Real on the Immigration Problem") generated a lot of responses, a sampling of which are reproduced below.

I had argued that the changes to immigration law being proposed in Washington were all so problematic that we might be better off doing nothing at all. Readers begged to differ.

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The real issue is the emotionally difficult topic of elderly immigration into the U.S.

Mr Fox, independent of all other discussions, a debate should occur about the issue of illegal 'elderly' immigration and healthcare. Let me say right out I am very pro-immigration and am very offended by most of the anti-immigration proposals being bandied about.

However, I do need to be realistic and say that from an economic standpoint, the very large numbers of elderly parents who come over on tourist visas and never leave are a very significant economic issue. These elderly individuals are usually the parents of U.S. citizens, though they are also often the parents of legal immigrants and sometimes even illegal immigrants. They do not work, nor will they ever realistically work in the U.S.-- except for the real but difficult to quantify value of the child care/housekeeping services they provide to their kids.

The economically gut wrenching issue is that they come over at a time in their lives when people are at their most expensive to society...they utilize expensive healthcare services. I am a physician, I enjoy caring for these people, but I am almost never compensated for it.

I think that if kids are going to bring their parents into the U.S., they need to vouch for their parent's possible healthcare costs. Once they show up at a U.S. hospital, under the current rules of the U.S. healthcare system, EMTALA legislation means these elderly individuals will effectively get completely free healthcare. Just to point out the obvious, escalating U.S. healthcare costs are a very big economic issue right now.

Please note that I would not prevent the movement of elderly into the U.S. in any way, but I would place a 'tax' on it such that when elderly (or really individuals of all ages?) come into the U.S. on tourist visas, they prove healthcare insurance OR show that a U.S. citizen, business, or perhaps even an airplane ticket 'tax', would guarantee payment into the healthcare system in the eventuality they become incapacitated.

We would probably have to guarantee that our citizens would do the same in other countries. A national travel database that hospitals, physicians and labs could access, linking these illegal elderly individuals to the person responsible for the cost of their healthcare, would be a reasonable first step.

-- T.M.

***

Yes, I've got quite a few better ideas:

First of all, they are NOT immigrants. Immigrants are those people who abide by the law and enter this country legally. Immigrants are welcome to assimilate into this society as all our forefathers did. They are illegal foreigners -- simply foreigners who are here illegally. Refer to them as such: Illegal foreigners!

Enforce the laws that already exist and increase the fines on employers of illegal foreigners to the point that the fines support the INS and Border Patrol agencies' budgets and help pay for the wall/fence/border monitors that will allow us to control our borders. A baseline fine of $10,000 per illegal foreigner with an additional $200 per day of employment might make a difference. If not, increase the amounts or add jail time.

Stop the current $30 billion in U.S. aid money going to Mexico and use it to help control our borders. Tell President Fox that the U.S. will not solve his country's financial fiascoes!

Impose a 10 percent tax on money leaving the country, both private and corporate. U.S. dollars sent 'home' to Mexico is that country's second largest source of revenue. Use this to help control our borders.

Improve the visa process in Mexico to allow better access to the legal immigrants who want to come here.

Any illegal foreigner convicted of serious crime (auto theft, burglary, theft, DUI, assault, battery, etc.) and not jailed must be deported. All illegal foreigners who are released from prison (currently 33 percent of convicts in CA are illegal foreigners) must be deported to their home country and not just across the border but fly them as far away as possible.

This country needs to control our current national worker ID -- the Social Security number. The government would have to improve its control and treatment of false IDs. New cards with mag strip information, biometric identifiers, photos and fingerprints must be required of all workers. This will help employers, reduce identity theft, and help to control our borders Such cards would be required before any government benefit (excepting medical) could be processed: welfare, unemployment, higher education, loans, etc.

These steps might improve the current situation but I seriously doubt the politicians would endorse any of them.

-- G. V.

***

Let's just face facts and admit we can't build a fence and keep them out. So knowing we are going to get stuck with the cost of educating them, paying their medical bills when they don't and anything else, let's put the pressure on their employers to subtract their taxes plus some extra fund to cover these extra costs they bring.

I don't mind them being here if they pay their share.

-- M. Z.

***

Dear Mr Fox,

On the subject of "Immigration: Getting U.S. Policy Right." the answer to "the famed Columbia economist" Jagdish Bhagwati's question "Why not leave things be?" will not be arrived at by dismissing those who express views with which you do not agree as "extremist." By such measure, your advocacy for continued law-breaking is itself extremist. Way to go, Che!

The genius of our Constitutional Republic, in theory anyway, is that our rights and freedoms are protected because we are a nation of laws, not a nation of whatever latest whim or brain flatulence some despot or local police official has experienced.

Either we are a nation of laws, or we are not. Now, the realpolitik of herding ten millions of illegal immigrants back across the border and the logistical nightmare such an action would entail pretty much guarantees that it will never happen. Tancredo's bill merely makes them "more" illegal, just as burning the corpse of an executed man makes him "more" dead, or ignoring FISA to trample the moribund 4th renders it more meaningless.

However even libertarians need laws. One could argue that excessive and unfair regulation has made the U.S. noncompetitive and so businesses, large and small, must, in accordance with some invisible moral code (mo' money), hire undocumented workers to get around the onerous surtaxes of minimum wages, OSHA, Social Security, insurance, etc. So its only natural that the current practice of ignoring the law while the government winks and nods and pocketing the savings is so appealing to businesses. It's a form of corporate welfare.

But those same acolytes of Ayn Rand are the first to screech and cry for the government to preserve their precious intellectual property (Britney Spears' latest CD?) from evil ChiCom pirates. Some laws simply must be enforced according to these hypocrites, despite the same likelihood of success as evidenced by the current border fiasco, or the illicit drug trade (curiously linked).

Probably the best resolution will be for the House and Senate to compromise -- giving Tancredo his Berlin wall, and granting "less illegal" status to those already here, and the lawbreaking businesses will get a slap on the wrist, the felonious language replaced by mild fines, and the fiction of separate and coequal branches of government will continue apace for the wage-stagnated rubes for another few years.

-- J. C.

***

Mr. Fox,

Your recent article on the immigration debate indicated that we may need to "leave things be" and ended with the question "have you got a better idea?" I do, in fact, have a better idea, and it is an approach that seems to be woefully absent from discussion.

The answer is to bring in legal guest workers from the poorest countries in the world and pay them lower wages than the current illegal immigrants will accept.

A quick example:

Haiti has a labor pool of 3.6 million, 2/3 of whom have no steady employment. The average wage for a textile factory supervisor is $2.60 a day. The U.S. government can screen for healthy workers, import them for industries that claim to be dependent on illegal immigrant labor (agriculture) and collect payment from their employers.

The employer will pay $5.15 an hour for each guest worker. For every hour worked, the guest worker will be able to send $1 home to their families ($8 per day is three times what a lucky supervisor currently makes). The other $4.15 per hour can be used to feed (using our agricultural surplus) and house (barrack/dormitory style) the guest workers by the American government, plus have enough left over to help our own country's poor.

This plan will decrease the cost of American products, create a new class of consumers that America can sell to, force out current illegal workers, provide an outlet for our agriculture surplus, just to name a few benefits.

People may say we're exploiting the poor, but the fact remains that millions of people around the world are starving to death. (If Mexico is so destitute, then how do they boast the world's third richest man, Carlos Slim Helu?) If we "leave things be" we are sentencing millions of people to death. I didn't explain the details of the idea for the sake of brevity, however, I wonder why is no one in the media discussing this idea?

Regards,

-- K. B.

***

Yes, I do have a better idea than the "famed" economist. The notion that we can retain the status quo is ludicrous because that would mean more illegals in the future. Already, illegal aliens present security risks and impose tremendous future burdens on hospitals, schools, and police agencies in America.

There's no need to deport the 11 million illegal aliens. Penalize employers who hire illegal aliens, the job market for them will dry up, and the magnet luring illegals will be gone. They know the way home and will take it.

Also, border enforcement is crucial in a time of terrorism. Implement fences in dense areas and techno-borders elsewhere. The idea that America can put a man on the moon in 1969 yet not control its borders is absurd.

-- J. F.

***

"There is no serious economic argument to be made against immigration." How about overpopulation? The rate of immigration (legal and illegal) is accelerating rapidly. The uneducated immigrants who make up the bulk of them produce far more offspring on average than native U.S. citizens.

The U.S. population is projected to explode as the current immigration rate continues to grow. The pressures on the environment will add up to more pollution, more demand for scarce resources (like water which is already causing problems), etc.

This will undoubtedly increase the cost of living as limited natural resources meet ever growing demand, increased health costs as pollution rises, increased insurance costs as natural disasters arise due to environmental degradation (i.e. more fires, landslides, etc as land is continuously cleared for more housing). These are economic costs.

So I disagree, there is an economic argument to be made against immigration. But never mind the economic argument.

What about quality of life? Have you ever lived for any length of time in a country with an extreme population density. If you have, I bet you would not favor the same here in the U.S.

The U.S. has enjoyed a very high standard of living. I doubt that our children and grandchildren will enjoy the same if the rate of immigration continues its pace. Americans would be forced to modify their lifestyles and reduce their environmental footprint and consumption. I'm not saying they shouldn't do this anyway, but I doubt many Americans would prefer this over reduced or stabilized immigration rates.

To those who say "We are a nation of immigrants" as if that means we have to keep the inflow constantly pouring indefinitely, I say for how long? We are a developed country now and settled coast to coast. We encouraged immigration in the past because we were a relatively unpopulated and not fully developed country. That's surely not the case now. We need to include these issues in the dialogue about immigration, but I rarely see them raised.

-- W. F.

***

Justin,

Thanks for finally highlighting the single most important flaw in the whole immigration system. For legal immigrants, it's so clogged up (i.e., existing staff just cannot handle the workload) that really highly qualified people are getting fed-up and will have to go elsewhere.

Having lived through the entire ordeal (and also going through it now), I can tell you that this is probably the single most angst-causing factor in the folks who arrive into this country to find a path to legal immigration (through higher education and employment via H1Bs etc).

I am surprised that Jagdish Bhagwati did not get it. Maybe he emigrated to the U.S. back in the 1960s when there were no hassles to people even getting permanent residencies and citizenships. Anyone coming to this country in the last two decades will tell you exactly the opposite story.

Doing nothing is not the answer. Being proactively selective is the right way to go.

I think that a highly researched piece with some policy guidelines will be of great public benefit, and you should take that on and publish it, maybe as a book or a series of articles. There needs to be a substantive dialogue that is beneficial to all parties involved.

-- S. C.

***

Dear Mr. Fox,

Yes, there are numerous ideas better than "doing nothing," as suggested by your article. Status quo does not equal progress, but stagnation; stagnation does not equal life, but death. Is that what we want for ourselves?

Our undocumented immigrants have paid great prices to live here; would you? Would you leave everything you've ever known, say good-bye to your dearest without knowing if you'd ever see them again? Would you venture and walk across the desert for a couple of days, without so much as a map? Or hide in a car trunk, praying you go undiscovered?

Would you work ten hours worth of hard, physical work, and then take a three-hour English as a Second Language class? Or go for your GED? Would you accept the pay of $5.15? Would you fight or run away?

Undocumented immigrants don't "do nothing;" perhaps we, the United States of America, the greatest country in the world, should follow their example and do what it takes to make progress, which will, in turn, bring life.

-- V. M.

__________________________

Letters have been edited for grammar, spelling and clarity. Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.