A Fair Immigration Law

The current immigration bill passed by the Senate is not even close to fair. It will bring 30 million new legal immigrants, nearly all from Mexico. That is a third of Mexico's population. Depopulating Mexico is not fair to the Mexican people. The potato famine caused so many people to flee Ireland, and Ireland still has not recovered. Bringing 30 million mostly unskilled immigrants is not fair to poor people in this country. How will poor African-Americans, poor Hispanic-Americans, poor Native Americans, poor Asian-Americans and even poor white Americans manage to get jobs with 30 million more people completing for those jobs?

The only people who benefit from this bill are rich people.

How is this bill fair to people who followed the rules when they came here?

The only way to have a fair bill is for illegal immigrants to have significant disadvantages as they are legalized, so that we do not create perverse incentives.  Here is a somewhat brain-stormed proposal:

• The bill will be no more than ninety pages long.
• The bill will be debated using normal rules.
• All non-criminal illegal immigrants will be placed on the amnestied registry as soon as they apply, or if they are caught.  We aren't going to deport people.  It's too heartless.
• The amnestied registry will include bio-metric identification, including DNA.
• Any employer who knowingly employs an illegal immigrant will be fined.  Use of E-Verify will be a positive defense against such fines.  Once an illegal immigrant has been amnestied, no further fines will apply.
• The minimum wage for amnestied immigrants shall be twenty-five percent higher than it is for other immigrants and American citizens.  This will encourage businesses to hire other immigrants and American citizens.
• Any children of illegal immigrants or amnestied immigrants shall not be citizens of the United States even if they are born here.  The children will automatically be amnestied immigrants.
• Amnestied immigrants will not have a path to citizenship while they continue to live in the U.S.  In order to obtain a green card they must legally migrate to a third country (not their country of origin) and hold a job there for five years if they were born in another country, or two years if they were born in the U.S   After that they can apply for a green card here, and if they get one, apply for citizenship in the normal manner.  This gives the amnestied immigrant a proper appreciation of what legal immigrants have gone through.
• Amnestied immigrants may not vote in any U.S. elections.
• Amnestied immigrants may not receive benefits paid by tax money, including tax subsidies, such as the earned income credit. Minor amnestied immigrants may receive primary and secondary education, and may attend state schools while paying in state tuition, provided the state agrees.
• U.S. citizens may sue public officials for damages if the public officials are not enforcing these rules.  This means public officials must actually try to catch people breaking the law.