Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
I happened to turn on Gingrich's address today to some Latin group in Miami. The part I listened to completely were his thoughts on illegal immigration. I'll have to say, I agree with him 100%.
I guess some of those farther to the right than me have accused Gingrich of supporting amnesty for illegals who are already here. That's not what I heard at all. What he seems to embrace is a reasonable approach to dealing with 11-12 million people, many of whom have been here working and being part of their communities for decades.
Gingrich also supports a "guest worker program". Now I know there will be some who will violently object to legally permitting foreign workers into the country to do work that could be done by unemployed Americans. But, it's work that needs to be done and Americans apparently choose not to work that hard, or work for the wages that foreign workers agree to, so such a program makes sense to me. Maybe if we eliminated the generous unemployment benefits and welfare, Americans might get hungry enough to actually work.
What say all of you here in the Political forum?
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We need to be creative and consider ways illegal immigrants can earn citizenship, rather than simply insisting the only options are amnesty or deportation. Newt and Mitt both said in a recent debate that they would agree to award citizenship for those who served n the military. I would agree.
Also, how about a procedure whereby all illegals who reported themselves would be given a period (maybe seven years) to serve in the military or do two years of national service. They would have to remain free of criminal convictions. Foreign students and technicians could stay if they got and kept a job, but it would be at apprentice pay for at least 3-4 years. Employers would be allowed to hire these more skilled workers at lower pay, which would be their incentive to do so. Farmers who receive crop subsidies would be allowed to hire illegals at a specific minimum wage in lieu of full subsidy payments. Domestics and other unskilled workers could be hired at wages below the national minimum, but a tax would have to be paid by their employers to make up the difference between the paid wage and a "competitive" wage, so that citizens would not be closed out in these employment areas. So as an example, in a specific state or region, illegals could be hired for domestic work at the rate of perhaps $7 per hour, but the employer would have to pay a tax of perhaps $3 per hour since the job had a 'market value' of $10 per hour. In all cases, illegals could be eligible or citizenship after a successful probationary period of maybe 5-7 years.
I'm getting so "out of the box" here that I'm even thinking qualifying for citizenship could be partially or fully retroactive for those who met conditions like the above. But those who worked for employers who paid lower than minimum wage would have to obtain a sponsor who would pay the tax which was never collected. This tax could be paid without the source being made public, which would protect employers from prosecution for violating the previous laws against hiring illegals.
Geez, I think I'm done for now.