The Missing Piece of the Immigration Puzzle

Tehis has been an interesting week in the midst of the decades long struggle over illegal immigration. The Border Angels have had over 500,000 people in the streets of downtown Los Angeles and elsewhere in response to a radical House proposal to make "aiding and abetting" illegals a felony (a proposal that is quite alarming when taken in conjuction with the $386 Million Homeland Security Contract with Halliburton/KBR to build "Emergency Detention Centers"), and create a 700 mile fence on the southern border (to the tune of yet another $2 Billion), contrasted with a much more moderate proposal from the Senate which offers a pathway to legality for some of those 11 Million undocumented people currently residing on our shores.

But all of these proposal ignore the basic question of inequity that has brought us to this point, and will no doubt bring us back - why are certain people force to seek illegal means to enter the country while others (like the 9-11 hijackers) are granted free passage?

Why do we let some people in, and other people are forced to jump a fence, crawl through tunnels and run across the desert?

Student Protests Continue in LA

It's a basic question, but I no one seems to ask it. Sure we frequently talk about the lack of economic oppurtunity in their natives lands, and we sometimes may mention the crime and curruption, the environmental devestation cause by the U.S. deforestation policy in Central America... but why is it that able-bodied, law-abiding, hard-working people are being turned away at our borders and are force to take their chances with "Coyotes" in order to find a better way of life?

Some of the latest stats indicate that in California's case, immigrant workers provide at $100 Billion boost to the economy while only using $6 in State services. So economics isn't a valid reason.

As I wrote in a post about the Minutemen months ago.

The answer may reside with the U.S. State Dept. Visas offered by the State Dept to immigrants from various nations are limited by a quota. Quotas of this type began to first be established in 1882 when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, as the scare of the "Yellow Menace" began to rise and the need for railroad workers (who were primarily Chinese) began to wane. In the 1920's there was the "Red Scare" and in the 1940's the internment of Japanese Americans. In the 21st century we like to consider ourselves more 'enlightened' than we were in the past, yet these types of quotas remain.

Here is an excerpt from the State Department Visa Bulletin for April 2006 which outlines just some of the quotas they use to determine whether Visa will be granted or not.

FAMILY-SPONSORED PREFERENCES

First: Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Citizens: 23,400 plus any numbers not required for fourth preference.

Second: Spouses and Children, and Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Permanent Residents: 114,200, plus the number (if any) by which the worldwide family preference level exceeds 226,000, and any unused first preference numbers:

A. Spouses and Children: 77% of the overall second preference limitation, of which 75% are exempt from the per-country limit;

B. Unmarried Sons and Daughters (21 years of age or older): 23% of the overall second preference limitation.

Third: Married Sons and Daughters of Citizens: 23,400, plus any numbers not required by first and second preferences.

Fourth: Brothers and Sisters of Adult Citizens: 65,000, plus any numbers not required by first three preferences.

EMPLOYMENT-BASED PREFERENCES

First: Priority Workers: 28.6% of the worldwide employment-based preference level, plus any numbers not required for fourth and fifth preferences.

Second: Members of the Professions Holding Advanced Degrees or Persons of Exceptional Ability: 28.6% of the worldwide employment-based preference level, plus any numbers not required by first preference.

Third: Skilled Workers, Professionals, and Other Workers: 28.6% of the worldwide level, plus any numbers not required by first and second preferences, not more than 10,000 of which to "Other Workers".

Schedule A Workers: Employment First, Second, and Third preference Schedule A applicants are entitled to up to 50,000 "recaptured" numbers.

Fourth: Certain Special Immigrants: 7.1% of the worldwide level.

Fifth: Employment Creation: 7.1% of the worldwide level, not less than 3,000 of which reserved for investors in a targeted rural or high-unemployment area, and 3,000 set aside for investors in regional centers by Sec. 610 of P.L. 102-395.

Here's a monthly breakdown by Region.

For April, immigrant numbers in the DV category are available to qualified DV-2006 applicants chargeable to all regions/eligible countries as follows. When an allocation cut-off number is shown, visas are available only for applicants with DV regional lottery rank numbers BELOW the specified allocation cut-off number:

Region	All DV Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed Separately
AFRICA	AF	16,950	Nigeria 10,900
ASIA	AS	5,350
EUROPE	EU	11,225
NORTH AMERICA (BAHAMAS)	NA	8
OCEANIA	OC	610
SOUTH AMERICA, and the CARIBBEAN	SA	975

Let me just take a second to point out that this table clearly indicates that Africa and Europe are to receive over 150 and 100 times (respectively) the number of Visa that all of South America receives (and from what I can tell, Central America including Mexico isn't even listed!!) - do I have to point out that many illegal immigrants in the country are actually Africans and Europeans who've overstayed their Visas? (Just like Moussaoui did)

This quota system needs to be abolished, plain and simple.

If someone is willing to go through the documentation process prior to entering the country, is able and willing to work to provide for themselves and has no criminal background or ties to terrorists -- they shouldn't be forced to break our immigration laws simply because we're "all full at the inn" for people from that country according to our quota system.

Any such quota system is clearly Unconstitution under the 14th Amendment ("All persons within the Jurisdiction of the State are to be granted the Equal Protection of the Law") have previously been struck down by decisions such as Bakke v U.C. Regents (which addressed school admissions - but is there really a great difference between who we feel is qualified for our schools and who we feel is qualified to enter our country?), and further is a clear violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1963 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of National Origin.

This system was established for obviously racist reasons in 1882, and it's continuance today only fosters similar racist ends. It's an arbitrary number is no more likely to protect us from those who might wish to do us harm than trying to hit a bullseye while playing a game of blinded darts would.

So far with "Guest Worker" (aka "Migrant Slave") suggestions, we've only managed to skirt the edge of the issue -- our Migration Policy is deeply flawed and needs to be fixed. Once that occurs, it won't be neccesary for anyone but those who are truly dangerous to attempt to enter illegally -- and by all means we should crack-down and protect our borders from Those people. We should create a method for those who've already entered to pay their debt to society for having committed this misdemeanor. If they fail in this, they should be deport and barred from re-entry for a number of years.

But you can't do any of this until you fix the current system to give people a reasonable chance to abide by the law. Right now that doesn't exist and until it does, we're just kicking this ball several decades down the road -- again.

Diagram of Elizabeth Detention Center

If we fail in this, we're more than likely to see the realization of those KBR Detention Centers - a virtual return to the bad-ole days of Japanese Internment during WWII, with the already horrific quality of current immigrant detention facilities, our current governments policy on torture and mistreatment, not to mention Halliburtons habit of poisoning our troops with contaminated water, these places aren't likely to much better than Modern Day Concentration Camps.

This is certainly not the direction we want to go is it?

Vyan