Questing for Atlantis

I was looking at Andy Harris (Republican vying for the nomination in MD-01 for those unaware) issues page and his section on immigration caught my eye.

According to Harris he:

“a firm believer in LEGAL immigration”

and yet he also says that:

” I have a very simple immigration plan. Enforce the laws we have on the books and NEVER allow amnesty!!”

Is Andy really that delusional? The current laws on immigration are completely absurd. To legally become a citizen of the United States requires years and years of wait time and a large amount of money while the individual is processed through the system – and just to get permanent residence. Then, once that is achieved there is another 5 years of wait before citizenship can be applied for plus more fees.

The simple fact is that the system is hopelessly broken. As is shown in this article from the American Spectator’s website, the law itself limits employment based visas to 120,00 per year there are 1.2 million people waiting on them. This backlog is doing massive damage to our economy and encourages a great many to consider reevaluating their decision to emigrate to the United States. Seeing as these immigrants are responsible for a significant portion of new businesses, patents, and other key elements of a growing economy we simply cannot afford to hamper their entrance to the country.

Even if they are able to get visas, the current laws are still heavily structured against immigrants. Sponsorship requirements frequently tie immigrants under visas to a particular employer, effectively preventing any sort of entrepreneurial activity. This is a serious issue when inefficient government bureaucracy leads to over a decade of wait time on processing permanent residency applications (don’t scoff, it happened to my girlfriend’s family).

Finally there is the citizenship test. I’ve seen the current one. I could answer most of it, but I’m a politics junkie. I guarantee most everyone I know who is a native citizen of the United States would probably fail that test. We simply have no right to demand a test that stringent unless we make all citizens take it to maintain their citizenship.

Is it really that hard then to imagine that basic laborers (which we desperately need, the U.S. birthrate is dangerously close to the point of simply holding the economy where it is, without an influx of workers from outside it will fall below that point soon and we will be unable to grow the economy)

So if people want to get serious about illegal immigration but support legal immigration then it is simply not enough to say enforce the laws currently on the books. As it stands the system’s inefficiencies and high costs naturally drive people to come illegally. There needs to be a massive overhaul of the current laws that streamlines and sharply cuts fees involved in the immigration process and simultaneously creates significantly harsher penalties for still illegally immigrating.

And that goes to all candidates, in all elections, not just you Andy.