The American Spectator

Streetcar Line

(Page 2 of 3)

Only in combination with this legitimate crackdown (unlike the Senate's fake crackdown) would the Pence bill establish a program for non-citizens to work in this country. The twist is, they could join the program only by first leaving the U.S.A. and registering outside our borders, and they could return only for a specified job.

And the employers who hire illegals rather than the readily available legal guests would be penalized severely. Furthermore, the employers would not have any reasonable excuse for being confused about whether somebody is legal or not, because the legal visitors would all have a standardized, biometric ID card. Unlike mere paper identification, biometric IDs cannot be faked.

The Pence plan says: No card, no job. And no exceptions.

In short, everybody involved would have major incentives -- incentives lacking in all other proposals under serious consideration -- to act within the newly established legal bounds in this country.

The big problem with similar ideas in the past is that they all require the already-overburdened Immigration and Naturalization Service, or the border patrol, or some other federal government outfit, to manage the entire program. Of course, INS and its federal agency brethren can't even manage enforcement of the current system, so how would they handle a complicated, multi-tiered additional system like the one Pence envisions?

Pence's answer, taken from a white paper of the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation (which promotes "democratic capitalism" and the ideals of America's founders), is that those agencies wouldn't handle any of it except for the computerized criminal background check that it already is handling routinely anyway. Instead, the program would be outsourced, competitively, to private bidders.

Repeat: Free enterprise -- the market itself -- would take care of the details.

How and why? Because the employers within the U.S. would pay them the same way employers now pay headhunters and employment agencies anyway.

p>As Pence explained in his Heritage speech: br> /p>

Imagine for a moment asking millions of people to line up at the U.S. Consulate in Mexico City to obtain a visa to come to America and work as a guest worker. It would be a disaster. Now, imagine private companies competing against each other to process guest worker applicants and match the applicants with open jobs. Imagine the application of American business ingenuity to this process. That, my friends, is why this program will work.

br> There are plenty of other details to the Pence plan, but suffice it to say that as conservatives study the plan, they continue to find that just about every question is answered and every base covered, and all according to principles conservatives hold dear. Read it for yourself to see.

For now, these other details, in no particular order, bear highlighting: First, there would be an established limit to the number of visiting workers. Second, there would be a time limit on their stay. Third, they would have to pass an English proficiency test after two years. Fourth, they would be required to undergo a health screening before coming. Fifth, they must pay taxes just like American citizens. Sixth, they would not be able to be hired until after the employer could show it had made an effort to hire existing Americans.

And so on, in commonsense provision after commonsense provision.

topics:
Taxes, Business, Law, Immigration