The answer to the growing immigration quagmire created by Congress is twofold: Republicans need to represent the vast majority of Americans and not a minority of extremists, and the solution is still all about jobs.
You don’t have to go far to see the needlessly excruciating effects of America’s broken and bullying immigration policy. Thousands of immigrants, mainly from Central America, South America and Mexico, huddle outside tents across the metroplex eager to help build their lives and the community.
They are mishandled when they cross into southern border states.
They are mishandled when they encounter immigration officials in those states.
They are cruelly loaded into buses by corrupt and callous state officials like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and turned into political weapons, aiming for Democratic cities like New York, Chicago and metro Denver.
Overwhelming those communities, which are dangerous to the unhoused in winter, tens of thousands of immigrants are shuffled and shuttled about like cattle, not people.
Americans don’t like it, and they don’t want it.
Poll after poll makes it clear that the large majority of Americans value immigration and they want comprehensive and workable reforms.
Two-thirds of Americans consider immigration a “good thing for the country,” as they told Gallup pollsters this summer after yet another debacle caused by border security policy, this time as Title 42 ended.
American immigration policy stands out as one of the nation’s most catastrophic and humiliating failures by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Already useless immigration policy concocted by the Obama Administration was weaponized during the Trump presidential campaign and deployed during his dismal term in office.
Vastly expensive and wasteful remnants of Trump’s notorious “great wall” along segments of the southern border stand as testament to Trump’s insidious exploitation of a minority of Americans’ fear or disdain for immigrants, and especially immigrants who are people of color.
The answer is clear and easy: Provide these immigrants with worker permits and let them work.
The nation is desperate for workers across endless industries and segments. The nation already has a system that allows non-citizens to register and legally work for variable amounts of time.
There are already millions of undocumented immigrants getting around employment, tax and other laws, often exploited by businesses or coyote employers.
The nation only needs a worker permit system and the determination to seek out and punish businesses that violate the law, hiring workers without documentation.
Consider these facts that the Sentinel and others have offered before:
• There are an estimated 12 million undo undocumented immigrants in the United States. Officials estimate greater Aurora is home to about 130,000 undocumented immigrants.
• Many of these immigrants are already integrated into our communities. They have jobs. They own cars and homes. They make more than $60 billion a year from U.S. businesses. They have children in schools. They spend vast sums of money in the community.
• They are our friends, neighbors and a daily part of our lives, distinguishable from the 40 million Americans not born in the United States only by their lack of documentation.
• Business groups and more than a few industries haven’t been shy in making it clear that these immigrants are critical to their operations. Many metro businesses can’t currently find adequate numbers of employees, even with undocumented immigrants backfilling the workforce. Removing these people from the workforce would be disastrous to the U.S. economy.
• Deporting undocumented immigrants is far from a simple matter. Many families consist of citizens and non-citizens, many with varying degrees of documentation. Tearing apart families will only lead to tragedy and increased government expense.
• The cost of rounding up, collecting from holding cells, housing, processing and deporting millions of immigrants would be astronomical. Even proponents admit that.
The answer isn’t xenophobia, racism, disinformation or a wall, it’s jobs and accountability.
Such a child’s view of the USA immigration situation. Status quo for the Sentinel Blog.
It’s not immigrants passing the southern border that have job talents. It’s family members leaving a poor country to a richer country thinking that country will take care of them because they don’t know any better.
Are employers willing to be responsible for all the migrant’s housing, clothes, food, and transportation? Will the employers also provide fair and livable wages? Medical care? Legal advise? I doubt it.
There is no “clear and easy” solution when relocating thousands of destitute people thousands of miles.
The article clearly points the finger at failed immigration policy within congress. Further, at the republicans in DC as the player of the primary policy stalemate offenders. Then certainly to that bad-bad man, Texas Greg Abbott. How could a political official “corrupt and callous” ship people away into other jurisdictions? Only if, is as you say is a corrupt official.
“They are cruelly loaded into buses by corrupt and callous state officials like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and turned into political weapons, aiming for Democratic cities like New York, Chicago and metro Denver. “
Let’s for a moment Dave, refocus on local matters something that you like to be on top off, proud to preach pontificate about. If that’s OK Dave?
@ 1:11: 30 into this Monday night Council meeting Danielle Jurinsky, unlike the Sentinel view offers a perspective of a conniving sanctuary city policy of Denver to bus illegals to Aurora and displace a cook that works for Jurinsky, in her place that has lived peacefully in the hotel for over a year.
https://www.auroratv.org/video/city-council-12-4-23
Then the follow up TV interview of the US citizen and his dog now living in his car courtesy of 9 news.
https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/people-living-in-hotel-say-they-were-pushed-out-make-room-for-migrants/73-7ce94fb5-befa-4cad-9d9d-f195245446df
And now Home Depot is having APD come out into their parking lot because there are so many wandering around from the hotel across the street. Aurora’s newest politically charged issue – illegals shipped from Venezuela via Denver holding priority over US citizens. How far are Aurora leaders prepared to let this go?
The header line is perfect – “Stop abusing immigrants”
The last bus of migrants dropped off in the metro area were from Venezuela. Why did those folks not go to much closer locations and to countries that share their language — such as Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, or Argentina? The fact that they land here without English, coats, homes, food, or diapers for their babies is the result of a long chain of personal choices.
Yes, the personal choice to travel through mountains, jungles, and swamps and then to place their trust in strangers to smuggle them across the border in hopes of a better life for them and their families. Look at an Atlas….how do you think that they get from Venezuela to our southern border on foot? Think you could do it?
Gene’s oikophobia on full display.
How sweet that you got an early Christmas present of a dictionary!
No, I could not make the 5,000 + mile trip by foot. Clearly the migrants are determined and strong. But my point is that they CHOSE to make the trip and they chose Denver—over any other city in the Americas. Their choices do not make for my/your/our emergency.
No, but their presence here does. As long as Republicans in Congress see the migrant issue as red meat for their followers, there will be no meaningful immigration policy coming from that branch of government