• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

A high "bang for the buck" approach to abating illegal immigration

Xelor

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
Messages
10,257
Reaction score
4,161
Location
Washington, D.C.
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Undisclosed
The current penalty structure -- largely civil rather than criminal, and not pricey enough to affect the value proposition of hiring illegals -- combined with folks' reticence to report firms that violate the laws and Congress having appropriated nothing remotely like enough to enable comprehensive enforcement (i.e., enough auditors/examiners to make the likelihood of getting caught having hired unauthorized workers fairly high). And there's no way that such changes in the approach to enforcing extant laws proscribing the employment of undocumented immigrants can or would cost $10B, which, for perspective's sake, is just shy of the total budget of the IRS.

Suggested changes to 8 U.S. Code § 1324a - Unlawful employment of aliens:
  • Eliminate the "good faith" compliance section and leave decisions of that nature to judges and juries
    • This can be removed because in this digital age, there's really no excuse for an employer not to be able to accurately, using positive verification methods, verify an applicant's employment status. I mean, really. I can go online and enter my mother's information and obtain all her and Dad's (now deceased) information, and their records were created long before anything was digital, yet somehow it's in those databases, which means someone transferred it there from ages old hard-copy documents. My "stuff" is no different.
  • Increase the penalties, make executives, firms and mid-level managers subject to the penalties, and create a tier structure for penalties.
    • Increase --> The value of the civil penalty must make it unprofitable to be caught using unauthorized workers.
    • Personal liability shared up the management hierarchy to the top --> If a C-level person and the HR manager and the other managers in between can each be held financially accountable for hiring unauthorized workers, one can be sure that the firm at which those folks work will do what it takes to find a way to confirm that each and every employee is authorized to work there.
    • Tier structure --> The point of the penalty isn't to drive a violator out of business, but rather to make sure they feel material financial pain if they get caught as violators. Accordingly, it doesn't make sense to fine a small firm the same sum one'd fine a multibillion dollar firm, nor does it make sense to fine, say, an HR manager or clerk as much as one'd fine an operations EVP or COO/CFO. To mete out pain while not destroying the firm, financial civil penalties need to be matched to the violating organization's/individual's earnings. For instance, the penalty might be defined as 5% of the present value (as of the day judgement/verdict is rendered) of the firm's/person's gross annual earnings/compensation as of some measurement date.
  • Criminalize all violations after the first one and make any criminal violation felonious with a mandatory and inescapable minimum sentence of one year.
  • Convert the statue to one of strict liability where the government needs to show that a defendant (1) engaged an unauthorized worker to do work for money. (Unauthorized workers' volunteering would not be illegal.)
Impacts of the above changes:
  • Word will get out to illegal immigrants that nobody is going to hire them. They won't come if they know they have no prospect of being hired to work.
    • The US is a horrible place to be and have no source of income.
    • One can stay where one is an be unemployed; there's neither need nor point in traveling anywhere to do that...unless one has a legitimate reason to seek asylum.
  • Nobody wants a felony "rap sheet" for failing to perform administrative due diligence.
  • Nobody wants to pay a material sum of money as a fine for failing to perform administrative due diligence.
What is supplied in the US that illegal immigrants come to or stay in the US to obtain? Basically work and/or the opportunity to work so they can earn money. If the supply of work available to illegal immigrants is dramatically reduced, folks, illegals will neither come nor illegally stay after having come legally because that which they seek simply isn't here found. The above described legislative revisions (1) create a landscape whereby the only legit reasons for non-citizens to come to and remain in the US is to work legally, seek asylum, or to be a tourist and (2) make uneconomic hiring unauthorized workers.
 
The problem seems to be a lack of federal enforcement. The odds of any business being visited by ICE/ERO agents is slim to none.
 
The problem seems to be a lack of federal enforcement. The odds of any business being visited by ICE/ERO agents is slim to none.

That is a very simply, comparatively inexpensive and easily overcome "problem."
 
That is a very simply, comparatively inexpensive and easily overcome "problem."

Nothing which involves congress fits that (bolded above) description. We now have about 10X as many federal airport nannies (TSA agents) as we have ICE/ERO agents. In fact, the combined police forces of Boston, MA and Baltimore, MD have about the same number of officers as the federal ICE/ERO force assigned to 'patrol' the entire US interior.

Once congress places a sufficient number of 'loopholes' to protect campaign cash donors any such legislation will have little impact. Many such laws apply only to "large" employers even though many (most?) work for "small" employers. I believe that last "universal" E-Verify law was watered down so as to apply only to new hires by "large" employers.
 
I thought the OP was about a new hairstyle, my bad.....
 
The current penalty structure -- largely civil rather than criminal, and not pricey enough to affect the value proposition of hiring illegals -- combined with folks' reticence to report firms that violate the laws and Congress having appropriated nothing remotely like enough to enable comprehensive enforcement (i.e., enough auditors/examiners to make the likelihood of getting caught having hired unauthorized workers fairly high). And there's no way that such changes in the approach to enforcing extant laws proscribing the employment of undocumented immigrants can or would cost $10B, which, for perspective's sake, is just shy of the total budget of the IRS.

Suggested changes to 8 U.S. Code § 1324a - Unlawful employment of aliens:
  • Eliminate the "good faith" compliance section and leave decisions of that nature to judges and juries
    • This can be removed because in this digital age, there's really no excuse for an employer not to be able to accurately, using positive verification methods, verify an applicant's employment status. I mean, really. I can go online and enter my mother's information and obtain all her and Dad's (now deceased) information, and their records were created long before anything was digital, yet somehow it's in those databases, which means someone transferred it there from ages old hard-copy documents. My "stuff" is no different.
  • Increase the penalties, make executives, firms and mid-level managers subject to the penalties, and create a tier structure for penalties.
    • Increase --> The value of the civil penalty must make it unprofitable to be caught using unauthorized workers.
    • Personal liability shared up the management hierarchy to the top --> If a C-level person and the HR manager and the other managers in between can each be held financially accountable for hiring unauthorized workers, one can be sure that the firm at which those folks work will do what it takes to find a way to confirm that each and every employee is authorized to work there.
    • Tier structure --> The point of the penalty isn't to drive a violator out of business, but rather to make sure they feel material financial pain if they get caught as violators. Accordingly, it doesn't make sense to fine a small firm the same sum one'd fine a multibillion dollar firm, nor does it make sense to fine, say, an HR manager or clerk as much as one'd fine an operations EVP or COO/CFO. To mete out pain while not destroying the firm, financial civil penalties need to be matched to the violating organization's/individual's earnings. For instance, the penalty might be defined as 5% of the present value (as of the day judgement/verdict is rendered) of the firm's/person's gross annual earnings/compensation as of some measurement date.
  • Criminalize all violations after the first one and make any criminal violation felonious with a mandatory and inescapable minimum sentence of one year.
  • Convert the statue to one of strict liability where the government needs to show that a defendant (1) engaged an unauthorized worker to do work for money. (Unauthorized workers' volunteering would not be illegal.)
Impacts of the above changes:
  • Word will get out to illegal immigrants that nobody is going to hire them. They won't come if they know they have no prospect of being hired to work.
    • The US is a horrible place to be and have no source of income.
    • One can stay where one is an be unemployed; there's neither need nor point in traveling anywhere to do that...unless one has a legitimate reason to seek asylum.
  • Nobody wants a felony "rap sheet" for failing to perform administrative due diligence.
  • Nobody wants to pay a material sum of money as a fine for failing to perform administrative due diligence.
What is supplied in the US that illegal immigrants come to or stay in the US to obtain? Basically work and/or the opportunity to work so they can earn money. If the supply of work available to illegal immigrants is dramatically reduced, folks, illegals will neither come nor illegally stay after having come legally because that which they seek simply isn't here found. The above described legislative revisions (1) create a landscape whereby the only legit reasons for non-citizens to come to and remain in the US is to work legally, seek asylum, or to be a tourist and (2) make uneconomic hiring unauthorized workers.

Great post from the law enforcement perspective. I'm 5th generation Irish from the potato famine and am automatically sympathetic to immigrants. I don't think I am alone on that thought. We are a young Nation (relatively) and are all immigrants. It might be legal and correct, but I'd never vote for it.
/
 
The current penalty structure -- largely civil rather than criminal, and not pricey enough to affect the value proposition of hiring illegals -- combined with folks' reticence to report firms that violate the laws and Congress having appropriated nothing remotely like enough to enable comprehensive enforcement (i.e., enough auditors/examiners to make the likelihood of getting caught having hired unauthorized workers fairly high). And there's no way that such changes in the approach to enforcing extant laws proscribing the employment of undocumented immigrants can or would cost $10B, which, for perspective's sake, is just shy of the total budget of the IRS.

Suggested changes to 8 U.S. Code § 1324a - Unlawful employment of aliens:
  • Eliminate the "good faith" compliance section and leave decisions of that nature to judges and juries
    • This can be removed because in this digital age, there's really no excuse for an employer not to be able to accurately, using positive verification methods, verify an applicant's employment status. I mean, really. I can go online and enter my mother's information and obtain all her and Dad's (now deceased) information, and their records were created long before anything was digital, yet somehow it's in those databases, which means someone transferred it there from ages old hard-copy documents. My "stuff" is no different.
  • Increase the penalties, make executives, firms and mid-level managers subject to the penalties, and create a tier structure for penalties.
    • Increase --> The value of the civil penalty must make it unprofitable to be caught using unauthorized workers.
    • Personal liability shared up the management hierarchy to the top --> If a C-level person and the HR manager and the other managers in between can each be held financially accountable for hiring unauthorized workers, one can be sure that the firm at which those folks work will do what it takes to find a way to confirm that each and every employee is authorized to work there.
    • Tier structure --> The point of the penalty isn't to drive a violator out of business, but rather to make sure they feel material financial pain if they get caught as violators. Accordingly, it doesn't make sense to fine a small firm the same sum one'd fine a multibillion dollar firm, nor does it make sense to fine, say, an HR manager or clerk as much as one'd fine an operations EVP or COO/CFO. To mete out pain while not destroying the firm, financial civil penalties need to be matched to the violating organization's/individual's earnings. For instance, the penalty might be defined as 5% of the present value (as of the day judgement/verdict is rendered) of the firm's/person's gross annual earnings/compensation as of some measurement date.
  • Criminalize all violations after the first one and make any criminal violation felonious with a mandatory and inescapable minimum sentence of one year.
  • Convert the statue to one of strict liability where the government needs to show that a defendant (1) engaged an unauthorized worker to do work for money. (Unauthorized workers' volunteering would not be illegal.)
Impacts of the above changes:
  • Word will get out to illegal immigrants that nobody is going to hire them. They won't come if they know they have no prospect of being hired to work.
    • The US is a horrible place to be and have no source of income.
    • One can stay where one is an be unemployed; there's neither need nor point in traveling anywhere to do that...unless one has a legitimate reason to seek asylum.
  • Nobody wants a felony "rap sheet" for failing to perform administrative due diligence.
  • Nobody wants to pay a material sum of money as a fine for failing to perform administrative due diligence.
What is supplied in the US that illegal immigrants come to or stay in the US to obtain? Basically work and/or the opportunity to work so they can earn money. If the supply of work available to illegal immigrants is dramatically reduced, folks, illegals will neither come nor illegally stay after having come legally because that which they seek simply isn't here found. The above described legislative revisions (1) create a landscape whereby the only legit reasons for non-citizens to come to and remain in the US is to work legally, seek asylum, or to be a tourist and (2) make uneconomic hiring unauthorized workers.

Good luck getting any increased penalties or increased money for enforcement out of Congress.

It's just not going to happen.
 
Good luck getting any increased penalties or increased money for enforcement out of Congress.

It's just not going to happen.

But you're going to spend $5b on a small portion of Trump's wall, without ever seeing reputable studies saying that's a cost effective strategy for limiting illegal immigration and drug smuggling?

Does that make sense mycroft?
 
But you're going to spend $5b on a small portion of Trump's wall, without ever seeing reputable studies saying that's a cost effective strategy for limiting illegal immigration and drug smuggling?

Does that make sense mycroft?

We've seen how effective wall are in other countries.

But hey...do a study. Let me know what you find.
 
You have to accept a fact of life: both political parties are lying to you.

Business and politicians are in quiet agreement that due to our low middle class birth rate we need to “juice” the economy with young, horny, fertile young couples who work cheap but avail their kids of a first rate education. These young people are mobile and will move to where the work is and wont wait around like a cargo cult, waiting for jobs to find them.

We don’t have a constitutional method of clearing out the slums and relocating the residents to where the work is. We could send in work busses, but when Mary-Sue trips and falls down the stairs and skins her knee, she sues for ten million.
 
You have to accept a fact of life: both political parties are lying to you.

Business and politicians are in quiet agreement that due to our low middle class birth rate we need to “juice” the economy with young, horny, fertile young couples who work cheap but avail their kids of a first rate education. These young people are mobile and will move to where the work is and wont wait around like a cargo cult, waiting for jobs to find them.

We don’t have a constitutional method of clearing out the slums and relocating the residents to where the work is. We could send in work busses, but when Mary-Sue trips and falls down the stairs and skins her knee, she sues for ten million.

Red:
That is the rational course of action to take if one wants a job and not extant where one finds oneself is a job one can obtain and that satisfies one's demand for a job. Obviously not everyone behaves rationally; however, the positive and adverse consequences of one's irrational labor-selling behavior are one's, not the government's, to bear.


ETA:
Rephrasing of the first sentence so it's tone and transaction-flow direction matches the second's:
That is the rational course of action to take if one has labor to sell and not extant where one finds oneself are buyers who are willing to buy one's labor at a price one is willing to accept.​
 
Last edited:
Good luck getting any increased penalties or increased money for enforcement out of Congress.

It's just not going to happen.

But somehow you believe they will actually build a wall.
 
You have to accept a fact of life: both political parties are lying to you.

Business and politicians are in quiet agreement that due to our low middle class birth rate we need to “juice” the economy with young, horny, fertile young couples who work cheap but avail their kids of a first rate education. These young people are mobile and will move to where the work is and wont wait around like a cargo cult, waiting for jobs to find them.

We don’t have a constitutional method of clearing out the slums and relocating the residents to where the work is. We could send in work busses, but when Mary-Sue trips and falls down the stairs and skins her knee, she sues for ten million.

So we need to address our plague of lawyers, too.

You know, if orthopaedic surgeons worked like lawyers do, they sneak around at night breaking bones.

I also think that part of the lies you mention is pretending we're not well on our way to a post labor economy.

Every year businesses do more with less labor. This will continue because it is profitable. And in the new global economy, businesses can accept a dollar each from billions. And make billions.

Until nobody has a dollar.

Because the tycoons everybody worships will take it all if you let them. For them its all about status, relative to their peers. And history shows they will continue these behaviors until collapse or revolt. They have never stopped on their own.
 
Red:
That is the rational course of action to take if one wants a job and not extant where one finds oneself is a job one can obtain and that satisfies one's demand for a job. Obviously not everyone behaves rationally; however, the positive and adverse consequences of one's irrational labor-selling behavior are one's, not the government's, to bear.


ETA:
Rephrasing of the first sentence so it's tone and transaction-flow direction matches the second's:
That is the rational course of action to take if one has labor to sell and not extant where one finds oneself are buyers who are willing to buy one's labor at a price one is willing to accept.​

One of the reasons I advocate for "birthright housing" (a bunk in a dorm, two meals of "bachelor chow" a day and a transit pass, any american at any time for any reason) as a replacement for all forms of welfare is relocation for jobs.

Families could have rooms. But all they need to do is get there. Students could avail themselves of it so they can focus on their studies.

The economic benefits to the entire population would be manifold. Rents would come down because there would be no welfare folks paying them anymore. People could move to where the work is. Speculation in real estate and landlords would hate it. But they would be selling a product people choose to buy instead of just choosing who they pay a third or more of their gross to. The market would become much more "natural" .

Of course theirs are logistical issues, but that's a topic for another thread.
 
....(removed for posting length)

Well thought out and makes lots of sense, but.....

But solving the problem isn't the goal here, clearly. Trump's ego and a "win" and "sticking it to the dems", as well as stoking the fears of the base, while keeping the problem (if they solved it, why would they keep needing re-election?). We all (at least the rational among us), know that all along, as do you I'm sure.

I mean between the fear of losing majority status as white folks, and the fear that "somebody is getting something for free and it's not me!", of course the wall is necessary, there are FEELINGS to be considered here dontcha know?:roll:
 
One of the reasons I advocate for "birthright housing" (a bunk in a dorm, two meals of "bachelor chow" a day and a transit pass, any american at any time for any reason) as a replacement for all forms of welfare is relocation for jobs.

Families could have rooms. But all they need to do is get there. Students could avail themselves of it so they can focus on their studies.

The economic benefits to the entire population would be manifold. Rents would come down because there would be no welfare folks paying them anymore. People could move to where the work is. Speculation in real estate and landlords would hate it. But they would be selling a product people choose to buy instead of just choosing who they pay a third or more of their gross to. The market would become much more "natural" .

Of course theirs are logistical issues, but that's a topic for another thread.

Youidea dovetails with my complaint that too many of the nations poor stay whete they were born and like a “cargo cult” wait for jobs to come to them.
 
But somehow you believe they will actually build a wall.

Have you not understood a word I've said to you?

I don't think Trump will give up trying to build the wall.
 
Nothing which involves congress fits that (bolded above) description. We now have about 10X as many federal airport nannies (TSA agents) as we have ICE/ERO agents. In fact, the combined police forces of Boston, MA and Baltimore, MD have about the same number of officers as the federal ICE/ERO force assigned to 'patrol' the entire US interior.

Once congress places a sufficient number of 'loopholes' to protect campaign cash donors any such legislation will have little impact. Many such laws apply only to "large" employers even though many (most?) work for "small" employers. I believe that last "universal" E-Verify law was watered down so as to apply only to new hires by "large" employers.

You miss the point. You can't stop a firehouse with a bigger cork. We need to reduce the flow. As long as the rich can get away with exploiting foreign, slave labor, nothing will change, no matter how high the wall or the number of agents.
 
Have you not understood a word I've said to you?

I don't think Trump will give up trying to build the wall.

And you support this hopeless exercise and all the damage it is doing to this country?

I'm.not talking about the shutdown. I'm talking about the increasing division in this country that is heating up to the point that it could actually get violent. And trump stokes that fire. And his supporters stoke that fire.

And I do not believe trump has an actual, formed concept of how his wall would make things better. I think it's just a slogan he used that had the effect it did on its focus groups: people cheered when he said it. And he loves applause and cheers. So he keeps saying it, acting out about it. Because those people cheer when he does it. And those people love it because he's sticking it to people. Liberal people, foreign people, etc.

That's it. Trumps ego getting stroked and people that feel left behind sticking it to people who aren't responsible for their plights. The people who ARE responsible for their plights got tax cuts.

Your support seems kinda unamerican to me.
 
And you support this hopeless exercise and all the damage it is doing to this country?

I'm.not talking about the shutdown. I'm talking about the increasing division in this country that is heating up to the point that it could actually get violent. And trump stokes that fire. And his supporters stoke that fire.

And I do not believe trump has an actual, formed concept of how his wall would make things better. I think it's just a slogan he used that had the effect it did on its focus groups: people cheered when he said it. And he loves applause and cheers. So he keeps saying it, acting out about it. Because those people cheer when he does it. And those people love it because he's sticking it to people. Liberal people, foreign people, etc.

That's it. Trumps ego getting stroked and people that feel left behind sticking it to people who aren't responsible for their plights. The people who ARE responsible for their plights got tax cuts.

Your support seems kinda unamerican to me.

You just love your buckets, don't you?

I'll just respond to one of your pieces of ****:

The division isn't Trump's fault. It already has been violent...and he wasn't even President then. The Trump hating media stokes the fire.
 
Well thought out and makes lots of sense, but.....

But solving the problem isn't the goal here, clearly. Trump's ego and a "win" and "sticking it to the dems", as well as stoking the fears of the base, while keeping the problem (if they solved it, why would they keep needing re-election?). We all (at least the rational among us), know that all along, as do you I'm sure.

I mean between the fear of losing majority status as white folks, and the fear that "somebody is getting something for free and it's not me!", of course the wall is necessary, there are FEELINGS to be considered here dontcha know?:roll:

Red:
Thank you.


Blue:
Yep, sadly Trump (presumably his disciples too) sees politicking, particularly on immigration matters, as being more about the game of doing so than about public policy that solves problems.


Pink:
I can sort of see outcome as something that once may have chafed my parents; however, among myself, my siblings and our peers, as well as my kids and their peers, whether we be members of a majority, plurality or minority race just isn't a factor in our calculus about anything. It amazes and discomfits me that in this day and age such a concern bothers any white person.
 
Great post from the law enforcement perspective. I'm 5th generation Irish from the potato famine and am automatically sympathetic to immigrants. I don't think I am alone on that thought. We are a young Nation (relatively) and are all immigrants. It might be legal and correct, but I'd never vote for it.
/
You're conflating immigrants with illegal aliens - two different groups. We should welcome immigrants -the people who've jumped through all the hoops, filled out the forms, sat through the interviews and waited their turn. THAT's the nation we are. Beginning your life in America by violating the law should not be rewarded.
 
The problem seems to be a lack of federal enforcement. The odds of any business being visited by ICE/ERO agents is slim to none.

Which is why the left end of the Dem party has to learn a word with regard to ICE and that word is repurposing.
 
You miss the point. You can't stop a firehouse with a bigger cork. We need to reduce the flow. As long as the rich can get away with exploiting foreign, slave labor, nothing will change, no matter how high the wall or the number of agents.

They aren't going to allow a wall to inconvenience the process.

Remember when the right was all stoked about unlimited money in politics?

Now they expect trump to get a wall built because, wait for it, there's too much money in politics to do anything else.

And those bought and paid for politicians are somehow gonna defy their donors and let trump do what they've been getting millions to prevent all these years.
 
Back
Top Bottom