It's been over a year since I resigned my job enforcing US law, and I'm ready to break my silence. I've commented here and there on the whole immigration debate, but I haven't put my thoughts down in ASCI.
This series discusses several Republican proposals and explains why they're bat scat crazy. It discusses why amnesty is a bad idea and driver's licenses are good. I'll propose a revenue-neutral policy for decreasing the number of people living outside the law.
This is PART II:
(a) Round `em All Up
(b) Make it a Felony
The series covers: (a) Driver's Licenses for Illegal Immigrants (b) The Perfect ID Card (c) "Round 'em All Up!" (d) Make it a Felony (e) Anchor Babies (f) Gay Marriage?!? (g) Amnesty (h) 2M Worker Visas [proposal] (i) The Unions' Cheshire Grin [proposal]
Round `em All Up
What exactly does it mean to "round up" 12 million people? Visualize a city of 12 million people being deported. What does that look like? How many police do you need to accomplish that? How much would it cost? I don't know, but I'm sure door-to-door searches are required and that's not my deal. I can think of other things rather do with our money.
There is that secondary problem of how families will react when cops start "rounding `em up". Consider, Private Mendoza, returning from his third tour in Iraq. He's still in a Falluja-mindset when he walks in the front door and finds his little sister in tears because his mother and father have jailed for not having papers. At that point the question becomes not if we've brought any unstable warriors home from war, but how many we've sent around the bend by messing with their families and how they're going to react.
ICE is currently focusing on "rounding the (supposed) 100,000 "criminal aliens" presently in the United States, and I can't say I really blame them. A criminal alien is someone who's committed an aggravated felony and served time, not your run-of-the-mill illegal alien. Examples of criminal aliens include convicted murderers, robbers, rapists, gang bangers and fraudsters. You can't qualify for this class of alienage by just working without papers.
Make it a Felony
The House of Representatives thinks it's a good idea to make being an illegal immigrant a felony. However you arrest them, the goal of this proposal is to charge, convict in a criminal court (with a jury) and incarcerate 12 million people for at least one year. Assume each prison has a mammoth 5000 person capacity. To accomplish your goal you would need 100 prisons for 24 years, or 24 prisons for 100 years. It would take over 300 prisons to be accomplished by a two terms of a president. Assume each prisoner costs the US tax-payer $20,000 per year. That's a $15 billion bond ($7b interest) or $800 per US resident. Of course, we have to build the prisons too, so $15B is probably a low-ball estimate.
I just know that I'm going to pay for someone's tax relief, so for $800 do I at least get a video from the person I put in prison?
If what the advocates intend is for the Department of Justice to have the power to arrest, charge, convict and deport someone without the inconvenience of either jail or a jury, I've got good news for them:
The law doesn't need to be changed.