There are a lot of interesting ways people want to fix the immigration system, and a few have been proposed on this site (most recently here, well worth reading). But I want to ask Democrats if they would support some simple proposals. Most don't require major changes in the law. Our system of handing out visas actively encourages illegal immigration. And it's all due to an old economic principle known as Gresham's law.
Simply put, Gresham's law says "bad money drives out the good." It's usually applied to currencies and basically says that when you are forced to take a currency at face value people will trade with one that is worth less than the commodity value. That is, folks will use paper money, or shave off the edges of coins, rather than spend their gold. It's one reason why nobody uses the gold standard anymore.
What does this have to do with immigration? Well, the value of a visa is fixed by law, similar to the value of a currency. That is, I need one to get into the country. I need one to stay. I need one to get a job and engage in any meaningful economic activity. (Outside of the black market).
The cost of a visa is also really, really high. For example, in order to file for residency, it costs $1,030. That's no exaggeration.
(The schedule of fees from the USCIS is here)
Not only are the costs high, but the USCIS is understaffed. This is partly because of the longstanding and deliberate policy of understaffing government departments that's been in place since the 80s. But it's also illustrative of the problem. The fees are high as a way of discouraging applicants. But there isn't any valid way to "opt out." So you have a lot of applicants who all have no choices, even when they want to do something relatively simple, like change their marital status and notify the government they have done so.
Essentially, the fees are so high that you price everybody out of following the rules. Think about it; even for relatively well-paid jobs (say, 50-60K a year) $1,000 to petition to be a permanent resident is a big chunk of the ol' paycheck. At $50,000 per year that's 2% of your income you will never see again.
Back to Gresham's law. If we see being here illegally as the "bad money" and following the rules as "good money" we can see why it is that so many people would rather break the rules and go black market for labor. Simply put, following the rules is too damned expensive.
There's another hidden cost to the rules: changing jobs is difficult. Again, this imposes a cost (having to go through the whole process of filing forms) to doing something that is already costly even for ordinary citizens. This isn't true of every visa, but the system imposes restraints on anyone who wants to seek better employment. For example, even on an H1-B, one of the more flexible options, a new employer has to file with the USCIS to accept the employee. If a foreign citizen is working as a journalist the visa type is different, and you have to reapply (and probably go back to the home country, pay another several hundred in filing fees, and hire an attorney). If a noncitizen is on an H1-B and gets married, they have to file again and risk being forced back to the home country -- all the while having to take off from work. And did I mention that only someone who thought they were lucky would dare fill out the forms minus an attorney's help? That isn't free. A good immigration lawyer runs $2,000 or more.
Other countries don't do this kind of thing, by the way. The French, long caricatured as a bunch of monolingual xenophobes, charge about $130 if you want to marry someone there. Long stay visas are about the same.
When you make it expensive to follow the rules, the bad money -- in this case, people who overstay their visas -- drive out those who don't. When it's easier to overstay a visa for a while and hope for a periodic amnesty, or live underground, than it is to follow procedure, that's what's going to happen.
Now, let's imagine a world in which a visa could be had for $30. If you want to work in the US, you get a work permit that says whether you plan to stay or not. This tells you who plans to leave and who doesn't. The latter you can give green cards to.
Giving everybody a simple way to say "I'm legal" puts all the people involved in the human trafficking business (those coyotes at the border, for example) out of business. It removes any incentive to cross borders illegally -- because it's just plain easier not to do that. It removes the incentive to overstay visas. It makes those that are here more willing to work with authorities when every visit to the USCIS isn't a risk of deportation.
The rules are also needlessly complicated. The USCIS has at least thirty different forms to fill out depending on what you are doing. I checked out some other countries and the process doesn't seem anywhere near as crazy.
Another thing: many of the rules don’t' reflect how most people live. One of the things the USCIS asks for, as proof that a marriage is real is evidence of shared residence. That should be simple enough, but they will only take, for example, joint deeds to property or utility bills with both spouses' names on it. In a city like New York, where I live, most people don't own property. And how many spouses but both names on their phone bills? Not many. Most young couples who have been married two years or less aren't going to own a house, either. Again. How many people like that do you know? They also don't buy life insurance that often either -- how many people in their twenties do you know that think they need it?
Again, all of this is a way to say the rules are designed not to help people get in legally, but to discourage anyone from trying to enter the country legally at all.
It's a testament to sheer perseverance and desperation that anyone bothers to try and follow the rules at all.
So what do I want to ask the Candidates? How about this:
Would you change the rules of the USCIS to encourage people to follow procedures? How would you do this?
How would you reduce the burden on working class families who marry into noncitizen families?
Would you support hiring more administrative staff for the USCIS?
Would you support granting a temporary amnesty to those waiting for their cases to get processed until the backlog (some 30,000 cases in New York alone) is done?
This isn't just an immigrant issue, by the way. Businesses lose out when getting skilled people becomes nigh impossible for no good reason. And many of these rules would be nowhere near as onerous if the processing time wasn't months long. It's one thing to wait for a work visa for three weeks. It's another when the processing time stretches out to months.
I want to know where candidates stand on this issue. Changes wouldn't even require legal changes, per se. I'd be happy if the processing time was reduced to a month. I'd be happy if the line to get your papers stamped in the Newark office didn't stretch around the block. (Yes, I've been there. If you don't believe it, stop outside the immigration office at 8 a.m. on a Saturday).
But I want to know how the candidates will address this. Don't you?