Immigration Nation

The choice of the word ‘broken’, used in article after article on U.S. Immigration policy, implies that at some point in time, our Immigration System was not broken. Unfortunately, that is not the case. For the first 100 years of its existence, the United States needed no immigration laws whatsoever; when it finally initiated such laws, their specific intent was to exclude ‘undesirables’. These turned out to be people of ‘Asian’, then more specifically, ‘Chinese descent‘. At the heart of the argument was that Chinese laborers worked harder and cost less to employ than American workers.

150 years later, American companies like Nike, Target, Amazon, Apple, General Motors, Google and Gap still utilize forced cheap Chinese labor (just not directly in front of the American workers, though the effect is still the same). Meanwhile, Silicon Valley brings thousands of high-tech Asian workers right through the front door, with legal “non-immigrant” status visas. Many more are able to secure ‘F1 non-immigrant student visas’ in order to attend American universities. Lastly, there is this ‘other’ “less-skilled” group of people, who attempt to go through the ‘front door’ (legal and improbable), or the more dangerous (and illegal) ‘back door’. We call these two groups ‘Immigrants’. 

Oppression (n) – the necessary control of assets and resources, in order to satiate an obsessive drive to acquire more and more. Also, the state of being under such control.

Immigration is a complex issue; at least that is what everybody seems to say. But why is it so complicated? It involves people and their governments, plus resources and the economics people use to allocate those resources. It’s pretty much all about people. 

So what do we know about people? They like life, and liberty; they also like to pursue happiness, which on the flip side means they also prefer to minimize suffering, like violence, hunger, poverty, or persecution (which are all definite impediments to happiness). Because governments (which are real estate management companies for various groups of people) have all marked their territory and established property rights, the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness could potentially turn criminal, if one were to trespass where one does not belong.

The truth is, we have left Free Market Economic Growth in charge of things It is clearly not qualified to handle. It is only through the lens of this profit-seeking model that we can make sense of a world filled with forced labor camps, the separation of ‘desirable’ versus ‘undesirable’ people based on an arbitrary skillset, the rigging of the green card lottery, and the criminalization of the poor, whether they migrate or not. 

Add to that the ‘cherry-picking’ of various resources and individual ‘talent’ from certain countries, imposing sanctions or dropping bombs on certain others, and flat-out ignoring the rest, because they have nothing of economic value worth usurping. 

Economics is a tool – it is amoral by its very nature – and thus takes on the morality of those who wield it. By failing to input morality, or human ‘values’, on the front end of our Economic Growth Operating System, what it spits out the back end is the stuff of all human suffering. 

Consider, for a moment, a natural resource like Water. To human life, water is crucial – but which is more crucial? The human life or the water? If we put the value of water ahead of human life, then morality might not ever factor into this equation.

Laws designed to ‘restrict’ behavior always focus on the symptoms, while the disease continues to fester. Telling someone “Don’t do that” when they are already doing it is short-sighted and lazy; we need solutions that strike at the root of the problem, and the root cause of all our problems is Oppression. Upon this root, a poisonous tree has sprung forth, and we are all victims of the ‘strange fruit’ it continues to bear.

Beneath the shadow of this poisonous tree, a futile Immigration debate rages on, the argument dumbed down to a single question: are we a ‘nation of laws’ or a ‘nation of immigrants’? To solve the riddle of Immigration Law, we must answer this question by claiming that we are in fact NEITHER. 

In the next iteration of human existence, we must see ourselves NOT as a single ‘nation of laws’, but as a ‘space-locked’ planet full of people, who only establish governments in order to secure resources for our respective ‘tribes’. These ‘nations’ each adopt their own sets of rules, both social and economic, to organize themselves. It is the hope that these rules would be disseminated fairly, and create more certainty and inclusivity for all, but when they do not, people will naturally feel compelled to skirt these rules. When things become too unfair, uncertain, or noninclusive, the more courageous types often hit the road for greener pastures. 

This is where we sit now, with economically-enhanced wealth inequality driving the migration of the tired and poor huddled masses. When some among us decide to take ‘MORE’, others get less; those with too little will naturally migrate to where the ‘MORE’ has also migrated. Unfailingly, in the yin and yang of scarce resource allocation, movement occurs as a way of balancing out any inequality in the human equation. To put a lid on this movement is equivalent to putting a lid on an already boiling pot; in both cases, the ‘oppression’ will build up even more.

By some accounts, humans are evolving; as we lurch forward, our Systems invariably drag along behind us (they are, after all, tied to us). The last Immigration upgrade was in 1952. Nearly 70 years later, we see a program clearly bulging and bogged down with updates that continue to reinforce our oppressive past. It is time for a new ‘Upgrade’ – one that demonstrates a more ‘evolved’ way of thinking.

For most of its existence, the United States has engaged in bloody Crusades – religious, economic, and governmental in nature – attempting to gain control of how people think and interact. In our arrogant attempt to write the economic program for human happiness (based on some economic man a few centuries removed from dwelling in a cave), a virtual world has been created, where ‘taking’ is better than ‘giving’, selfish interest beats cooperation, and ‘greed’ is the ultimate

How to Fix Our ‘Broken’ Immigration System

In order to form a Universal Immigration Policy, America needs to stick to its strengths:

1. We are the Nation that made Immigration a thing, but our real strength is being a ‘land of opportunity’.
2. We are also the Nation that made Democracy a thing. The only problem with Democracy is Capitalism, but when separated back out, Democracy offers the best chance of securing ‘fairness’, ‘liberty’, and many of our other so-called ‘fundamental rights’.  
3. We are also famous for Education, that we tout as the key to both practicing and protecting Democracy. People from many countries clamor to get into our Educational Institutions, making this another subject about which we could offer credible leadership.
4. Within our politics, we have shown a working knowledge of what is essential to human existence. Our many government departments show we know the importance of health, education, housing, energy, transportation, agriculture, labor and commerce, in order to secure more Certainty for people. 
5. Through Immigration, as well as Education, America can also claim more Diversity in our population than most countries; this can lead to conversations about Inclusivity, while acknowledging that we all still have a long way to go on this subject. 
6. Finally, we are a nation that has led on the world stage before, so at least we know how to do it. We have somehow made fashionable some pretty awful trends, from bell bottom jeans to nuclear weapons, Capitalism, Populism and Neo-Nazism. Whatever we introduce, no matter how awful, there is a good chance some people may jump on board. 

THE THIRD OPTION SOLUTION – STEP ONE

The United Nations Global Compact was a “multi-country declaration” that pledged to “uphold the rights of refugees, help them resettle, and ensure they had access to education and jobs”. Its intent was to have every one acknowledge that migration is likely to increase, and while we are all independent nations, we need to act ‘interdependently’ on matters such as these. According to the Brookings Institute, “…under the right leadership [the U.N. Global Compact] can serve as the basis for establishing a system of global governance with practical policies to administer migration flows.” What they are really saying is that currently, this Global Compact has no leadership. We the People need to supply this leadership, but in the Third Option Plan, we are going to lead by example; we are not going to ‘delegate authority’, therefore, we do not need to ask anyone’s permission for what we plan to do.

Still, the first step would be to rejoin this ‘non-binding political declaration’, because yeah, we took ourselves off the list. Don’t ask why. While this is a formality, we do need to declare our intentions to someone, and we cannot lead if we don’t have any followers.

STEP TWO

Before giving the Third Option version of this plan, it may be of some interest to highlight a strikingly similar plan, called the Global Skill Partnership (GSP), in order to give it some props as well.

The basic gist of the GSP is that ‘developed’ countries first anticipate what kinds of jobs they will require in the near future. Next, they would make a deal with a developing country to build a training facility there, in order to train their people in semi-skilled jobs (no more than 3 years of training). Once their training is complete, they would migrate to the ‘destination country’. This training facility could also be used by the ‘country of origin’, to train citizens who wish to remain in their own country. The ‘country of destination’ supplies the facility, and finances the technology needed; the ‘country of origin’ supplies the people and the training. 

The Third Option Version:

Market Economics is not about people, it is about profits; the private sector will not put any skin in this kind of game as long as they have a government willing to bail them out. Businesses want their workers already trained and ready when they need them, and will rely on taxpayers to foot the bill for all of it (as usual), while each business takes their share of the spoils. Governments are the only entities who will intervene on behalf of people, and are beholden only to those people supplying the taxes. The Third Option wants to start turning ‘taxation’ into ‘investment’, and ‘taxpayers’ into ‘shareholders’. If We the People are ultimately going to foot the bill for bringing immigrants into our own country, while also financially supplying them with the training to do these jobs, We better get something really good in return.

The Third Option plan is to foot the bill for ALL these ‘training centers’, which we call ‘Global Schools’. 

We hope to eventually build these schools in every country, which will also provide housing and healthcare, and might resemble small cities as they expand outward.