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A Real Immigration Solution – Local Control, No Pathway to Citizenship

by | 6:58 am, August 9, 2010 | 2 Comments

In the comments yesterday, somebody brought up my immigration ideas.  Well, I’ll let anybody judge for themselves – here is the white paper that I’ve been working on for a while.  The key points are (1) immigrants here without status would be allowed to apply for a card that would let them work/reside in the United States but that would not lead to citizenship; (2) Cities and States would receive an explicit delegation of federal power to set immigration policy in many ways they are prohibited from doing under federal law.  Regarding the second item, the cities and states would be allowed to: (a) Set and keep the immigration fees that they, not the federal government, want on the immigrants who hold the cards mentioned above ; (b) Set and keep the money from the penalties that they, not the federal government, want for failure to pay said fees, for failure to register, and for hiring an immigrant who is here without work authorization; (c) Conduct the immigration raids that they, not the federal government, want; and (d) Pursue removal proceedings against immigrants here without authorization that ICE refuses to take custody of – and be reimbursed their reasonable costs from ICE if they receive a removal order against the alien.

These ideas are fluid – I’m always up for taking real substantive criticism why anything in the paper would not work or if anything else would be a good idea.  So if you have an inner policy wonk in you, take a look, at let me know your thoughts.  I’ll also be speaking on the white paper tomorrow at Liberty on the Rocks in Colorado Springs, so come on down to listen if you are interested.

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Comments

  1.   Chris Maj
      August 9th, 2010 @ 11:48 am

    Regarding the second item, under what specific Constitutional authority does the federal government lay claim over all powers of immigration? The closest you can get is under Article I, Section 8, which reads in part, “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Naturalization != immigration.

    Such a plain reading of the original text
    means that many of your immigration ideas, like new taxes, while still certainly in need of debate, are already quite actionable at the State and local level; responses by outlaw federales not with standing.

    Fortunately, in Colorado, we are blessed with TABOR, which at the least would let everyone vote on your new tax ideas — even the onerous once labeled as fees, if this fall we either ClearTheBenchColorado.org to rid the supreme court of some nefarious “justices” or pass 61 to LimitCOdebt.com further bind the Beast of government with Constitutional chains.

  2.   Elliot
      August 9th, 2010 @ 5:55 pm

    Chris,
    If you want I can look up the case law for you later, but under current Supreme Court precedent, almost all of this would be disallowed (cities placing their own taxes/fees/penalties or bringing unauthorized immigrants directly to the Immigration Judge) without explicit federal authorization. You might feel this is an incorrect reading of the constitution, but sometimes we have to work within the system of Constitutional Interpretation that actually exists, not the one we think should exist.

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