I’m never going to be president but I were this is the how I’d treat illegal immigrants,
If you’re crazy enough to walk across the Sonoran desert, you’re crazy enough to be an American.
Seriously, most people who don’t live down here in Tucson don’t have any idea of what the desert is like. Anyone that determined to be in America to work a shitty low wage job should be here. In fact, I’d go one step further and say that everyone born in America, no matter who they are, at age 12, as a rite of passage, should be dropped off in Mexico with $5 and this hearty farewell, “If you make it back you get to be an American citizen and you get a great big hug.”
Let’s see some of the screaming patriotic bastards wallowing in the American flag do that. Are they that motivated? Do they love America enough to suffer the pains and travails of crossing the desert? Ideals are easy if you never have to fight for them. Righteousness is glorious if you never have to be tested.
So that’s my immigration policy. I hope you call your senator and demand it be enacted.
I’m on the opposite side than you are, but I think that anybody who can log onto a website and fill out a form in English should be able to come here legally. This is the 21st century- there should be no reason ANYBODY should have to cross the fucking desert with a gallon of water to be here. There is no reason why somebody should have to wait 3 years for a visa, 5 years for a green card, and 9 months more to become a citizen. All we need is a grant for some computer equipment to put in third world police stations and hire a local data entry person; from that database we should be able to do instant background checks. With instant background checks, the entire process to become a US citizen should be filling out a webform in English giving up your previous citizenship and printing out your temporary passport that comes back in a few minutes. If we did that, we’d have a lot fewer people crossing the fucking desert with a fucking gallon of water.
When I posted this on slashdot, all of the right wingers called me traitor. Well, an instant background check system cuts both ways- it can be used to let people in who have a lot of moxy and drive, and it can be used to keep people out who just want to destroy us.