Roger Simon at PJ Media makes A Modest Proposal for Immigration Reform

Excerpt:

So here’s my simple — call it simple-minded, if you want — solution, my modest proposal. Illegal immigrants, assuming they have lived here for a decent period of time and have not committed a felony, can have amnesty, but they can NEVER be allowed to vote. They can do anything else that is legal, but if they want to vote — or run for office or practice law in our country, as just happened in California — they must return home and go through the normal immigrant application process, however long that may take until they have citizenship.

This is a humane solution that does not make a complete mockery of the rule of law (only a partial one). You can live a satisfactory life without voting. Many who have the right to vote don’t bother anyway. (In 2012, only 57.5% of eligible voters voted in the presidential election. Many fewer voted in other contests.) It’s up to the individual illegal immigrant here: He or she can enjoy the privileges of U.S. citizenship without voting or go home and wait in line.

This takes political motivations off the table in immigration policy and allows it to be about the lives of the people themselves, not the advancement of politicians and their parties. If our Democratic friends mean what they say about their “compassion,” they should have no objection. If they do, they simply expose themselves as political opportunists with no real interest in the welfare of what they euphemistically choose to call “undocumented workers,” only in creating a voting bloc.

HKO

Like so many political hot potatoes, reform always sounds innocent as long as it is never defined.

I support liberal immigration, but are there going to be rules and what is the consequence if they are not respected? Should we be allowed to be selective in who becomes a citizen? Is it reasonable to expand generous government benefits to non citizens?

The hispanic illegals are a unique problem and this requires a unique solution. I do not believe we should round up 11-15 million of them and send them home. We should create a new classification that allows them to take a path to citizenship that is secondary to those on the current legal path. This classification should require them to pay taxes for the benefits they enjoy.

I think Simon’s proposal is a good one.

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