Immigrants, with their acute understanding of why America beckons, refresh our national vigor.

--George Will

Summary—

Immigrants have always played an important role in building our country. We should increase opportunities for legal immigration and work to eliminate illegal immigration. Common-sense immigration reforms are needed at both the Federal and State level as outlined in more detail below.
 

2012 Legislative Update—

The 2012 legislature steered clear of this subject, pausing to allow time for court decisions and implementation details related to 2011 legislation to be resolved.
 

2011 Legislative Update—

2010 Legislative Update—

The most significant action in 2010 on the subject of immigration was legislation requiring all State businesses (with more than 15 employees) when hiring to use the Federal E-Verify system to validate new employee’s social security number and legal status for employment. This requirement is already in place for companies having Federal or State contracts.

Some service-sector employers and organizations opposed this move; however, it shows significant promise in discouraging employers from hiring illegal workers. With all businesses participating, wage incentives for using illegals will be lessened. Just the fact that businesses will now give notice that they are using E-Verify will discourage illegal immigrants from applying. I should note that our firm has been using E-Verify since shortly after it became available. In almost all cases, the process is not burdensome and takes just a few minutes.

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Most of us descend from immigrants. Indeed, immigrants built our country. The recent bestseller, The Millionaire Next Door, noted that an overwhelming percentage of new millionaires in this country are first- or second-generation immigrants.

Historically, we expected immigrants to become part of our great melting pot. Today this is too often not the case. Some keep to their own language, culture, and citizenship; we encourage this with bilingual education. When immigrants don’t blend in, our nation’s civic fabric is imperiled; cultural division, tensions, and misunderstandings ensue.

One reason we have so many illegal immigrants today is the difficulty of coming here legally. It was not always so. Because we understood their valuable contributions, for generations we welcomed the downtrodden from around the world. As a youth, I proudly sang the words “Give me your tired, your poor.” Those words are engraved in the history and monuments of this great nation. By discouraging immigration, we seem to be reneging on that pledge. Our country didn’t have numerical immigration quotas until 1921. The Border Patrol wasn’t created until 1924. Mass immigration from all over the world continued at Ellis Island until its closing in 1954. Before all that, there really was no such thing as illegal immigration.

While we’ve been reducing opportunities for legal immigration over the past few generations, the number of people desiring to immigrate and employers wanting to hire immigrants has mushroomed. The result has been massive illegal immigration—a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of our nation.

Common Sense Immigration Reforms

Reform is needed at both State and Federal levels to address immigration policy. I suggest the following common-sense approaches:

The ultimate result of government actions with respect to immigration should be to welcome those that will contribute to our society and root out and turn away criminals, terrorists, and lawbreakers.

• Secure our border.
• Facilitate legal immigration for contributing members of society.
• Increase enforcement of laws against employing undocumented workers. (See legislative update below for a good starting point.)
• Provide illegals with emergency services only.
• Stop considering amnesty by any name.
• Prosecute falsified social security cards or other forms of identity theft vigorously.

• Additional Details:
  • First, Secure the Borders. In 2007 President Bush reported that an estimated one in 12 illegal immigrants had a criminal record. Whatever course we take, we must stop the flow of illegal aliens and conduct thorough background checks on all who wish to cross the border. Criminals, terrorists, and lawbreakers are not welcome.
  • Facilitate Legal Immigration for Contributing Members of Society. We should welcome all immigrants that will assimilate into our society. By that, I mean law-abiding foreign-born nationals that are willing to work, learn English, and become citizens. Immigrants should demonstrate progress towards citizenship at reasonable intervals in order to stay in the country. Greater opportunities for legal immigration will reduce the number of people that attempt to enter our country illegally. The resulting reduction in undocumented crossings will take pressure off our borders and allow our Border Patrol to focus resources on screening and background checks.
  • Increase Enforcement of Laws Against Employing Undocumented Workers. Penalties for employing illegal aliens should be increased, and enforcement strengthened. States and localities should assist the Federal Government in this task. For example, states and municipalities should tie business and professional licensing and renewals to compliance with prohibitions on hiring illegals. The Federal government should make it easier for businesses to use its eligibility verification system for employers to check employee documents before they are hired. We can begin by scrutinizing records of workers whose listed social security numbers don’t match their names. If we promote legal immigration, as suggested previously, employers will hire fewer undocumented workers. Fewer job opportunities for undocumented workers’ will lead many of them to leave the country on their own.
  • Emergency Services Only. Besides cracking down on employers, we should limit illegals’ access to public benefits. Only services that are absolutely essential for life-saving or humanitarian reasons should be offered. Removing all other publicly funded services will provide a further disincentive for would-be illegal immigrants. As a state, we should have a vigorous debate about our policy of providing free public education to all individuals, regardless of their legal status. Perhaps since children illegal aliens bring with them have little control over their situation, we have a humanitarian obligation to educate them. However, once these undocumented students are old enough to attend college, they have more control over their circumstances. Allowing these illegal immigrants access to in-state tuition rates fails the test of being an absolutely essential or emergency service. We should submit all our policies to this same test.
  • No Amnesty by Any Name. People now in the country illegally must be encouraged to leave or be deported. Those who defy current laws should not be given a path to citizenship or temporary work visas as long as they remain in the country illegally. With effective enforcement against employers of illegal aliens, an increased supply of legal immigrants to replace illegals, and greatly limited access to public services, illegal aliens will have little incentive to stay, and most will leave on their own. Not one of the excuses for amnesty, or whatever euphemism is used to disguise it, is convincing. As I’ve outlined in this letter, we can meet the labor needs of businesses and our society’s need for the vigorous work ethic of honest immigrants without compromising our security or the rule of law.
  • Vigorous prosecution of falsified social security cards or other forms of identity theft. In order for any illegal alien to satisfy the documentation requirements of an honest employer, he or she must present a falsified social security card. To do so constitutes forgery and/or identify theft. These are felony charges. The state of Utah should redouble its efforts to prosecute these serious crimes.