San Antonio Express (Opinion): As a libertarian/conservative Republican, I have great respect for the extraordinary honesty and courage Gov. Rick Perry has shown on the contentious issue of immigration. He's the only one of the Republican candidates who's got it all right.
He's been excoriated for wanting to subsidize illegal-immigrant college students with in-state tuition. True, they are subsidized. But these students live in Texas and pay sales and property taxes; there is no state income tax. These educated immigrants subsequently earn more than uneducated immigrants and therefore pay more taxes, contributing to economic growth. It's a budget neutral swap.
Perry has said that a suggested construction of a border fence is "a cop-out"; it would be like constructing a wall from "Bangor, Maine, to Miami Beach, Florida." On E-Verification he says, "It would not make a hill of beans' difference." He's the Greek Messenger.
The Government Accountability Office reported in March that building the fence would cost $30 billion and take 10 to 15 years to complete. The Bush administration found it would cost a half-trillion dollars to secure tightly the 2,000-mile southern border of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
The next unworkable suggestion is to have Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) find and deport all illegal immigrants. Not possible. There are 12 million such immigrants in the U.S. Last year, ICE deported an all-time record of 393,289. To find and to deport 12 million would require that the ICE staff be increased by 31 times.
Another proposed solution that would work a little, but not as much as thought, is mandating that employers subject employees and applicants to E-Verification.
There would be two enormous problems with this mandate: One, illegal immigrants would seek different lines of work that don't require E-Verification. Two, E-Verify lists are fraught with inaccuracies and incompletions. The Wall Street Journal reports that "with all the inaccuracies in the database, up to 1.3 million U. S. citizens and legal workers will be mistakenly flagged for problems if E-Verify passes."
And the Journal adds, "A 2009 report for the Department of Homeland Security found that 54 percent of undocumented workers would slip through the E-Verify net, partly because illegals use stolen documents."
What's more, the federal agencies that provide E-Verify lists are too broke to continue research. A December 2010 GAO report stated that the "cost estimates" and "workload" of agencies that prepare E-Verify lists "are at an increased risk of not securing sufficient resources to effectively execute program plans in the future."
If the border fence is too expensive to build and maintain, if it is too expensive to increase the ICE staff by 31 times, and if E-Verification is flawed, how do we approach 12 million illegal immigrants?
A partial solution would be granting screened pathways to citizenship. Such "amnesty" would of course drive millions of Americans to apoplexy. But doing little or nothing to 12 million illegals means most will remain in the shadows'which amounts to amnesty by default.
Wouldn't it be better to grant selected illegals pathways to citizenship, forcing them to pay fines and get onto tax rolls? Half a loaf is better than no loaf.
Perry has the greater honesty and courage on this issue than the other Republican candidates. "Courage," said C. S. Lewis, "is the most difficult virtue because it is all virtues at the testing point."
Ronald L. Trowbridge worked for President Ronald Reagan and later for Chief Justice Warren Burger. He lives in Conroe.
He's been excoriated for wanting to subsidize illegal-immigrant college students with in-state tuition. True, they are subsidized. But these students live in Texas and pay sales and property taxes; there is no state income tax. These educated immigrants subsequently earn more than uneducated immigrants and therefore pay more taxes, contributing to economic growth. It's a budget neutral swap.
Perry has said that a suggested construction of a border fence is "a cop-out"; it would be like constructing a wall from "Bangor, Maine, to Miami Beach, Florida." On E-Verification he says, "It would not make a hill of beans' difference." He's the Greek Messenger.
The Government Accountability Office reported in March that building the fence would cost $30 billion and take 10 to 15 years to complete. The Bush administration found it would cost a half-trillion dollars to secure tightly the 2,000-mile southern border of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
The next unworkable suggestion is to have Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) find and deport all illegal immigrants. Not possible. There are 12 million such immigrants in the U.S. Last year, ICE deported an all-time record of 393,289. To find and to deport 12 million would require that the ICE staff be increased by 31 times.
Another proposed solution that would work a little, but not as much as thought, is mandating that employers subject employees and applicants to E-Verification.
There would be two enormous problems with this mandate: One, illegal immigrants would seek different lines of work that don't require E-Verification. Two, E-Verify lists are fraught with inaccuracies and incompletions. The Wall Street Journal reports that "with all the inaccuracies in the database, up to 1.3 million U. S. citizens and legal workers will be mistakenly flagged for problems if E-Verify passes."
And the Journal adds, "A 2009 report for the Department of Homeland Security found that 54 percent of undocumented workers would slip through the E-Verify net, partly because illegals use stolen documents."
What's more, the federal agencies that provide E-Verify lists are too broke to continue research. A December 2010 GAO report stated that the "cost estimates" and "workload" of agencies that prepare E-Verify lists "are at an increased risk of not securing sufficient resources to effectively execute program plans in the future."
If the border fence is too expensive to build and maintain, if it is too expensive to increase the ICE staff by 31 times, and if E-Verification is flawed, how do we approach 12 million illegal immigrants?
A partial solution would be granting screened pathways to citizenship. Such "amnesty" would of course drive millions of Americans to apoplexy. But doing little or nothing to 12 million illegals means most will remain in the shadows'which amounts to amnesty by default.
Wouldn't it be better to grant selected illegals pathways to citizenship, forcing them to pay fines and get onto tax rolls? Half a loaf is better than no loaf.
Perry has the greater honesty and courage on this issue than the other Republican candidates. "Courage," said C. S. Lewis, "is the most difficult virtue because it is all virtues at the testing point."
Ronald L. Trowbridge worked for President Ronald Reagan and later for Chief Justice Warren Burger. He lives in Conroe.
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