One thing common to both illegal immigration and illegal drugs is that our total lack of realistic governmental policies has resulted in the growth of criminal activity along our border by gangs who would have otherwise remained petty thieves.
Drug smugglers, having perfected the art of transporting illegal substances across our border, are nor transporting people across the border. "Coyotes", having perfected the art of smuggling people across the border are now taking on higher profit drug shipments. In short, our demand for both illegal immigrant labor and illegal recreational substances has again created a rich "Mafia", not unlike what happened during Alcohol Prohibition in the 1920's.
The very people who gain most from our porous borders are not the illegal immigrants who simply want to feed their families and are not the people who consume the recreational substances imported by the smugglers. Instead, the criminal gangs, businessmen (of dubious ethics), and government bureaucrats (on both sides of the border) are the people who gain most from the porous border. According to the Daily Mail, it costs from $4,000-$10,000 to move one illegal immigrant to the USA. It is no coincidence we hear meaningless drivel coming out our political leaders saying that the voice of the people is wrong. They claim that Arizona is racist. But if it is, why are 30+ percent of Hispanics living in that state supporting a law which puts them at greatest risk of being profiled and hassled by the law? Yes, one can make the racism argument based on the percentage of Whites supporting this law. Yet, when the law has significant support among minorities, it means something else is at play - and must be understood.
As I am more familiar with the costs of educating a child, I'll use some slightly dated statistics to illustrate my points. Let's say that it costs $10k to educate a child in a high cost state such as New York. Special education (ESOL - English for speakers of other languages, Handicapped education, etc.) may double that price for affected students. What happens to a state that is burdened with educating large numbers of illegal immigrant children? Well, a rough breakdown for educational funding is - Local Government: 45%, State Government: 45% and Federal Government: 10%. In the mainstream class in which I student taught, 25% of the class required ESOL assistance. That's a lot more than 10% of the costs for the 20 kids in the class. Is the Federal government properly compensating the school systems for the added burden of educating these children? No!!! So who gets suck with the bill? The state and local tax payer. Is this fair? No!!!! The above noted situation is quite common in areas with large numbers of illegal immigrants - and the states are being crushed by the under funded mandates imposed by Uncle Sam....
But what should we do about this? The problem is not just illegal immigration, but it is a vicious circle of problems related to drug crime, people in need of jobs, and people on both sides of the border profiting from illegal trade. First, we must defang the drug cartels - legalize the controlled substances, tax them, and destroy the profit margin that makes it possible to ply their trades. Next, we need to slow down the rate of immigration of low skilled labor. I propose making Mexico a buffer zone, where these immigrants would be required to attend certified English language training schools before coming to the USA. All immigrants would be required to demonstrate a rudimentary knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon tongue before being allowed into the USA. But this would not be enough - they would have to bid for the right to come to the USA - market based visas. Instead of the money going to the Coyotes (and associated criminal enterprises), it would go to the US Government instead. And finally, all of this money gained from market based visas would need to be distributed to the states providing services for these immigrants.
Of course, there are political concerns. I'd want for the immigrants coming to the USA using these visas to be ineligible for US citizenship. They would have the protection of American law, but not affect American politics, as they could not vote. This would blunt the impact of immigration for at least one generation - probably enough to eliminate the fears from the states most affected by immigration.....
Please note that this is only an incomplete starting point for a thought experiment. We need better solutions than we have now, and our government is ill equipped to provide them without meaningful public participation in political debates.
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