Deportation and Visas

Speaking Language © Alejandro Lozano Campaña

This last GOP debate was much better than I expected.

Before jumping into my post. I want to counter a meme put forward by Trump. Trump claims that he is the most likely to beat Hillary Clinton.

I say the opposite is true. The Left is adept at exploiting wealth envy in campaigns. It is what they do best. As Trump's claim to fame is his ability to amass wealth and power, he is the candidate that the left is most likely to beat.

As for this post. I liked the direction that Rubio, and others, were taking with immigration debate. The salient point is that the US government must prove that it willing to enforce existing immigration laws before we can pass more lenient laws.

The United States is in a horrible situation where we have to deport millions of people.

Deporting millions sounds draconian until one looks at the numbers. Adding up the columns on the statistics page by the Bureau or Transportation Services indicates that over 250 million people entered the US in 2014.  Most people entering the US are on a passport waver program which allows stays in the US for up to 90 days.  The State Department issued about 10 millions of visas last year.

Both references bring up many unanswered questions. However, they establish that International Travel involves hundreds of millions of people.

Unfortunately, deportation is a necessary component of a smooth running international travel system.

A visa is a contract between a visitor and a host country.

Deportation is the primary mechanism for enforcing the contract.

Yes, I know, deportation is harsh. I would be against deportation except for the fact that it is intrinsic to a working visa system.

When one is dealing with hundreds of millions of travelers. It is not unreasonable to engage in millions of deportations each year.

I am for streamlining the deportation system because streamlined deportations allow for a more robust international travel system. When people follow the laws. We can actually increase travel.

To repeat my argument: A visa is a contract. Deportation is the enforcement mechanism of the contract. We have hundreds of millions of international travelers each year. A one percent fail rate means that we have to deport millions of people each year.

When the context of the argument is understood, the argument for deporting a million people is not harsh. It's simply a necessary part of making an international travel system work.

As for "sanctuary cities." The people who declare sanctuary cities feel great. However, these clowns are disrupting a system that involves hundreds of millions of people simply to make a feel good statement.

Standing against the clowns is largely a matter of showing the harm that they are doing to the hundreds of millions of legal travelers.

I do not believe that the US is going to end up deporting everyone whose violated their visa agreements since the last general amnesty.

However, the United States simply has to get a robust system of deportations in place to safeguard our current robust system of international travel. The last amnesty shows that the US government will not engage in reform after an amnesty.

Families and Immigration

One of the most persistent arguments against enforcing immigration laws is a belief that immigration laws break up families. Looking at the State Department Data, the vast majority of immigration visas are given to immediate and family sponsored immigrants. Over 90% of immigration visas are given for the purpose of keeping families together.

The statistics show that our laws favor the reunion of families over other concerns.

As for the breaking up of families. This is the result of international travel and not American laws.

When a person chooses to move over long distances (crossing national borders and all). That person is engaged in an activity that breaks familial bonds.

It is the individual's choice to emigrate that breaks up the family and not American law.

Yes, it is true that we witness the results of a decision. But the break up is not caused by our laws. The fact that we witness a drama does not mean we caused the drama.

I've noticed that all humans have human connections. People from a region are often related to a huge number of people. Developing the idea that immigration should take place in huge packs limits our nation's ability to accept immigrants from a diversity of places, because we can't just look at the individual who wants to immigrate, but all of the people attached to the individual.

The statistics show that our current system favors relatives of immigrants over all others.

It is really sad that moving abroad breaks up families, but I find it foolish to blame our immigration laws for breaking up families as some break of family must occur whenever people move abroad.