personally, to me, this bill not only encourages racial profiling, which is illegal, but it sets up the state to penalize non-US citizens without giving them an option to avoid penalization (other than leaving the country or avoiding arrest). The truth is a very small percentage of people who are here illegally are engaged in criminal activity (one of the rallying cries for passage of this bill), most are here because the US is the land of opportunity and they cannot get work in their own countries or they are here working and sending that money back to support their families.
Personally i would have structured an immigration reform bill this way:
set up a department that makes an easy to obtain a work visa for all non-US citizens. You have to pay $30 or something for the visa, fill out a bunch of paperwork and have to register with this department when you get a job/or note on the visa where your job is if you already have one. Then the state taxes the money you make in addition the money they make off the initial cost of the visa and renewal fees.
make it so you have to reapply every year or set some time limit. Make it penalty-free for people who have been working in this country illegally for some time now, who can then voluntarily sign up for the visa without fear of prosecution/deportation.
then use the money to secure the border for those that still want to cross illegally.
Access to work visas will reduce the need for people who are not criminals or engaged in criminal activity to cross illegally, to rely on coyotes, and to hide in the US.
it will also provide us with a large, steady stream of tax revenue that we do need (perhaps enough that we can avoid raising taxes). It will also create a database of who is here, so we can keep better data on the number of non-citizens working in the US.
if you get caught without your easily obtained work visa, then you pay a steep fine and perhaps after 3 violations, you get deported or something. The state level is a good stage for experimentation. Sadly this law is only going to cause more problems before it initiates any solutions.
FYI - the US work visa system is currently the most complex visa system in the world. most applicants need legal assistance from an immigration lawyer to help with filing.
The major working visas are H-1B Visa and L-1 Visa. One can also work with an L-2, F-1, M-1, J-1, J-2, I, A or G type visa and there are many more visa classifications for US immigration.
more info on our visa systemaccording to the DHS only 700,000 immigrants were naturalized to US citizens in 2009.
In summary, DHS estimates that the unauthorized immigrant population living in the United States decreased to 10.8 million in January 2009 from 11.6 million in January 2008. Between 2000 and 2009, the unauthorized population grew by 27 percent. Of all unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2009, 63 percent entered before 2000, and 62 percent were from Mexico.source
