What if President Trump were to offer to pardon all the citizens of Mexico who entered illegally, but not include people who overstayed visas or entered illegally from Mexico or elsewhere who are citizens of other countries?
Hear me out...
Pardoning these Mexican citizens illegally resident here does NOT make them legal; it only removes the penalties that resulted from their illegal entry.
If one barrier to motivating these people to leave and reenter legally is the fear of financial and/or time penalties for their original entry, this would remove that barrier. They would be allowed to enter legally without the fear of their past getting in the way, but they would still have to enter legally.
This would now free up Congress to write legislation that does not have to deal with this. Congress can try to pass legislation that fast-tracks the reentry process.
In other words, perhaps they do not have to physically leave and re-enter; maybe Congress can find a way for people without police records and who have steady jobs to stay here while they follow a documentation process to become legal residents. Once that process completes, then the five-year residency clock can begin before they can be considered for naturalization.
Congress would still have to deal with the issue of people with felony records, and people who have stolen identities (like social security numbers). A pardon would only be limited to the single act of illegal entry; these people would not be pardoned for any other crimes that occurred since then, including ID theft or other crimes that might be argued to stem from the illegal entry.
President Trump would have to very delicately explain to the American people why this is NOT amnesty (and therefore not breaking a campaign promise). The pardon would only cancel the penalty for the illegal entry to encourage illegal aliens to begin a legal entry/documentation process.
Also, Trump should tie this pardon to some concession from Democrats and/or Congress, such as funding the wall or tax reform. The President would only sign such a pardon simultaneously with a bill sent to his desk.
Thoughts?
-PJ
Yeah, I got a thought, GTFO
I don’t support giving any advantage to illegals over people who are doing the legal process to become legal here. That means they would have to do the same process, start to finish from the back of the line. If their circumstances require them to begin the process from another country then so be it.
We had (possibly still do) a process allowing people who had come here illegally to agree to self deport and then were allowed to go through the process legally to come here to work or become citizens. That process was used as a carrot to encourage illegals to self deport or allow themselves to be immediately deported without a hearing. If we had to forcibly deport illegals going through the whole immigration court process they were never allowed to try to come back legally and that was the stick to balance the carrot. The process actually worked, but then open borders supporters/radical groups began telling illegals to not waive their hearings. The plan was to clog up our immigration courts so we could not get people processed and deported. That has caused the issues we have now with our backed up immigration courts, full detention centers which makes it hard to deport. Nearly every single illegal that goes through the hearing process loses and is court ordered to be deported. They came here illegally so it is hard for them to make any case that they should not be deported. So according to our immigration laws those illegals cannot legally return. They have been simply returning over and over again ignoring our laws.
We have to follow our laws, we got in this mess by not following our own laws. We cannot give special treatment to those that come here illegally over those that are doing the process legally.
What the illegals are asking for is special treatment. Why should we even consider special treatment for people who came here illegally and demand more and more special treatment? Whatever we do and have done it is never enough. They will not stop demanding and fighting unless we have open borders and give amnesty to everyone that wants it.
If you think of the illegal immigration issue at this point the same as the 2nd Amendment battle you will understand what is really going on. They are fighting for bits and pieces but will not stop until they have everything they want. Just as the liberals will not stop fighting for bits and pieces of gun control and will not stop unless they can completely criminalize private ownership of firearms. This is a battle that will keep coming up over and over. We do not want to give them a lot of ground hoping they will back off, they will instead increase the pressure for more and more until they get what they want.
Have you ever been around a spoiled child that always gets their way? What happens when they don’t get what they want? What happens if you try to only give them part of what they want? If you cave in and give that child what they want, then what happens the next time they want something? That is what we are dealing with at this point.