* A biometric ID for all persons in the United States, citizens and non-citizens alike, is the answer. It would be produced whenever you use a credit card, cash a check, etc.
* Here’s an idea for an immigration reform which is compassionate but has teeth. If you are over 18 and you are discovered to be in the country illegally, your biometric data is taken, and you are given 1 year to wrap up your affairs and leave the country, and if you do so future LEGAL attempts to enter the country will not be prejudiced, you will be forgiven. However, if you are found to be in the USA illegally after the 12 months is up, you must serve 12 months in Federal Prison after which you will be kicked out and prohibited from entering the USA legally for 20 years (only exceptions would be people with foreign diplomatic credentials or who are allowed in on an individual basis by an Act Of Congress).
* I don’t get it. First, I visited the US about ten times under the visa waiver program. Still I had to submit an online request for that including my passport number and a lot of other data. Before entering the country, I was questioned by an immigration officer, and my fingerprints and photograph was taken. So I assume this happenes to anyone entering with a visa as well. The expiration date is known, and you have to produce your passport when checking in for your return flight. So if the airlines submit their passenger lists with passport numbers when the passenger leaves the US, this can be checked against the known and finite list of people who have entered the country and whose visas have not yet expired. If and when an expiry date passes and no record has been submitted by an airline of the person having left the country, the system give a red flag and that person is automatically assumed to have overstayed his/her visa. No biometrical data needed, just a decent database.
Facebook knows when my birthday is, and my friends’ birthdays, and can send me reminders, so why can’t the federal government know when a person’s visa has expired and whether there is a record of that person having left? Seems no more complicated.
I don’t see the need for biometrical data, but if they are capable of taking my data when entering (as they have done a dozen times), why can’t they do so when leaving? I don’t buy the technology argument for one minute.
* Given how incompetent the US government is with border control, how about bringing in some foreign experts – I’m sure Japan, Switzerland and Singapore have some useful ideas.
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* Really, there is no one better at making the case in hostile environments than Ann Coulter, and she does it with a smile on her face. Virtuosic.
Learned something new there, that Trump asked her for an advanced copy of Adios America after seeing her on Jorge Ramos’s show. She took on all comers there.
* I would apply penalties to the sending countries as well as the overstaying individuals.
That is, assign a non-immigrant visa quota to Brazil, of 1,000,000, for the sake of argument.
If 100,000 people overstay their visas, next year’s quota is 900,000, and the reductions accumulate.
If a Brazilian national commits an act of terrorism here, the visa quota is cut by 50% for ten years.
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* Foreign born population 1980 v 1990
Latin America 4,372,487 / 8,407,837
Africa 199,723 / 363,819
Europe 5,149,572 / 4,350,403
Asia 2,539,777 / 4,979,037
Canada 853,427 / 753,917
Yes, when Reagan was elected, there were more European immigrants living in the USA than Latin American immigrants.
Hispanic population 1990 v 1980 21,900,089 / 14,603,683
* Don’t want to have problems with visa overstayers or unwanted immigrants, in general? Then don’t invite them into the country. Like the Japanese, allow immigrants that offer a specific service to the country, then see that they leave once that service or contract is fulfilled. The United States has long outlived its need for immigration of any sort – we don’t need Somalis, we don’t need Afghans, we don’t need Iraqis, or Mexicans or Europeans, for that matter.
Once we were a self-sufficient country; we could be that again, but not with the mindset that permeates our upper echelon of government and business and education ‘leaders’. We are an example, the prime example, of capitalism allowed to run amok. I like capitalism, don’t get me wrong, but benevolent capitalism, not arrogant capitalism.
Immigration should be stopped, the mess sorted out, and then allowed again only with the most restrained conditions.
* All of the 9/11 hijacker-terrorists were “visa-overstayers”. They killed over 3,000 Americans.
