South Korean Immigration Reform Leads to Mass Self Deportation of Illegal Immigrants
The argument that illegal immigrants in the United States will not self deport is often made to explain why they should just be given amnesty. As the case with South Korea shows illegal immigrants there self deported once they had a viable option to seek legal status:
An amnesty program for overstaying foreigners is having an unexpected consequence: Korea is suddenly short of nannies, restaurant help and construction workers.
In April, the Ministry of Justice announced an amnesty for people who overstayed their visas or illegally immigrated. It said that they could apply for overseas Korean visas, known as F-4, if they left Korea and went home in the next six months.
This was the first time the ministry has promised to allow all overstayers to apply for visas to return to Korea.
The amnesty is working. Over 12,000 foreigners who were in Korea illegally left the country from April to May, twice the 5,300 who left in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Justice. (…………)
“When I went to Incheon airport at 5 a.m., the third floor was crowded with illegal immigrants waiting to leave,” said Lee Byung-chun, who works for the Han-a administrative agency. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but the big different though with South Korea compared to the US is that there isn’t an entire political party trying to lock in the illegal immigrant vote. This is likely why Korea was able to successfully implement immigration reform and the United States cannot.
America doesn’t need “immigration reform”.
America needs “immigration enforcement”.
They are already “illegal” immigrants and there are already laws to jail and/or deport them.
“Immigration reform” is a euphemism for amnesty and other programs to encourage more needless immigrants.
If there is to be any “reform”, it needs to ban immigration of anyone without special skills which can contribute to America.
Like the period from 1924 to 1965, there needs to be very little immigration into America to give current immigrants time/encouragement to properly assimilate.
America already has a surplus of unskilled workers ready to do the Jobs Americans Won’t Do… as soon as welfare is cut off, illegals are deported, and companies are forced to pay true market value wages for the jobs they want done.
Please. Someone. Argue with me about this.
@Chickenhead, in my opinion immigration reform would begin with stopping businesses from hiring illegal immigrants. Combine this with a work permit system that would allow businesses to sponsor workers to come to America to work. However, do what the ROK has done and make the workers file the paperwork from their home country. This will cause self deporting.
The next step should be to force the businesses sponsoring the workers to pay at least the minimum wage. This will give the business an incentive to look for an American worker to avoid the work permit hassle. If they cannot find an American worker then they have the option of sponsoring the foreign worker to take the job. The minimum wage and legal work permit status then prevents the foreign worker from being taken advantage of by the employer.
I know none of this would ever happen due to the special interests involved of trying to make every illegal a Democrat voter and the Chamber of Commerce wanting to keep low wage labor readily available, but does anyone else have any better ideas?
“@Chickenhead, in my opinion immigration reform would begin with stopping businesses from hiring illegal immigrants.”
It is already illegal to hire illegal immigrants. There needs to be no “reform”. Existing laws need to be enforced.
“Combine this with a work permit system that would allow businesses to sponsor workers to come to America to work.”
America does not need foreign workers to come to America to work. There are plenty of unskilled America workers sucking from the public teat who will work unskilled jobs if companies paid American market wages instead of something just above Mexican market wages. There are also plenty of skilled American workers who do not need to be replaced by greedy companies abusing the foreign skilled worker permit system. If there is a shortage of skilled workers, companies can do what they did in the past… sponsor scholarships and develop training programs.
“However, do what the ROK has done and make the workers file the paperwork from their home country. This will cause self deporting.”
Yes. Then decide if they are really necessary.
“The next step should be to force the businesses sponsoring the workers to pay at least the minimum wage.”
Again, this is already the law. There needs to be no “reform”. Existing law needs to be enforced.
Raising minimum wage is the lazy solution. Removing indirect corporate welfare, which allows companies to pay minimum wage and lets welfare programs pick up food, medical, and housing for their employees, would be a better solution. Forcing companies to pay a living wage through competition would work better… though more thinking would be involved than setting an arbitrary minimum wage, declaring victory, and hoping everything works out… which is how much of failed government works.
“but does anyone else have any better ideas?”
There needs to be a 1925-1965 style stop in immigration to allow everyone currently in America to properly assimilate. Exceptions would be made for those with skills that can contribute to America. After vetting, they should be fast-tracked to citizenship and treated/paid as Americans. The Dreamers, illegal aliens that came as children and grew up as Americans, should be made American citizens after vetting to insure they hold values more consistent with America than with their illegal alien parent’s nations. When illegal aliens are caught, they should be punished to an extent they will not wish to return and be caught again. Then they should be deported. This is how punishment works. Illegal aliens who commit crimes should be punished for those crimes just as citizens would be punished, then punished for being illegal aliens, then deported. Multiple offenders should be punished exponentially.
Existing illegal aliens need to be located, punished, and deported. Those found illegally crossing the border should be treated as invaders or saboteurs and repelled. A good case could be made for allowing “a well-regulated militia” to guard the border with “see something, shoot something” rules of engagement. If anyone has an intelligent argument against this, give it.
There needs to be a push to fill the economic niche of illegal aliens with American workers, both skilled and unskilled. This includes insuring a living wage is paid through competition at American market wages, perhaps including a minimum wage increase to get it started. For skilled jobs, clever programs would need to be devised insuring skilled legal resident aliens got paid the same as Americans and companies would be financially punished for hiring foreign workers before American workers with the same qualifications.
This is just scratching the surface.
Sadly, “immigration reform” is not about this kind of reform.
Should the US reward/subsidize the felonious effort of foreign nationals to illegally place their children in the US?
The so-called “Dreamers” may, in fact, have more in common with their legal resident/citizen neighbors; but if we allow them a special path, we reward the parents’ illegal actions. And yes, SS Fraud is a five-year felony. If you work for hire in the USA without a valid SS number, you are committing SS Fraud (with very few clearly spelled-out exceptions). If we choose to blame the employers, the entire enterprise can be confiscated under RICO laws already on the books, regardless of whether it is a private or publicly held concern. If the illegal go help from ANYONE who knew they were here illegally, the parties are committing a felony conspiracy. And if they are armed and use those weapons to defeat law enforcement, they are in fact guilty of Insurrection, under the 18 US Code Chapter 115 Treason statutes.
The fact that our President has chosen to ignore this says a lot about his alleged character. And that of all his (and Hillary’s) supporters.
I read an article which stated that USCIS/ICE (maybe it was another govt. agency) instructs businesses to simply check for proper documents. If the documents appear legitimate, they are to take no further actions such as E-verify. An illegal alien might work somewhere for 20 years before the IRS finally notices the discrepancies with the SS# being used by 2 people. At that point the IRS sends out a notice for the company to explain. When the company asks the alien about it, they don’t stick around for long, just move onto the next company with a new set of documents.
Why set up E-Verify if there was not intent to actually use it?
I cannot confirm whether this is the case or not or how often it might happen, so take with a grain of salt.
@Chickenhead, I believe reform includes enforcement of existing laws which is not happening now. Stopping illegal immigration has to begin with a crackdown on the businesses hiring the workers. If there are no jobs they will not come. For jobs that businesses cannot find Americans to do at a minimum wage rate than they should have the option of sponsoring a foreign worker. However, I believe by paying minimum wage many more Americans will take those jobs, but not all of them.
GI, it is common knowledge that no one can get a job in construction without fluency in Spanish. It’s not about wages. It’s about shutting down the people who make more money paying people under the table and not paying taxes to support the illegals they bring here who then use schools, hospitals, roads, etc.
“For jobs that businesses cannot find Americans to do at a minimum wage rate than they should have the option of sponsoring a foreign worker.”
No. Businesses that cannot find Americans to do jobs at minimum wage need to raise the price they pay for labor until they attract workers to do the job… as Economics 101 clearly explained.
It is only when illegal workers, paid under the table below minimum wage and without Social Security, unemployment insurance, etc., are allowed to enter the equation, they become Jobs Americans Won’t Do… because they are Jobs Americans Can’t Do… or they will have to live a third world lifestyle until the IRS catches up to them.
Keep in mind that many big companies find shady ways to reduce their labor costs… from using temporary workers to making everyone a salaried assistant manager to offshoring to hiring illegal aliens… and these saving are neither distributed to the artificially low-paid workers nor to the public tax fund.
Companies must be forced to pay market value for labor… which they resist doing for obvious financial reasons.
This is, of course, even more complicated due to hideous government restrictions, regulations, and expenses on labor that make it financially necessary for companies to cut corners where they can.
One other thing…
AMERICA DOES NOT NEED “reform”.
The laws are there.
America needs a president who actually cares about America and the working middle class… and stops blocking enforcement of existing immigration laws.
While it is clear that Obama and his pet ape hate America and the working class (examples available on request), it seems he also hates unskilled poor Americans. He has done more to damage American society than Bush.
He cannot be gone too soon.
@Chickenhead, there are certain jobs such as agriculture work there is not enough people willing to do the work at minimum wage because it is hard work and many people do not want to live in remote areas to do the job. Raising the pay above minimum wage will pretty much shut down many of the farms competing with low wage agriculture workers in other countries. For your idea to work, to keep America’s agriculture sector competitive with foreign imports trade deals would have to be reworked or high tariffs imposed.
GI… actual humans doing farmwork will be mostly gone in another decade.
Remote tractors and harvesters are already a thing. Robots that inspect and pick fruits and vegetables are already in operation on test farms.
As it is, the whole farming market is very artificial. America can pay agricultural workers a living wage… which would raise prices at the farm level… which would cut into Big Agriculture’s profits… which they would have to accept to remain competitive in the global market.
But they don’t want to accept that.
And they have really good lobbiests.
So farmers are forced to pay as little as possible to whoever will take it.
Problem we had at a company I had previously worked for was that a lot of them had assumed identities of other Mexicans who are in the US legally. Their id/documents all perfect, and everything matched up when we ran background checks. We actually caught an employee who had been there over a year, after an illegal had applied for a job using this employees same exact name and social security, lol.