Nolan On Immigration Reform: "No Iron Curtain"

Nolan on immigration reform: "No Iron Curtain"

David Nolan, Libertarian candidate for Congress in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, is dismayed by the escalating verbal battle between Republican Randy Graf and Democrat Gabrielle Giffords.

"They're trying to turn this into a sloganeering contest," says Nolan. "Everything gets reduced to sound-bites, with words like ‘amnesty' and ‘illegal alien' tossed around without any real attempt to discuss what we can actually do to address the problem we now face. Our present system isn't working, but we can't build an Iron Curtain between the U.S. and Mexico."

The phrase "Iron Curtain" was first used by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the Soviet partition of Europe. In the decades since, it has come to mean any barrier to the migration of people across an international border.

"We need to distinguish between those who are here legally, and those who are not. We also need to make it easier for qualified people to enter the United States while screening out criminals, the diseased, and potential terrorists."

"People who are in the U.S. without having met our legal requirements should be given the opportunity to apply for residence. If they meet certain basic requirements, they should be granted legal guest worker status. This is not full amnesty, as the word is properly used. They would not be automatically placed on a ‘path to citizenship' or become eligible for taxpayer-funded social services. If they failed to step forward within a specified time, perhaps six months, they would then lose their eligibility and would be deported if found here without a visa."

"The key element in any such transition program is that we must first offer a carrot - an incentive to step forward - before we get out the big stick - deportation. Facing the choice of coming forward and being deported, or staying in the shadows and staying here, an illegal alien will stay in the shadows"

When challenged about past amnesties, Nolan is quick to reply. "I don't support having this limited amnesty without reforming our immigration laws. Everyone will tell you that amnesty didn't work in 1986, and they're right. What they won't tell you is why it didn't work. Congress didn't fix immigration. Congress should have reformed our antiquated, racist laws in 1986, and they should have done it in 2006."

"If everyone could get a visa, then immigration would take place on the roads where it belongs. It would be safe to assume that people crossing through the desert were out to do us harm, not to work for us, and that undocumented worker was a real criminal and not a victim of the system. There would be no talk of punishing business owners for consensual acts of commerce because there'd be no reason for them to break the law. For this to work, we need limited amnesty, to figure out who's in the country, check their backgrounds, and get them papers."

Like most Libertarians, Nolan believes that the free market should control immigration. "There is no reason not to let the market decide how many immigrants come and go so long as aliens are kept ineligible for most welfare benefits and those with serious criminal records are prevented from entering in the first place. Randy Graf has gotten the idea in his head that he can better determine how many immigrants should come to America per year than the laws of supply and demand. Yet he can't explain to you or me how he'd come up with such a number."

"Too often we hear that immigrants ‘take away American jobs.' But every economist will tell you that immigration creates new jobs and that the influx of immigration improves the job market for those who were already here. When Fidel Castro emptied his prisons onto Miami's shores, the Miami economy actually grew in every respect - and if hordes of honest, hard-working Mexicans were unleashed through our ports-of-entry, Arizona's economy would grow in the same way. On the other hand, the Graf/Giffords plan of mass deportation would result in a serious recession in Tucson."

Nolan's concerns about immigration policy aren't limited to economics. "Our civil liberties are being violated by suspicionless stops and workplace raids, ranchers' lands are being trespassed and damaged because the Border Patrol deliberately drove immigration there. Randy Graf wants to spend billions on a wall, to increase Border Patrol presence, and to involve the military in policing. That means more infringements of our civil liberties and more damage to private property. Lacking ideas, Randy Graf wants to do more of what doesn't work, and harder. He doesn't believe in reform; he believes in deporting 3% of our population!"

"My policy," continued Nolan, "by making most immigration legal, eliminates illegal immigration, and at a net savings to the taxpayer!" Said Libertarian volunteer Ben Kalafut: "If Arizonans want immigration reform, we're going to have to send a real leader, someone with guts, to Washington. Randy Graf suggests keeping good people out with a Berlin Wall rather than striking at the root of the problem. Gabrielle Giffords has no ideas beyond what the polls say. Nolan is the only candidate who fits the bill."

http://www.nolan2006.org/