How do you feel about combining comprehensive immigration reform and an economic stimulus bill?

If you read this blog regularly, you might remember how I critiqued the immigration bill being sponsored by Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer. As you might recall, I didn’t like it, and I suggested some issues that need to be addressed in an effective immigration bill. Unfortunately, I don’t think my ideas went far enough.

The exact number of illegal aliens in the United States isn’t known, but I’ve heard estimates ranging between 12 million and 20 million. I also read that illegal aliens have around 8 million jobs. This made me think: What if we could combine a second economic stimulus that would put people to work, while addressing immigration reform?

As you read this, the unemployment rate is around 10%. This rate is higher among those with a high school education or less. How can we get these people to work? We could begin by completely revamping immigration by viewing it as something to benefit the United State’s economy, rather than a humanitarian mission to save third world countries. By implementing tough rules, we could dissuade businesses from hiring illegal aliens and replace them with Americans and legal immigrants.

A leftist might say that these are jobs Americans don’t want, but this is nonsense. If the cheap labor provided by illegal aliens weren’t available, wages would be higher, and more legal residents would be interested in the jobs. By the way, in tough times like these, most people aren’t fussy. They’ll just be happy to have a job.

There would also be plenty of construction jobs created, since we would need workers to build more detention centers for those awaiting deportation, and a wall along the Mexican border to dissuade future lawbreakers from trespassing. In addition to these construction projects, we would also need additional workers to staff Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Any successful bill would also need to offer help at the local level. One great way is to offer additional aid for education. This could be accomplished by dissuading illegal aliens from staying in the United States and deporting them. Here’s how it can help local cites and towns: We are required to provide schooling for illegal aliens. Many of those who sympathize with the lawbreakers point out that they pay taxes (to some extent). Of course, in the next breathe, they talk about how poor this block of people are, so how much are they really paying in taxes? Not much, but I digress.

Let’s say a couple has two children and they pay $4,000 per year in taxes, which is probably an overly generous estimate. If each of those children is costing their local school district $13,000 to educate, but the family is only paying $4,000 in taxes, isn’t that a net loss for that city or town? In this example, over $22,000 is being saved, which doesn’t even take into account savings from other areas, such as emergency medical care. Of course, the leftists would argue that their spending is important for the local economy, but I doubt it would be missed. Remittances are the second biggest source of money in Mexico after oil, so the typical illegal immigrant is probably pumping more money into “their country” than the United States.

This plan has already addressed immigration reform, job creation, and aid to cities and towns, but it can also help provide affordable housing for low income families. Since we have between 12 million and 20 million people in the country who don’t belong here, the absence of a substantial number of them would mean less demand for housing. With a constant or slowly increasing supply, this would probably reduce monthly rents for some of our most economically vulnerable (legal) residents. Wouldn’t that help legal residents affected by the housing crisis?

These are just a few of the benefits from the Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Economic Stimulus bill I am proposing. Now, are there any Senators or Representatives with the nerve to make such a proposal?