Issue Position: Immigration

Issue Position

Approximately 11,000,000 undocumented people here in the US are in a state of limbo. 60% of them have lived here for 10 or more years. More than 80% have lived here for 5 years or more. The vast majority are our friends, our colleagues, our neighbors. They are integral parts of our communities and our economy.

Unfortunately, they are also political pawns.

We must provide them with a just pathway to legitimacy and citizenship. We must leverage technology (not a wall) to improve immigration enforcement to assure we never are in this position again. And we must streamline our future immigration laws and tie them to short and long term economic indicators.
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I propose a 3-part approach:

Leverage technology to enable a new and streamlined immigration policy. Immigration allowances would float monthly and be tied directly to key economic indicators such as the unemployment rate, new jobless claims and new jobs created and be specific to employment segments. This will give employers access to the labor pools and skill sets they need, and essentially be a self regulating system: as unemployment goes up, immigration would slow down and vice-versa

Secondly leverage technology to improve enforcement. No, we don't need a wall on the southern border. The border is already militarized and visa overstays account for almost twice as many illegal entries as do border crossings. We must leverage technology to track and flag visa overstays. We must also crack down on employers who exploit undocumented labor by making use of the EVerify system mandatory.

Finally and most importantly, we have get the 11 million who are already here out of their current state of limbo and provide them a path to legal permanent residency and citizenship.
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Of course undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes (other than improper entry) and those who have only been here a short time will be subject to deportation.

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