How to Stop Illegal Immigration: Jail Employers

Trumpers and other Americans are once again getting themselves all bent out of shape over a problem for which there is a simple solution. A wall won't stop illegal immigration, because it hits at a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

A wall may slow the immigrant flow down, but it won't stop it. The problem won't stop until you jail the employers who hire the illegals and treat them as harshly as the illegals, including jail time.

It's real simple. The illegals aren't stupid. They see the remittances coming back from the US Western Union, for thousands of dollars, so they know the money is up here, more in a month than they can make down there in a year. Wherever down there is, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras.

It's the remittances, stupid.

If they can stand pulling chicken guts for a few years they'll make up what they paid the coyote and much more. And they are used to pulling chicken guts anyway, being farmers, so who cares?

But every time grandma goes to El Western Union in la ciudad, everyone eats that night, and for a lot of nights after. Three left for El Norte. Maybe one made it, and didn't get lost in Mexico or in a haze of alcoholism and drugs. That one now supports an extended family, a whole village really,in a place where if you build anything of worth, it will just get stolen from you by corruption that the US probably helped create.

Gangs. The government. Often they are hard to tell apart.

When Trump talks about "sh!thole" countries, he forgets the US record of intervention in these countries, always on the side of the corrupt rich, in the name of stopping communism. If we think these people should go back down and fix things, fight their own revolutions, we should stop stopping their revolutions.

I hate to say it, but Americans are full of it, and hypocrites to boot. Jail employers, don't just impose fines that are slaps on the wrist, and the problem stops. The legal website Legal Match says:

Most fines are broken down to the following:

• First offenders can be fined $250-$2,000 per illegal employee.
• For a second offense, the fine is $2,000-$5,000 per illegal employee.
• Three or more offenses can cost an employer $3000-$10,000 per illegal employee. A pattern of knowingly employing illegal immigrants can mean extra fines and up to six months in jail for an employer.

Up to six months for a third level repeat offender? How about six months the first time?

Right now US authorities are making a show of prosecuting one or two employers once in a while. But if US employers aren't hiring, where are all those remittances coming from? It is well known that US remittances are good part of these countries' economies.

Try googling employers who have gone to jail for hiring large or small numbers of illegals. Considering the magnitude of the problem, if a real effort were being made, you'd have pages and pages of hits. Try it. With almost 8 million illegal immigrants working here, almost no one is going to jail.

Trump talked tough about it for awhile, but hasn't followed through. Do you hear him saying "I will shut down government until Congress gives me the laws and resources to put away employers of illegals?"

Stop the remittances and it stops the problem. No wall. A wall would be a gray jagged scar across the face of one of our most beautiful and precious landscapes: the Southwestern desert. And it won't work anyway, because the smell of money is always stronger. It's a show. It's politics.

A wall is something you can see and touch, so it appeals to dummies. But to solve a problem this big, you've got to be playing a little smarter game than that.

Jail employers. Problem solved.