Guest Worker Plan, reasonable enforcement, and assimilation

It seems to me that one of the reasons that we don’t have good immigration reform is because of the failure to come up with a bill that would alleviate concerns from those on both sides of the debate. While I realize that good immigration reform includes much more than our policies on our southern border, I am going to focus on that since it is the most politically dicey. There is a third side that would like to keep things the way they are just for the cheap labor, and we will never please them (perhaps they are the one beating the drums). First, I think it is important to realize that there are different reasons for immigrating to the US for those from the south of us (Mexicans and central and southern American’s). Some of these immigrants want to bring their families over here, start a new life, and eventually gain citizenship; some are fleeing economic and political problems; others just come here to work to support their family. I believe that the last category is probably the largest category, and the least likely to assimilate to our culture. These people would prefer to live in their own country, just coming here to work. The problem is that the current system forces them to stay, which means they often bring their family also. I think that this category of people ends up getting stuck here as the economy from where they left often doesn’t improve (it didn’t help that the entire family left the community) .

Those that come to start a new life here are more similar to those immigrants from Europe in the last couple of centuries in that they expect to stay, expect their children to learn the language (many of them will try also), and see themselves as part of the American culture (even if they are also part of a Hispanic culture). From my experience, most of these people already have family that are citizens in the US, and are generally are more highly paid that the guest worker. I think giving this group an easier path to citizenship is important, but there is reason not to include it in the first steps since it is so politically dicey.
So, I think immigration reforms would be fairly popular and would help to improve the situation enough to eventually give citizenship to those that want it.
Guest Worker Plan – Allow non-criminal adult to come here to work, if they have a job lined up (perhaps by some sort of employment agency). This employment agency or company would have to pay a tax to bring this worker into the US (this could help to pay for social services as well as make their labor a little more competitively priced with American’s). All undocumented workers have some time to get into this same system. Allow these workers travel between their home country and the US. I believe that many of their families would return to their country of origin, thus making their communities more stable, and the worker more likely to return once they are able.

Enforcement – Forget about all the talk about increasing border security, deportation, etc (don’t stop what we are currently doing). After some time after the Guest Worker Plan has been instituted, audit all businesses, and make sure they have no undocumented workers (undocumented workers are often paid less than minimum wage). Impose a hefty fine on all businesses unwilling to comply with the law.