Thursday, September 06, 2007

A Modest Proposal

For comprehensive immigration reform:
  1. Build a fence along the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border.


  2. Make deportation the sole penalty for the first offense of entering or remaining in America illegally.


  3. Extend the Sarbanes-Oxley requirement of personal liability for corporate offenses to cover "conspiracy to commit illegal immigration" (i.e., employing illegal immigrants), and apply that liability to all officers, directors and/or general partners of any offending corporation or partnership, no matter how small. Set the penalty for first offense to personal forfeiture of the equivalent wages at Davis-Bacon rates.


  4. Eliminate all current quotas and "chained" rationales for legal immigration, substituting a numerical quota set to a minimum of the current quota and a maximum of 1/300th of total population, with the actual number chosen each year by Markos Moulitsas ZĂșniga.


  5. Allocate each year's quota by reverse ("Dutch") auction, opening at $1 billion, declining at $1,000 increments and ending when all places are filled or the bid price equals the costs of immigration application processing, whichever comes first.


  6. Make the death penalty the sole punishment for the second offense of entering or remaining in America illegally. And for the second offense of conspiracy to commit illegal immigration.
(look, Ma, no hyperlinks!)

4 comments:

Stan said...

At risk of feeling stupid, I don't get it.

a) you're making fun of the "nativists", b) you're making fun of someone else, or c) you're serious.

Anonymous said...

Stan, I think it's a mixture of b) and c). I don't get the Kos connection. But I get the combo of a) free market for measuring the intensity of desire to immigrate (plus revenue enhancement) and b) the market has rules, which will be enforced with extreme prejudice.

In a theoretical world, transactions costs can be wished away. In that world, this would amount to a much more effective immigration policy.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Mine would start: #1. Build a fence around the entire boundary of the District of Columbia.

@nooil4pacifists said...

All:

1) It's titled "A Modest Proposal" -- a clue.

2) I mostly agree with Anonymous.

3) AVI's fence would trap me!

4) I had been hoping to provoke alternative solutions.