The Biden administration is offering 500,000 undocumented immigrants protection from deportation and an opportunity to become citizens under a new “parole in place” policy. The protection is offered to persons married to U.S. citizens who have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years with no felony convictions.
Republicans are suing to stop this, framing the policy as an attempt to swell the ranks of Democratic-leaning voters at the expense of enforcing immigration laws. This is not an unfounded fear.
Similar political worries hover over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era policy that protects from deportation those who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children after they become working-age adults.
How much of the immigration debate is being stymied because of fears about future voting patterns? Quite a bit, in my estimation.
In general, a lot of Republicans support Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals as a matter of justice toward children, who often arrived as babies and know no other life other than as Americans.
Similarly, for a party that prides itself on pro-family values, the idea of forcibly separating undocumented parents from their spouses, children and extended family and community is distasteful.
But Republicans balk at all of these measures because they appear to cast aside the law in total favor of compassion, and perhaps more worrisome, they may swell the ranks of Democratic voters.
So how do you take politics out of immigration policy? First, you can take away the fear that undocumented immigrants will ever affect voting rolls. Immigration law should include a simple proviso: Anyone who ever enters the United States illegally is forever barred from voting in any state or national election. They may earn or be granted the status of permanent residents, but they will never be able to vote as full-fledged citizens.
Voting is a privilege. It is not the right of every resident. And it is certainly reasonable to permanently withhold from everyone who entered illegally, even as a newborn with no intention of breaking the law. Denial of future voting privileges is simply a penalty attached to violating immigration law.
Republicans should champion this measure in exchange for legislative support for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and “parole in place” for married couples. If Democrats oppose it, that will underscore the fear that Democrats are more interested in turning illegal immigrants into Democratic voters than they are in simply providing these people safe legal status.
The second reform Republicans should support is a new “work-and-return-home” immigration policy. This is the single best way to both end the lawlessness currently at the border while also avoiding massive deportation roundups.
The key to this policy is to recognize that most illegal immigrants wish they could occasionally return to their native countries to visit family and friends. Plus, most want to be documented. They would prefer and gladly accept work visas. But work visas, currently, are simply too hard to get for less-skilled laborers.
These two motivations should be combined to create a process for illegal immigrants who self-deport to become documented workers.
In short, immigration reform should include a generous work permit program that allows citizens from the Western Hemisphere to enter and work for two to four years, provided they have no criminal record.
During or after this work permit period, they would be required to return to their home countries for an accumulated period of at least six months. Once this minimum return-home residency requirement has been met, they would be eligible for a new work-and-return-home permit.
How would this apply to the 12 million illegal immigrants already here? First, they would have to register for a work permit on their way out. That would start the clock for reestablishing residency in their home countries. If their work application investigations reveal no criminal record, then a two-to-four-year work-and-return-home visa will be waiting for them on their return.
Secondly, as stated previously, none of these people would ever be entitled to become voting citizens. That is a privilege they have lost by entering illegally. But it may be a path to permanent residency.
Finally, expanding the number of documented workers can boost our tax resources, particularly Social Security and Medicare reserves. These work-and-return-home workers should be required to contribute to Social Security and Medicare even though they will never be eligible for these benefits. This could be viewed as an additional tax for the privilege of legal employment in the U.S. In addition, this provision is intended to eliminate any financial advantage for employers to hire work-and-return-home immigrants over citizens.
I believe these two proposals could help to reduce political party divisions over our most pressing immigration issues. The best, most fair, and compassionate solutions will never be adopted as long as either party views the solution as gaming of the ballot box.
This proposal takes politics out of the solution. It offers migrants a path to documentation and legal work, but it also restores the rule of law where currently none exists. It is also pro-family, pro-economy and pro-self-sufficiency.
David C. Reardon, Ph.D., director of the Elliot Institute, is a biomedical ethicist and author of “Making Abortion Rare: A Healing Strategy for a Divided Nation.”