An(other) Open Letter to President Obama

At first, I thought to offer a strict prisoner’s dilemma scenario to the President. I decided that would not go over quite as well. I’d love to know if anyone finds anything immoral, unethical, inhumane, cruel, or unjust about this. It’s a pragmatic solution that doesn’t actually harm anyone. Families would not be ripped apart–they’d be paid to stay together, in fact. I don’t like the idea of forking over money to lawbreakers, but hell, it would save so much money you wouldn’t believe it.

Of course, it’s just as likely that someone will scream “racist!” and compare this (and yours truly) to Hitler. Oh, sweet irony. I hope the White House sends me a reply. I’d love that.

Your Name
Your Address
Your Phone Number

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1414

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for your hard work. As an independent voter, I respectfully disagree with many of your policies, but I disagree with the Republicans just as much. I know you have a tough job and keep long hours.

I would like to offer an equitable solution to the immigration debate currently ongoing in Washington. I am a strong proponent of legal immigration: diversity makes us stronger as a nation. At the same time, I believe the illegal immigration issue needs to be dealt with in a manner that is humane, and yet good for American citizens first and foremost.

As much as I sympathize with the desire to live a better life, it isn’t right to do so fraudulently, and granting amnesty would be the same as rewarding fraud. We should not favor people who could not bother themselves to fill out some forms and wait over those who have played by the rules.

Rather than complain about the problem, though, I offer a solution that is fair and equitable:

We should pay undocumented workers to leave. Offer a $3000 reward to every undocumented worker who turns himself/herself and his/her family in to the INS (add $250 per head, plus tickets home). We could pay the undocumented to turn in others to the INS. This program would offer $1500 and a bus ticket home for every undocumented worker referred to the INS by another UW.

With 12 million UWs, we’d need–at most–100 billion dollars (18-36 billion in rewards, plus tickets and administrative costs.) The healthcare and welfare savings would pay for the program in months. To prevent this from being a sensitive issue, we would disallow citizens and lawful residents from participating. Perhaps create a short-list of workers who turned themselves in, and offer to allow them special probationary reentry after completing the requisite paperwork—outside of the country, of course.

This would give the workers the opportunity for a fresh start in their home countries, or the opportunity to return, but lawfully. Stiff penalties and improved border patrols would discourage unlawful reentry.

The undocumented workers would be treated humanely and leave better off than they arrived, and full cooperation would allow for easier access to lawful work visas. In the meantime, this would free up jobs for millions of Americans, and it would save billions of dollars for taxpayers in healthcare and welfare costs.

Thank you, and God bless,

Ian McLeod