ImmigrationFree-market solution to the immigration problem
Supporters of a free-market approach to the immigration problem advance the “Red Card Solution,” a system to issue short-term unlimited guest worker visas. The system calls for private businesses to operate labor offices inside the United States and abroad, in which foreigners could apply for jobs. Hired applicants would be given a temporary red card to enter the United States and work with the security of legal worker status, and the understanding that they would leave the country upon completion of the job. Under the Red Card Solution, only applicants who have passed a criminal background check and secure legitimate employment would be granted worker status.
Helen Krieble became an activist for better immigration laws after her central Colorado equestrian facility was stormed by federal immigration agents. The agents arrived unannounced with batons and police dogs searching through barns and stables, demanding identification papers from the independent contractors who rented space in Krieble’s facility. Some contractors employed illegal workers who were then handcuffed and removed from the facility by immigrations agents. The agents demanded documentation from Krieble to verify the immigration status of her staff.
“Somebody had reported that we had illegals working here. We didn’t, but some of the other contractors who rent space in our barns did,” she said, recalling the incident in a recent phone interview with ColoradoWatchdog.org. “It’s hard to imagine something like that happening in the United States. Eventually, I realized it was happening because our laws are bad,” Krieble said.
Krieble’s experience with immigration agents prompted her to introduce the Red Card Solution, a system to issue short-term unlimited guest worker visas. The system calls for private businesses to operate labor offices inside the United States and abroad, in which foreigners could apply for jobs. Hired applicants would be given a temporary red card to enter the United States and work with the security of legal worker status, and the understanding that they would leave the country upon completion of the job. Krieble describes the solution as perfect for seasonal immigrant workers.
The current guest-worker permit grants 66,000 visas per year for unskilled nonagricultural workers, 65,000 visas for high-skilled workers, and 150,000 visas for farmworkers. 1.5 million foreign farmworkers in the United States highlight the gap between the demand for foreign workers and the supply of legal worker permits issued by the government. A black market for labor is the result of this gap.
Alex Nowrasteh, immigration policy analyst for the libertarian Cato Institute, believes current immigration laws have produced a restrictive immigration system which limits the number of legal immigrants in the United States. “If we increased legal immigration and expanded the guest worker program, we could channel almost all immigration into the legal markets.”
Under the Red Card Solution, only applicants who have passed a criminal background check and secure legitimate employment would be granted worker status. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an organization calling for more restrictive immigration policies,claims the program would undercut American jobs and workers by giving unrestricted access to guest workers who may overstay their visas. Pro-immigration groups like the Immigration Policy Center are concerned that the program would create a system of “indentured servitude” since workers are limited to the job assigned to them and to leave a job would violate the guest worker permit.
Colorado Watchdog notes that the Red Card Solution does not offer a path to citizenship. Krieble assumes guest workers only have an interest in making money for a brief period in the United States then want to return to their native countries. Historical evidence supports Krieble’s assumption. Less than half of eligible immigrants applied for citizenship when the United States offered amnesty to illegal immigrants in the 1980s. Sixty-eight percent of immigrants from Mexico decided not to become citizens after the amnesty was granted.
A recent study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials may counter Krieble’s assumption. The study reported 87 percent of illegal immigrants polled would seek citizenship if offered to them. The Red Card Solution has yet to appear in congressional discussions, but the recent Senate-passed immigration plan included reform to the guest worker program.
— Read more in Helen Krieble, The Red Card Solution — Bringing Order to U.S. Borders: A Private Sector Initiative to Secure the Borders and Solve the Illegal Immigration Stalemate (November 2010)
