Project 3 – Visa Overstayers And Other Illegal Aliens

Project 3 – Deport Visa Overstayers And Other Illegal Aliens Who Are Not Close To The US-Mexico Border

DHS should deport illegal aliens who, regardless of their countries of origin, have overstayed their visas or who are living in the US and were not caught soon after entering the US.

• This policy should have a three-month grace period to allow illegal aliens in this category to self-deport.  Employers can use this grace period to hire US citizens in the place of these illegals.
• After the grace period…
  • ICE should institute monetary bounties/rewards to be paid by to American citizens who provide information that identifies illegal aliens and their locations that result in their capture and deportation.  The bounty/reward could be up to $50 if the illegal alien is unemployed and up to $100 if the illegal alien is employed in the US, regardless of whether they have overstayed a visa.
    • These American citizens may identify those illegal aliens to ICE or local law enforcement.
    • Local and state law enforcement agencies should be encouraged and monetarily compensated for arresting those illegal aliens and transporting them to collection facilities managed by ICE.  This use of local law enforcement would maximize the effectiveness of scarce ICE resources.
    • These bounties/rewards are analogous to the rewards paid by the IRS to people who identify those who cheat on their taxes, and to the use of bounty hunters to track down US citizens who have skipped bail.
• ICE and the DOD should deport back to Latin America anyone caught in the US illegally, unless they make immediate arrangements to self-deport.  This will make illegal aliens an unreliable source of labor for US employers and motivate those employers to use E-Verify voluntarily.
• Project 3 should also include sending most DACA participants back to their home countries, if the Supreme Court permits.
  • There should be some limited exceptions.  DACA participants could be allowed to stay if…
    • They meet the criteria specified in a merit-based immigration plan such as the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act when such legislation becomes law.[1]
    • They have been legally adopted into the families in which the parents are US citizens.
  • We must send the strongest possible message to the world that people who immigrate to the US must do so legally and in a way that is designed to primarily benefit existing US citizens.
  • Letting most DACA participants remain in the US only dilutes that message.
  • DACA participants who are now adults have known at least from when they were teenagers that they have been in the US illegally.  Those who have chosen to stay in the US with that knowledge (instead of returning to their home countries when they reached adulthood) knew the risk of eventual deportation that they faced and are responsible for their decision to take that risk.
  • We should consider the education that most DACA participants have received to be a gift to their native countries.  That education will…
    • Make DACA participants much more comparatively valuable to their native countries than they are to the US.
    • Give them the advantage of being relatively, more important “big fish” in the ”smaller ponds” of their home countries.
    • And, when the US passes merit-based immigration criteria those educations will put DACA participants much higher up on the priority list to become completely legal US immigrants, which is something that they and we should all want.

[1] Allowing at least some DACA participants to stay under this condition would provide at least a partial incentive for Democrats to help pass a merit-based immigration law.