Republican Rep. Mike Simpson Supports Sensible Immigration Policy; Kushner Immigration Plan Coming

Representative Simpson is right! Deporting undocumented workers does not make any sense when unemployment is at 3.8% and businesses are suffering from a shortage of workers. What we need is a method for undocumented workers to earn legal status so that we can ID and tax them effectively.

I am glad to see another Republican lawmaker publicly supporting sensible immigration policy. Now let’s get a bill in motion.

All of America needs a solution to our broken immigration system that secures the border and enhances enforcement of our immigration laws. Our solution must create a conditional method for undocumented workers who want to get right with the law to earn their legal status (no shortcuts to citizenship) so we can ID and tax them properly.

Applicants must be required to provide a positive ID, pass a criminal background check, provide proof of employment and proof of US residency for at least five years, pledge to learn English, and agree to work only for employers that deduct and match taxes. Once that is accomplished, Congress should enact an improved employment-verification system to ensure that employers are not misclassifying workers.   

Jared Kushner said Tuesday that he will present the immigration plan he has been working on to the President this week or early next week. He said the plan will improve border security, facilitate the flow of trade and legal immigration as quickly as possible, and increase merit-based immigration. He explained that his and the President’s immigration goals are to “protect American wages, make sure our border is fully secure, make sure that our country is a welcoming place where we’re able to attract the best and brightest from all over the world,  maintain our country’s humanitarian values, and make sure that we’re reunifying families and doing [immigration reform] in a way that allows our country to remain competitive long term.”

These immigration goals sound good to me. A sensible immigration policy will help accomplish them in several ways:

For starters, it will protect American wages and give American workers the kind of solid footing they need to compete in the labor market.  It will make it much more difficult for unscrupulous employers to treat undocumented workers as independent subcontractors and evade taxes.  It will stop them from continuing to undercut and underbid law-abiding employers who are playing by the rules.   

Secondly, it will improve national and border security by allowing DHS to focus their resources on catching the violent criminal aliens, traffickers, and drug smugglers.

Thirdly, it will increase our economic competitiveness and growth by creating a method to ID and tax millions of undocumented workers not currently paying their fair share. This will capture an enormous amount of payroll which is currently being misclassified!

I am anxious to see the immigration plan President Trump and his administration come up with in the coming weeks. I pray it will be a sensible solution that can garner enough bipartisan support to pass.

Please continue to contact your lawmakers​ and let them know you support sensible immigration policy. Two good elected officials to start with are Senator Cornyn, who is the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration, and Senator Cruz, who also sits on the committee.

May God bless you, and may He continue to bless America.