by Joost Steffensen

Created on: June 14, 2009   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

A path to citizenship may sound like the soft option, but to me it is the option that is most in line with America's ideals and spirit. It also is the most practical, cheapest and fastest solution.

There are many reasons to promote a path to citizenship:

Humanitarian.

Illegal immigrants often don't have anywhere else to go; this can be for reasons financial, political or social. Often they have family in the US and deportation leads to severing family ties. They might have been persecuted in their home-country, but not be granted refugee status because of technicalities or they have escaped social situations that are unthinkable in American society, such as for example arranged marriages, enslavement or genital mutilation.

Pragmatic

Deporting people is simply not practical. We are talking about a group of people estimated to be around 18 million, that is three times the amount of Jews deported in WWII. Imagine the cost of finding all these people, arranging transport for them and making sure that their deportation is properly supervised so they don't escape. Then of course on the political front you have to make sure all the different governments are willing to actually take their people back and in the end there will be a group whose nationality can't be determined. I suppose we can put those on a life-raft in the Mexican gulf.

Economic

Illegal immigrants currently are not part of the system. Since deporting them is simply not practical and certainly inhumane, there are only two options; either they stay illegal or they become citizens.

Keeping them illegal might work to some extent as a deterrent to those who might want to come and encourage others to return home. However, I feel this option is inhumane. Illegality brings out the worst in both immigrants and citizens. Economically this means that immigrants can be exploited. This might be profitable for individual companies, but it is bad for the nation (loss of tax revenue), the social system (no benefits paid), other workers and other companies (unfair competition). Making these people citizens would make them an asset rather than a liability.

Criminal

Keeping people in illegality is a recipe for disaster. To live out your life as an illegal immigrant and not eventually end up destitute and homeless requires incredible skill, determination and luck. As a result, some illegal immigrants do return home, some simply become and stay poor, others might turn to crime. Having these people become citizens gives them a real chance to contribute, having them stay illegal makes us an accessory to crime.

Spiritual

In the end we have to recognize that most of these people are simply doing what Americans have done for centuries. They see an opportunity to improve themselves and taking great risks they go for it. These are people who believe fervently in their right to pursue happiness and they are not afraid of the danger involved. Can we really not see that these people are already Americans in spirit?

There is only one way to stop the illegal immigrant flow and that is to level the playing field. Make sure immigrants don't have a reason to leave home, by creating a fair world market without protectionism. In such a market there will eventually be economic parity from which everyone benefits. This it not a solution that can come about without a struggle, but it is the only thing that truly makes sense; to extend the freedoms of America to all the nations of the world.

The alternative is an America with prison walls. And which side of the wall will we be really on?

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