The Debate on Immigration Reform: It really is about numbers, very little else.

Every nation on this planet has the right to establish it's own rules and laws pertaining to immigration.  Every nation has the right to decide who enters, when they enter, how long they can stay, and what they can do while being in the host country.  Every nation has the legal right to determine how many may become citizens, and pick and choose who they want to be citizens.  This is called sovereignty.

The debate in the United States over immigration is labeled as "Immigration Reform."  I say that is a false statement, as very few of the myriad of immigration regulations are expected to be changed.  What is going to be changed is the number of people allowed to enter and the number that are allowed to become citizens.

A note here:  The United States, like every other nation ALLOWS entry, and ALLOWS non-nationals to become citizens.  No one, let me repeat, NO ONE, has a right to enter our country and expect citizenship just because they crossed a border.  As in every nation in the world, they must meet our requirements and follow our process.  If they do not, they are subject to penalty of the law.

The current debate is really nothing more than about the number of persons we wish to allow entry to our country every year and become naturalize (with the exception, and it is a big exception I grant you, on what to do with the millions of persons here illegally.)

The United States of America leads every nation in the world in the number of people it accepts as new citizens of the country.  Over 1 million people each year are allowed into the United States and can become citizens.  The United States of America provides more services and aide to those new citizens than any other country in the world.  The process of becoming a citizen is called naturalization.

Here are the naturalization statistics since 2001:

Data 

Total Naturalized Citizens: Fiscal Years 2001-2012
2012	676,396	2006	702,663
2011	691,616	2005	600,366
2010	619,075	2004	536,176
2009	741,982	2003	456,063
2008	1,050,399	2002	589,727
2007	659,233	2001	613,161

All that being said, the question is what is the new number going to be?  How many more do we allow to become citizens?

Once that is decided upon, then we can fix the issues like the kids who were brought here illegally by their parents and have no way to become citizens.  And once we know how many people we are going to allow to be naturalized, we can decide how many of the current estimated 11 million or so people living here illegally we will allow to become citizens.

The big question will still remain though, and that is how to fairly treat those who follow our process to become naturalized citizens and those who have willfully violated that policy and want to become naturalized citizens.

My position is pretty simple really, increase the number we allow to become naturalized citizens to a fixed percentage of current US citizen population.  Like, .003% would be about 1 million people annually could become US naturalized citizens.  No more.  And for those living here illegally, we can make a decision, allow the 11 million to become naturalized citizens, and stop immigration for 11 years, or allow a certain percentage to of those here already to bump a percentage of those we allow to be naturalized.

We already have work visas, all it needs is enforcement.  Employers should share in that enforcement.

But one thing that really needs to happen once the new laws are implemented, is that we need to deport those who violate our border, or over stay their visas immediately.   Or all of this is for nothing, no matter what changes are made to the immigration laws.