Reforming Our Immmigrant Policies?

For several years I supervised our immigrant advisory program at Brooklyn College. The rules have changed considerably since 9/11 and I don't remember all the specifics.

However, two cases particularly stick in mind. One was of a young boy literally jumping with joy when I told him he was already an American citizen. As I recall there was a cutoff age after which children of an American parent no longer qualified.

The other involved one of our ablest students. We fought fiercely to allow her to finish her degree with us when her parents were challenged for overstaying their time here. Both were medical people and the mother had already passed the tests to qualify to practice here. We won a stay for our student, but she decided to move to Canada with her parents where the family was welcomed and is now contributing to medicine there -- a real loss to us.

I hope we can revise our program to allow the bulk of our currently undocumented people to stay here under certain conditions:

1) No criminal record.

2) Productive employment.

And we need temporary access for our farm programs.

From what I have observed in our Global world we can well use such people here in the states. They are creating more jobs for others than taking them away from people, so far as I can see. They do things that others can't or won't. It would cost a fortune to expel millions.

What do you think?
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]