Rat’s Path to Citzenship

          Rat’s Path to Citzenship: a modest proposal

I modestly propose that illegal immigrants be given renewed green cards and a hastened path to citizenship if they can prove in court that their employer violated labor, safety or environmental laws. This measure will destabilize the illegal-immigrant labor market. A few migrants will work this system, but then the market as a whole will shut down, for no companies could then risk hiring illegal immigrants, except for wages and conditions like natives; thus removing the profit motive.

This measure will work, unlike a pricey pointless wall. We all know that government interference destroys free markets; let us use this power for good! The downside is, there is no free lunch. Specifically, good wages for farm-workers means higher prices at the supermarket. You can’t make Mexico pay for that!

I’d regret higher produce prices, but I’d shrug and call them an indirect tax to support closed borders and workingman’s wages. Also this’ll support the long-overdue development of agricultural robotics. We should have automated the farms long ago, but it was cheaper to hire powerless serfs. Empowered farm-workers will incentivize the robotics that will make farm-work obsolete.