On the issue of immigration into the United States and the existence of underdeveloped countries and world poverty, I would certainly like to see some innovative policy ideas on how to address these issues – primarily those of illegal immigration. While the federal government is focused on taking a punitive approach and further bolstering border security against such immigration, I have not heard any plans for international fiscal relief to decrease the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States.
First of all, I believe that every person deserves an opportunity in this world in which we live. While a punitive approach to illegal immigration in the United States solves a portion of the problem (sans President Bush’s proposal for allowing a portion of illegal immigrants to have an opportunity to work while they wait for naturalization), it does not completely address future illegal immigration into the United States, a problem that simply cannot be overcome by doing our best to seal off our borders, seaports and airports.
Second, the big idea is how to achieve maximized reduction of illegal population influx on top of what is delegated as felonious in the eyes of the federal government. Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in “Globalization and Its Discontents” that the International Monetary Fund has been dragging its feet, not in terms of compliance but regarding its potential capability versus its success. Dependency and bailout spending are two of the malignant problems facing the IMF. The idea of international funding stems from the idea of international fiscal innovation, which, in theory, could denote that states and state actors have a genuine self-interest in renovating and funding international organizations and nongovenmental organizations with the goal being poverty alleviation and greater opportunity for the populations of foreign, generally underdeveloped countries.
The process would take an extended amount of time, but the United States’ investment in such an opportunity would arguably correct the massive influx of underprivileged citizens of other nations into our very own nation; to be concise, the future generations of the United States will not have to face the amount of illegal immigration we see today if the IMF (and maybe the World Bank) is used to this end and greater faith is put into these international organizations. John Maynard Keynes was correct (in more ways than one) when he called for global action in the process of international funding and improvement; global action needs to come in the form of global faith in the IMF. Look at how much the United States has spent on these sorts of organizations; how do we maximize our input so we can receive greater output? It is a simple, politically economic question that has been left relatively untouched (hence the lack of progress in IMF development and strategy) in the history of the organization.
Can boosting international development funding through organizations such as the IMF or World Bank alleviate the concern about immigration into the United States (considering that population size could be a hefty issue in years to come)? What are some other benefits of funding underdeveloped nations in order to get them to a proper level of offering the job and market opportunities that we, as Americans, have already? Does the IMF really need to be positioned so much on the idea of globalization when the fundamental issues facing states is not the acceptance of corporate expansion from foreign countries but taking care of poverty and a lack of home-nation-based corporations in those respective nations? It is worthwhile to consider and I would definitely be interested to see exploratory policy development along those lines.