“Stop the culture war nonsense around immigration, let’s focus on ideas and solutions” 

Our Proposal:

• Recognize the true causes of the crisis, and identify a long-term strategy to solve it
• Find innovative ways to make it work for us in the shorter term

The Goal:

• Make the refugee crisis a source of progress and prosperity
• Provide safe refuge to those fleeing from tyranny, crime, and poverty
• Use immigration to turn the tables on the world’s tyrants

Explanation:

There is a growing refugee crisis worldwide, and it represents nothing short of an epic humanitarian disaster. Since 2013 the number of displaced people around the world has more than doubled to over a 100 million in 2023, and that number will continue growing as more people flee dire situations in their own countries. Regretfully, those seeking refuge are often portrayed as being little more than vermin, an invasive species that steals jobs, commits crimes, taxes government resources, and skews democracy.

Regardless where one stands on the immigration issue, all of us can recognize that every day untold numbers of refugees are exposed to unspeakable horrors. Those who travel by land often fall prey to ruthless criminals for whom no cruelty is too extreme; robbery, rape, kidnapping, enslavement, and murder are par for the course. Those who travel by sea are packed into overcrowded, rickey boats that frequently end up sinking, taking the passengers (including children and babies) to unmarked watery graves at the bottom of the sea. When arriving to new countries they are commonly treated with indifference at best, bitter hostility and vicious abuse at worst.

Whether one considers refugees to be vermin or not, we should all desire a future where immigration crises are a thing of the past. We should also all wish to ease as quickly as possible the desperation and suffering of so many that we see now. Achieving these two goals requires a long-term strategy in combination with shorter-term solutions.

Defining a Long-Term Strategy

The first step that urgently needs to be undertaken is to set aside the out-of-control political nonsense and to instead squarely recognize, and focus on, the root causes: tyranny, lawlessness, corruption, and poverty.

1. Tyrants are key instigators of the ever worsening refugee crisis. The world’s desperate are increasingly and mercilessly being weaponized by bad actors for nefarious geopolitical purposes, including (but not limited to) attacking the world’s democracies. Examples include Vladimir Putin and Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko sending refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere into Europe, and Nicaragua and Venezuela forcing millions of their own citizens to flee to countries throughout the Western Hemisphere, including the United States.

For the enemies of democracy, spurring refugee crises has multiple benefits. First, those who flee their countries are obviously not supporters of the ruling regimes, and this exodus thus helps those regimes keep their stranglehold on power—especially if such regimes make it difficult for their citizens to vote from overseas locations (as is the case with Venezuela). Second, a flood of refugees to a given country can burden government resources, inflame nativist movements, and spark friction both internally and with surrounding countries. Unscrupulous politicians pounce to stir up anger and division for self-serving political purposes; emotion-manipulating “news” organizations leverage the crisis to rile up their audience and increase viewership. These wretched politicians and news organizations in effect become the tyrants’ strategic partners in their war against democracy.

The situation is only going to get worse as anti-democratic forces around the world increasingly coordinate their efforts to sow chaos, particularly in vulnerable countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The refugee crisis is spurring division and authoritarian movements in democratic countries on both sides of the Atlantic, to the delight of democracy’s enemies. For this and a variety of other reasons, America, our democratic allies, and those around the world who aspire for freedom must launch a rigorous counteroffensive. This effort must be based on a long-term strategy that has the ambitious-but-achievable goal of ridding the world of tyrants.

2. Lawlessness is a major reason people flee their home countries. In the case of Latin America, much of their vicious and widespread crime is rooted in our catastrophic war on drugs. Indeed, the crisis at our southern border is a direct result of this monumental policy failure. Our staggering trillion dollar investment in the anti-drug effort over the past five decades has been a complete and counterproductive fiasco. It has given rise to the perverse situation we have now: ever more addicted Americans by the millions are sending ever more billions of dollars annually to ruthless drug cartels. The financial power these cartels possess as a result, along with their unbridled savagery, enables them to control politicians, judges, the police, the armed forces, and other government institutions in the countries where they operate.

Their tentacles also reach into private industry, extorting money from businesses both big and small. In some cases the cartels even take over entire industries with impunity—an example being avocado production in Mexico. There is virtually no crime they don’t get away with, including (but not limited to) murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, human trafficking, and forced prostitution. This cartel-driven lawlessness forces many to seek refuge elsewhere, and is a major reason why they come to America. The drug cartels, along with the region’s tyrants, must be eradicated in order to effectively address the refugee crisis on our southern border, and a strategy to do so must be deployed.

3. Corruption is a worldwide cancer that in too many countries severely impedes progress and locks millions into hopeless, never-ending poverty. When elected officials, bureaucrats, and unscrupulous businesses steal from the public coffers to enrich themselves, many things are negatively affected including public safety, infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Countries saddled with out-of-control corruption also suffer from less foreign investment, which shackles economic development. These factors rob millions of the chance to improve their lives beyond mere subsistence, forcing them to look for opportunities outside of their borders. An effective worldwide campaign against corruption is another essential element in the long-term strategy to solving the immigration crisis.

4. Poverty drives millions around world to flee in search of a better life elsewhere. Most people do not wish to flee their home country, and will not do so if opportunities for a better life exist there. Tackling poverty worldwide can start by taking on tyranny, lawlessness, and corruption. With tyrannies eliminated, and lawlessness and corruption held in check, many of the world’s poorer countries will prosper. As we seek implement this long-term strategy to combat poverty around the world, let us never forget: the lack of prosperity anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere.

The Shining City on the Hill?

For those seeking refuge in America, our immigration laws presently allow asylum applications from those who belong to one of five persecuted categories: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. These categories were set up after the notorious MS St. Louis incident in 1939, in which a ship with hundreds of Jews fleeing Hitler’s brutality were forced to return to Europe after being denied entry into the United States and elsewhere. Shamefully, they were told to go back where they came from (sound familiar?), and many ended up dying in Nazi concentration camps. As such, currently our immigration laws are geared mainly to help those fleeing tyranny, although what exactly qualifies as “fleeing tyranny” is at the discretion of our immigration officers and judges.

Those who are fleeing violence or poverty generally do not qualify for asylum and are thus most likely to be quickly repatriated or otherwise expelled. Sending refugees running from violence back into the jaws of Hell inevitably has historical parallels to the MS St. Louis. Condemning vulnerable people, including women and children, to a high probability of death or other horrors, be it due to a tyrant, drug cartel, or domestic partner, is something all people of conscience should find unacceptable.

In the case of the refugee crisis at our southern border, some have proposed that the solution is to build a wall. This by itself is in fact no solution, since it does nothing to address the root causes. Building a wall is akin to putting a bandaid on an oozing tumor; superficially it may appear to help by concealing the problem, but as long as the cause of the tumor is not adequately addressed it will just fester and worsen. On the other hand, no one should be comfortable with the idea of people crossing our borders willy-nilly, without official permission. As we implement a long-term strategy to address the worldwide refugee crisis, we need to come up with shorter-term solutions that are orderly and in accordance with our laws.

Ideas for the Shorter Term

The Solutions Party proposes that we aim for “best of all worlds” solutions for the near term: offering refuge for those in need, and doing so in a way that contributes to our own prosperity while ideally also weakening the world’s tyrants. Let’s come up with practical ideas and have the political courage to carry them out. Two ideas are proposed below.

Idea 1: Immigration to Revive Rural Areas

In our country many rural communities are withering and in some cases even dying off. This is the result of a vicious cycle caused by younger people abandoning their home towns to seek better opportunities elsewhere, leaving behind an aging population and an economy in a death spiral of constant contraction. An infusion of immigrants could help reverse this cycle, and the good news is that there are examples of this occurring already. We should kick this effort into high gear, with goal of offering those seeking refuge a safe place to resettle and by doing so giving a boost to demographically and economically distressed rural areas.

A possible way to bring this about would be to resettle vetted immigrants in welcoming communities, providing them with modest housing (specially built as needed) and other basic necessities in exchange for working at hard-to-fill jobs at special minimum wages. (Here, a hard-to-fill job means one for which a US citizen cannot be found to do the work). This would help put a brake on the region’s population decline, and by filling labor shortages in agriculture, construction, local senior care, hospitality, or wherever needed, the new arrivals could provide a shot in the arm to the local economy. Local schools would also benefit by having a new source of students.

Many of those fleeing the horrors of tyranny, lawlessness, and hopeless poverty would gladly resettle in economically-challenged rural areas, even if it means working at lower wages, as long as they can live safely and have their basic needs met. Bonuses, accelerated pay raises, and opportunities for advancement could be given for those who make extra efforts to assimilate into their new neighborhoods and who otherwise make tangible contributions. Such contributions could include volunteering on projects undertaken to improve life in the community. As an added incentive, those who do not meet expectations in terms of job performance and/or effort to assimilate themselves into their new community would be notified and given ample opportunities to improve; those who repeatedly fail to do so could have their immigration status revoked and potentially be repatriated.

Rural towns that welcome refugees could also be recognized in a way that draws attention of tourists and other travelers in the vicinity, some of whom may wish to make a special stopover to support the businesses in those communities.

The new arrivals could also help set up sister city arrangements between their newly-adopted communities and towns and villages in their home countries. This could enrich life for all by spurring international business opportunities, tourism, and cultural exchanges.

Idea 2: Charter Cities: An Alternative to Refugee Camps

For those immigrants who cannot for whatever reason be resettled to rural areas, a much more ambitious solution would be to build new charter cities in unpopulated areas such as remote desert locations and other wide-open terrain. Charter cities are new urban developments that are given special jurisdiction to create their own systems of governance. This means they can more nimbly administer themselves without having to rely on another level of government. Highly adaptable charter cities could take the place of refugee camps, which are often squalid, rife with crime, exposed to the elements, and simply not set up to host large groups for extended periods.

The immigrant charter cities would have the following characteristics:

- Built to accommodate refugees and other immigrants (though they would be open to all). Modest-but-comfortable living spaces would be constructed on a massive scale, along with infrastructure such as utilities, schools, commercial areas, and parks

- Set up to be self-sustaining municipal economies based on low-cost services and manufacturing

- Powered by locally-produced renewable energy

Below are two examples of what these charter cities could provide:

1. Low-cost, quality facilities for senior and mental health care, addiction recovery, and other social services. Currently, senior care can cost thousands of dollars per month, putting it out of reach for millions of Americans. Mental healthcare and addiction treatment facilities are also sorely lacking nationwide. The cost and lack of availability is largely due to labor shortages. Let’s have these be services provided on a large scale at immigrant charter cities, taking advantage of abundant, inexpensive labor and efficiencies of scale. Refugees with medical training in their own countries could be fast-track approved to provide their services in these charter cities. Those Americans who cannot otherwise afford decent senior care would have the option of being accommodated much more economically at a quality facility in an immigrant charter city.

Facilities for mental health and substance abuse could care for patients from around the country as well. This would be far better than abandoning ill individuals on the streets of our nation’s cities, which is where too many end up these days. In fact, if immigrant charter cities can play a significant role in eliminating homelessness, our urban areas could reap an economic boon due to enhanced business environments, increased tourism, and more attractive residential possibilities. That fact alone could make the investment in charter cities all the more attractive.

2. Low-cost manufacturing of items for export. Currently in many developing countries inexpensive imports from some autocratic countries dominate the markets in such industries as textiles, electric appliances, toys, and automobiles. Let’s build factories in the charter cities which can cheaply manufacture such items, with the goal of out-competing manufacturers from autocratic countries. Purposely spurring refugee crises would be a lot less attractive for the world’s tyrants if the result backfired on them economically.

To further enhance competitiveness, special immigrant teams in a given factory could be assigned to manufacturer goods for their specific countries. For example, clothes and appliances targeted for Peru could be manufactured primarily by Peruvian immigrants, and labeled as “Peruvian Made in the USA” when exported to Peru. This would give these products a significant advantage over other imports, as Peruvians would naturally want to support their compatriots overseas— especially if the products are price-competitive, Further, special trade agreements could be put into place so that products manufactured by compatriots in our immigrant charter cities would enjoy duty-free import status, further enhancing their competitiveness.

Costs vs. Benefits

Erecting the envisioned charter cities would be costly. But the Solutions Party believes that the benefits could more than offset the costs, especially if the charter cities play a major role in solving social challenges such as senior care, homelessness, and substance addiction treatment—not to mention in addition to the crisis at our southern border. We should also consider the cost of doing nothing; the immigration issue is causing severe divisions in our country, and it is weakening democracies worldwide. We must recognize that it is being used as a Trojan Horse by our enemies to weaken and eventually defeat us, something we must not allow to happen.

Simply building a wall or bussing immigrants to cities that do not have the capability to absorb them is not the answer. Sending innocent people back to the horrors they are escaping from should violate the conscience of all of us. Let’s shelve the culture war along with the out-of-control emotions associated with immigration, and come together to create solutions that benefit all—except the world’s tyrants.

As a final point, an important factor in winning the worldwide fight against the rising tide of tyranny will be to show to the world that the democracies are far and away morally superior. Extending a helping hand to those in need, especially those fleeing tyranny and lawlessness, is the ultimate demonstration of the moral high ground. It will stand as a stark contrast to the wretchedness of the world’s tyrants, and will be another nail in their coffins.