Mark Green announces his plans to deal with illegal immigration. The Republican candidate for governor says he wants to give incentives to people who follow the laws, not break them. “We should not send the signal that we do not care about the difference between legal and illegal immigration. In my estimation we should uphold and support legal immigration, but we should discourage illegal immigration. It's wrong. It's breaking all the rules.”
Mark Green says illegal immigration costs Wisconsin millions of dollars at a time when we're scraping to meet our financial challenges. A new poll, taken by Pew Research, shows only a small amount of Americans care about immigration. Green says he needs to put it into terms they can understand, so people can see that illegal immigration has real consequences on all of us. “When people find out that they are subsidizing home loans for illegal immigrants that's a different matter. They say, 'Wait a minute here. How come nobody's giving me a tax break?' When you tell them — and show them — that Governor Doyle wants to provide instate tuition for illegal immigrants, they're saying, 'Well look. Hey! Wait a minute. I'm having a tough time affording UW tuition,' you know, 'Why should we be doing this?'”
In neighboring Minnesota, which is comparable to our state, taxpayers dole out about $175-million a year for illegal immigrants. The son of legal immigrants says he wants to remove incentives and rewards given to those who break the law to live here. However, Green wants to help law-abiding immigrants with a $300 income tax credit to help pay for naturalization expenses.
Governor Jim Doyle wonders whether a Governor Green could do anything about immigration since he hasn't done anything in Congress. “Immigration is primarily a federal issue. And here's a guy that's been in Congress for eight years and they've just totally failed to deal with the immigration issue.”
Green's immigration reform plan also includes holding employers responsible for hiring legal citizens, authorizing state law enforcement agencies to work with Homeland Security, and he proposes working with neighbors in Mexico and elsewhere so natives can prosper in their homelands.
Related web sites:
Mark Green for Governor
Jim Doyle for governor