Bachtel: Solving the illegal immigration issue

Immigration has been in the news lately, especially the problem of dealing with the influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico. From my perspective as a demographer and a researcher involved with economic development, the problem is being poorly handled by both federal and state authorities.

Officials in the areas affected by the influx of illegal migrants want to erect a physical barrier and have increased the number of guards to keep them from crossing the border. They also want to enact legislation to question the residential status of those suspected of possible illegal entry. Compounding the issue, federal officials want to keep the immigration issue out of the hands of state and local governments because of the problems it would cause with a multitude of different policies governing the issue. The result has been stalemate and continued unsolved problems.

Migration has long been an issue of concern to demographers and numerous theories of migration have been proposed. "The laws of migration" were started in the 1800s by Ravenstein, an early British demographer who looked at people who migrated to London from rural North England to find jobs. Ravenstein's ideas were later refined by Dr. E. Lee renowned University of Georgia sociologist.

Lee postulated that migration involved four basic issues: 1. positive and negative issues existed at the area of the migrant's origin. 2. positive and negative issues existed at the migrant's area of destination. 3. Intervening obstacles hindered migration. 4. Personal characteristics of the migrants influenced the desire to move.

Now, with regard to the current Mexican migration issue. They are basically coming here because there is not enough work a