1. What is the real reason the United States is tangled in so many domestic issues such as housing surpluses, vacant jobs, too few soldiers, rising college tuition due to dropping enrollment, inability to manage and control borders, and an illegal immigration controversy of giant proportions just to name a few?  The underlying causes of our current situation in so many areas is that our country is starving for new and younger people, in the face of large numbers of baby boomers retiring from the work force.  We have forgotten that, population and job growth are the keys to any economy especially ours.  As I travel around, I see hundreds of help wanted advertisements in almost every city I go to.  In these same cities, I see the housing markets collapsing with no new buyers on the horizon and no available workforce to attract employers.  Our workforce is simply tapped out.  Looming in front of us is the fact that we will have some 84 million people and workers nearing retirement and no plan of record to deal with the need for workers.  We, as citizens, have not said to our governments to make more babies and we have not said to increase immigration to the levels required to offset the forecasted retirement numbers.  We simply set around and wring our hands and blame others for this problem or that without saying what is really going on here?  Some businesses, government agencies, the military and educational institutions I have been in meetings with are working very hard on getting a better share of the existing workforce or student base but never ask the simple question of “How do we make the base bigger?”.  Until all of us ask this simple question, we will continue to see immigrants and illegal immigrants as problems rather than as the key to our economy and countries survival. 
 
Businesses, especially big multinational ones who have the ability to outsource, will not blow the horn on the population growth issue because they have built high speed access to low cost countries and found low cost labor in other countries and workers in other countries that do not carry the burden of high wages along with a looming social security problem, unemployment taxes, worker injury compensation taxes, health plans, savings plans and so on.  Even if they paid the same hourly rate as they do here in other countries, eliminating loadings on labor represents approximately a 30 percent decrease in operating cost.  Politicians will not blow the horn on the baby-issue, because in an over crowed world saying "make more babies" is considered to be a political nightmare; it is too late for a "make more babies" approach to work anyway.  Politicians will not blow the whistle on the need for more workers through increasing immigration because big business does not want it because of its high hourly rate and high overhead rates.  Small, midsized and some large businesses are blowing the horn but have no real clout with politicians. 

Given the clout that “businesses who can outsource” have on politicians, raising the flag on the population growth dilemma rests solely on the shoulders of “we the people” and to solve it “we the people” must force the issue on every ones agenda and drive it so that immigration is dramatically increased and immigration processes are sped up, made more efficient and made more humanitarian.  By the way, immigration department jobs and positions must be filled by citizens who are already in short supply.

2. How do EDZs help with the population growth issue?

3. How big would EDZs be?  EDZs could range in size from as little as less than a square mile to hundreds of square miles depending on the need for workers, compete etc.

4. How do EDZs benefit the parties involved? 

    a. For the United States and individual states, EDZS would set up a way to bring back some outsourced jobs lost in recent times and put the country and its states on a track to become more globally competitive.  Over the long term, companies needing low cost labor could be incented to build new facilities in the border EDZs, giving them labor access and the all important legal and intellectual property rights protection of the Unites states.

    b. Are enormous savings to the entire country by not doing things like sending massive numbers of people back to their home countries and invading our own businesses to expel illegal workers.  These savings would go a long way towards financing the EDZs.

    c. EDZs offer a managed and human way to future citizenship for illegal immigrants and their families over the long run.  In the short run, illegal immigrants to attain a temporarily legal status, which allows them to work and travel within the country and back and forth to their home country.  Once they have the temporary status they can file for a permanent status for them and their families should they desire to do so.  Also, the processing centers in an EDZ could easily be used to deal with an immigrant’s whole situation including family members as a single application.  An especially important advantage for immigrants and their families is that border EDZs virtually shut down the trafficking of humans for labor.  Another especially important advantage for immigrants working in EDZs is that they would be protected from discrimination under existing U.S. laws.

     d. EDZs offer small, medium and large business all across the country the availability of lower cost labor to fill their needs for workers now and get them skills and language training.  Over the longer term, the border EDZs offer a way to continually resupply the aging and retiring baby boomers with skilled and semiskilled workers from a seemingly unending supply of people wanting to immigrate to the United States who would take advantage of both the language and skills training centers within the border EDZs.

     e. EDZs would help with the burden on existing immigration centers by, and they slow illegal immigration by offering opportunities on our side of the boarder.

     f. EDZs would offer work to seniors who need additional income as they try to live on their meager social security income.

     g. EDZs strengthen boarder security buy using fencing to allow access to opportunities as opposed to being simply barriers to keep people out.  In addition, people on both sides of the boarder have a vested interest in protecting the United States from terrorist because people on both sides of the boarder have a vested interest in the U. S. economy and its people.

This last point is crucial because all opportunities on Mexico’s side of the border do not benefit the workers rather they only benefit the corrupt business and government people who control everything in their worlds across the border.  This environment is what my book describes and it is terrible from a human standpoint and from a business/economics standpoint.  It also is ripe for revolution, which would leave the U. S. with a refugee problem of enormous proportion.

5. How long is a special immigrant classification good for? The special immigrant status is issued for five years and can be renewed every five years after that if the immigrant wants to do so.

6. Isn’t this just another form of amnesty? From a very practical standpoint, EDZs do set up an eventual amnesty program; however, the basis for the amnesty is that these people are necessary for our long term economic survival given the mess our government and “businesses who can outsource” have gotten us into.  In addition, the United States shares a great deal of real burden for the conditions in many Third World Countries because many of our government and business ally with socially irresponsible governments and businesses.  In addition, the United States is a huge exporter of technology to Third World Countries, which brings our companies huge profits and severely undermines employment opportunities in Third World Countries.  We should never forget that our economy is hundreds of times more productive than Third World Countries because of our use of technology and that Third World Country governments and business purchasing technology get the same kinds of productivity increases as any other technology user, which means they need fewer workers over the long run. This means unemployment and poverty remains the same or goes up!

7. Why fences?  Fences all around border EDZs are required because the United States has no way of correcting the enormous social and economic problems of all our neighbors to the south where a large number of people are trying to get away from.  Without fences and border EDZs together, there is no practical way to stop the huge influx of illegal immigrants.  On the other hand fences around EDZs wholly within a state, fences are optional because illegal immigrants will move towards them to register and because through registration they can legally work and travel and begin the process of getting to some permanent status or citizenship.

8. Aren’t these just modern day slave camps?  In the proposed EDZ concept, people with credentials can live in and work inside or outside the EDZ.  They can also live outside the EDZ and work inside it or outside of it.  All they need is the proper credentials that they receive when they first apply to the EDZs Immigration Processing Center and they can also get temporary credential for their family members who happen to live with them in this country today.  With proper temporary credentials, immigrants and their families can even travel back and forth to their home countries while they are awaiting the longer processing time to change status and/or include their families in the applications.  I know of no slave labor camp that operates with this type of approach.  In addition, within an EDZ there would be business, government and educational facilities complete with a full complement of capabilities and employees as opposed to just immigrants and immigrant relates facilities.

9. What do you mean by less than min wage? 60% of current minimum wage is the suggested payment level; however, there would be no withholding of any kind including all federal and state taxes and such things as benefits or savings plans.

10. Do the new immigrant class pay state and local taxes etc? No, they receive the full amount, which is equal to .6 times the current minimum wage.  In addition, they do not have to file state and federal tax returns.

11. Do employers pay for worker unemployment comp and injury insurance? No.

12. Do specially classed immigrants qualify for social security, workers compensation, unemployment compensation or medical and savings benefits of any kind?  No.

13. Do specially classed immigrants qualify for employer, local, state or federal medical assistance? No.  However, there is a case to be made for insurance companies to create extremely low cost emergency medical insurance for an estimated ten million specially classed immigrants.  

14. Isn’t this unfair to specially classed immigrants?  No. It is a way to start the United States in a new direction regarding a number of issues including illegal immigrants.  While the proposal has some short term negatives such as less than minimum wage, it has a tremendous number of long and short term positives.

15. Do EDZs discriminate against any business types?  No, once a person has obtained special immigrant status, any employer who needs them can hire them.

16.    Can you explain the concept of go back home at night?  There are two types of EDZs: one within a state and one a border.  For the within a state version, it is not possible for workers to go home at night in Mexico; however it is OK to live outside the EDZ with family and or friends who are in that state.  They can also go back to their native country for visits and return once they get the appropriate credentials.  For those along the border whose families live in Mexico, they can go there if they want when they are off work or they can stay in the EDZ if they choose.  Are specially classed immigrants stuck at the below min wage level or can they move up and how does EDZ help: My answer is that, in the short term, this is fundamentally not possible in today’s globally competitive labor markets.  Over the long term it is possible, but only if U.S labor grows in sufficient numbers becoming more powerful in the process so they can negotiate better.  Such rates also require that U. S. labor be highly productive which means more educated and skilled in the use of the technologies that abound in this age.

17. Do EDZ’s give preferential treatment to any group of specially classed immigrants? EEO and non discrimination laws apply to all specially classed immigrants in an EDZ. All people considering the use of EDZs should pay special attention to the fact that in U. S. EDZ’s, women and others protected classes of people are treated equally.  On the other side of the border with Mexico they do not receive equal treatment and are in many cases deliberately discriminated against.

18. Will immigration pressure ever ease?  Immigration pressures will not ease up until countries become more socially responsible balanced democracies.  There are few, if any, short term chances of U.S business and government people supporting social reform in third world countries because they every move towards social consciousness as a return to communism rather than a move toward a balanced and fair democracy.

19. How are existing centers helped by EDZs?  What we have proven today is complete incompetence in the area of immigration processes.  This must be fixed but will not by itself solve the pressures caused by poor government in other countries.  EDZ Processing centers could be set up with new, human and family friendly processes.  Setting up new centers in many places would take a great deal of burden off existing immigration centers and spread the load across all 50 states.

20. Would there always have to be EDZs? If we follow the EDZ thought over the long term, EDZ’s within states go away or significantly shrink in size and their processes move into existing immigration centers.  This happens because success in border EDZ’s greatly reduces illegal immigration and existing illegal immigrants gain citizenship or some other desired immigrant status.  Future special status workers then mostly come from the border processing centers.

21. Should there be a grandfather date in order to keep illegal immigrants from flocking into the country in anticipation of this concept? While this seems like a reasonable idea, EDZ’s take time to approve, plan and build. So making borders tighter in the short term is fundamental to slowing illegal immigration until EDZs are put in place.  The issue of a grandfather date is therefore tied to short term plans used to dramatically reduce illegal immigration rather than implementation timelines of EDZs.