Immigration III

Thought of the moment: if unlawful presence in the US is made a crime punishable by prison, and millions of immigrants are tossed into freshly built jails (who will be left to build them?), then will they be forced to work in low-paying prison sweatshop jobs? Wouldn't that mean they were still in competition for US jobs?

I think if we put all the immigrants in prison, they should have special prisons for people whose only crime is coming to the US without papers. They shouldn't be made to live with violent criminals. Anyone in the immigrant prison who committed a violent crime would be sent to a different prison. Immigrant prisons would be as nice as possible, with juvenile and adult facilities combined and families kept together. The prisons should have bilingual schools, parks and trees, superior medical facilities, and a prisoners' union whose elected representatives work together with the correctional officers to resolve problems. Prisoners who didn't commit any other offenses could go on work release to jobs in the city. The prisoners should have their own credit union to set aside money to buy nice houses after their release, and to facilitate efficient payment of remittances. The credit union would also manage the building funds for the main prison churches. Everyone would be crossing the border trying to get into one of the nice immigrant prisons. After a while, if everything worked out well, we'd experiment with making attendance at the prison voluntary. The guards' job would then just be to keep the prison-goers safe from crime. They won't let any of the riff raff inside the prisons.