Proposal for a Guest Worker Probationary Immigration Program.

1. Biometric Identification
   All applicants for entry or regularization would provide biometric data—fingerprints, photographs, and other reliable identifiers—to be stored in a secure national database.

2. Initial Guest Worker Status
   Applicants with no criminal history or documented problematic behavior would receive a three-year probationary guest-worker permit. During this period, participants would complete two brief online check-ins per year to document employment, school enrollment, skill-building activities, or other relevant information demonstrating productive engagement in the U.S.

3. Affirmation of Legal Obligations
   Each applicant must formally affirm that U.S. law is the governing legal authority during their stay and that they will abide by it. They may hold or discuss any belief system, but active efforts to substitute an alternative legal framework for U.S. law would violate the terms of the program and may lead to deportation. This functions as a contractual condition of temporary residency.

4. Pathway to Citizenship
   After three years of incident-free residence verified through the database, participants become eligible to apply for citizenship. Guest-worker status may also be renewed indefinitely for those who prefer it. Guest workers would pay taxes and receive the same financial benefits as citizens, with the exception of voting rights.

5. Regularization of Undocumented Residents
   Undocumented individuals currently residing in the United States could be admitted immediately into guest-worker status and begin the same three-year probationary period as new applicants.

6. Criminal Conduct
   Any criminal conviction during the probationary period would result in removal from the program and deportation.

7. Additional Provisions
   Other reasonable program requirements may be added to ensure security, compliance, and fairness.

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A structured, probation-based approach like this offers a more practical and humane alternative to mass-deportation strategies while maintaining clear expectations, accountability, and respect for the rule of law.

Today's musing minute. A troubling dilemma.

 

Thanksgiving embodies the central place of gratitude in the American tradition — gratitude for the extraordinary achievements of our country. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the founding of a unified nation dedicated to a set of guiding principles, we can marvel at how we have stumbled, persevered, and ultimately risen to become one of history’s most remarkable societies. Our past includes dark and destructive periods, yet time and again we have managed to renew our commitment to those foundational principles and preserve our republic.

But what now? The 21st century has brought profound challenges to that code — challenges that reach beyond America itself to the broader framework of Western Civilization, which has in many ways been built upon the American model. As America goes, so goes the West. Will it come to that? We can only hope and pray not. Much depends on whether enough Americans remain willing to defend these principles in the face of an unlikely but increasingly assertive alliance aligned against them.

One part of this alliance is radical Islamism, whose explicit goal is to replace Western Civilization and who will employ any means—including infiltration, intimidation, and violence—to advance that aim. The second is its unwitting support system: the “woke” enablers who, misled by a decades-long, well-funded campaign, have come to view the Islamist cause through the lens of victimhood and anti-colonialism. They have been persuaded, wrongly, that Western institutions are the oppressors and thus believe they must stand in solidarity with those seeking to undermine them. Historians may someday study the surprising success of this strategy; we can already identify at least one contributing factor: the decline of K–12 and higher education, particularly in teaching the meaning and value of the American code.

This is why universal school choice is long overdue. Yet even if such reform were miraculously enacted, it would not, by itself, set us back on course. Restoring our bearings will require a renewed political orientation across the board. Both major parties are confronting challenges from their own extremes—forces similarly hostile to America’s founding principles. Both parties should undertake initiatives to bring their members back within the framework of the American code and to reject those who refuse to affirm it.

For this reason, I propose a well-publicized 250th-anniversary affirmation by all elected officials and party members — something along these lines:

“I affirm this truth as sacred: that all people possess the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and private property, with which to peacefully pursue their happiness.”

A national recommitment to the core principles that made us great — and that can drive our continued progress — is essential.

Which brings me to a particularly troubling dilemma. America was built by immigrants — by our unmatched ability to welcome and integrate millions from diverse cultures, each generation bringing new energy, creativity, and enterprise. These immigrants came with the desire to become American in both action and attitude, even while preserving what they cherished from their own traditions. A thousand flowers bloomed.

But today we may, for the first time, be facing a significant immigrant group credibly committed not to joining our system, but to replacing it with their own. How should we respond to this threat — from those already here, from those abroad, and from those seeking to immigrate? I do not have a clear answer. I remain convinced of the immense benefits of peaceful and open immigration. Precipitous enforcement action risks discarding the very qualities that have defined our success. The recent actions of ICE are the result of opportunistic abuse, not of the real threat to which I refer. It is, indeed, a painful dilemma.