Considering the Costs and Value of Citizenship

I ran across this article today which helped me collect some thoughts I have been having about the immigration question/problem:

Immigrant reform might raise price of citizenship

Hilda Vasquez squirreled away the money for her U.S. citizenship application by selling batches of homemade tamales at South Texas offices. Carmen Zalazar picked up extra babysitting jobs at night after caring for kids all day in Houston.

As President Barack Obama renews his quest for immigration reform, some proposals would impose fines of $2,000 on top of application fees, making the financial hurdles much taller for people who are here illegally.The women scrimped and saved for months to pay for the $680 application, but for other applicants in the future, it might not be enough.

"You have more rights when you are a citizen, like to vote," said Zalazar, a legal resident. As soon as she started a citizenship class, "I started to save because I knew otherwise it won't be possible."

The struggle is familiar to millions of immigrants. A 2012 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that only 46 percent of Hispanic immigrants eligible to become citizens had done so. The top two reasons were lack of English skills and lack of money to pay for the application.
. . .
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank that supports tighter immigration controls, said if immigrants who are in the country illegally are allowed to seek citizenship, they should have to pay the costs, which will increase if millions of applications need to be processed.  However, he said, the costs should not be so high that people can't afford them.

So let's stop and think about what immigrants seeking citizenship are asking for.  They are asking for a membership (or from a lawyer in a law firms perspective perhaps) a partnership stake in the enterprise of the country.  The country, through the hard work of it's citizens, has built up a tremndously valuable infrastructure.  They want to be part owners of that huge enterprise.

Just how much is that?  According to this article, the approximate total assets of the United States is $200 trillion (with a "t").  There are currently about 314 million people in the country, making the assets approximately average out to about $635,000 per person.  Of course, they are not evenly distributed, and the lower 50% of the population have only a fraction of that. Call it 10% or $64,000.

I think it's quite reasonable to ask for a substantial "buy in" to citizenship in the United States.  Clearly the demand is there, and we can control the supply.  We want to encourage new citizens to strive and succeed, not move into an ethnic ghetto and survive on welfare and charity.  We have enough of that home grown.

I don't know what the proper price point would be, but $6,000 doesn't seem out of the question.  If you, your family and friends can't pay immediately, borrow it.  Let the banks decide if you are a worthy investment. I still trust them to be a better judge than the government, particularly if there's no bailout available.