Immigration Posturing
Perception in politics is everything. So the posturing to be perceived as having the most tolerable view by a representative’s constituents is of political necessity. This is not to say there is no earnestness in our representatives to do what’s right. Currently there are at least seven (7) major bills - http://www.immigrationreformnow.org/immigrationreformnow/Bills.htm - on immigration being introduced, or to be, in senate or house. First, some facts as presented by this website about border control cost at: http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/06/03/2006317B48.html:
- In 1986, the budget for the Border Patrol was $151 million. By 2002, the Border Patrol budget had reached $1.6 billion—a tenfold increase.
- By 2002 the Border Patrol was the largest arms-bearing branch of the U.S. government, excluding the military.
- Building a fence along the entire southwest border would cost roughly $9 billion—about $2.5 billion more than the total budget of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in FY 2005.
As Paul Krugman wrote today in the NY Times: “Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, "We wanted a labor force, but human beings came." Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.”
As many as 12,000,000 illegal Hispanics reside in the US, and in the NC alone (since 1990 one of the fastest Hispanic growth states), according to a N&O report today, half of the 600,000 Hispanic population may be illegal. http://www.rnha.org/Demographics.htm: As of 2004, Hispanics make 14% of U. S. population, exceeding the 12% by blacks. Hispanics native--born in US make up 7.7% of US population. There are 8,416,000 Hispanic children in our schools, k-12.
On a personal level I don’t know many Hispanics, but I do know they are an imperative economic workforce in our county, state and nation. Without their labors my brothers and nephew who operate row-crops, turkey, and hog productions would have found it very difficult to operate without Hispanic services. They are essential for farm production that is required to survive in today’s agriculture economy throughout America. The same is true of many businesses throughout our nation.
Hispanics are not culturally assimilated in our society and probably never will be completely. My church and other community churches give facilities for their congregations to worship. These are at least symbolic goodwill gestures to welcome an isolated society to become more engaged as equals. Perhaps we could and should do more.
Yes, I think we do owe immigrants something, whether they are legal or illegal, for our system to incorporate them legally has failed miserably; moreover our businesses’ economic needs have too many times welcomed the infiltration of an illegal workforce. Failure to deal with those problems at the point of occurrence was tantamount to approving of their entry into the country. There is no turning back the tide after it has washed over the banks, so it’s inevitable we’ll keep the legal immigrants and current illegal workforce as well. Hispanics masses marched today in LA, Detroit, and other places for their rights. According to the following web page, even Irish lobbyists, part of an effort organized by the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR), have recently petitioned our government, using Irish government money to do it. http://www.alipac.us/article-print-1102.html: “The Irish government has launched an all-out effort for the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill because it would grant amnesty to illegal aliens in the U.S. by converting them into legal guest workers. Funding ILIR is part of Ireland’s pro-McCain-Kennedy campaign.”
The mass exodus from Mexican borders, as I see it, in reality is part of the economic globalization that Thomas Friedman so proficiently researched in his book, “The World Is Flat”. To quote Friedman, paraphrased: “My parents told me to clean my plate. There are people starving for your food. I tell my daughters, get an education, there are people in China starving for your jobs.” Without question some jobs are being lost to immigrants, but for the most part it’s not about low wages. The greater negative (and some positive) impact may be economic globalization resulting in outsourcing of labor and industrial manufacturing to countries other than Mexico.
As I write this my church friend, Bob Dickens, is now visiting China to drum up business, another sign that “The World Is Flat”. To quote again from it: “If Wal-Mart was an individual economy, it would rank as China’s eight-biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia and Canada.” So maybe the best we can hope for is for our children and grandchildren is to be educated and skilled to the top of their game. For they will inevitably, I believe in general, have a lower standard of living than our generation has enjoyed. As Friedman’s book points out, Math and Science advances are critical to maintaining America’s economic global leadership. That’s the only protectionism that will work for our American dream society.
Immigrants, who are without criminal orientation/record and have earned equitable-work status, with an appropriate procedure should be incorporated as citizens now – or later in a legalized guest-worker program that includes a clear route to citizenship. Families that are together in this country should preclude sending money back to Mexico. Full responsibility to pay taxes and earn benefits expected, as other Americans, will benefit society in multiple ways.
More perspectives on immigration, informative articles on in today’s papers:
Help Wanted as Immigration Faces Overhaul Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032601058.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
March 27, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
North of the Border
By PAUL KRUGMAN http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/opinion/27krugman.html?th&emc=th
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," wrote Emma Lazarus, in a poem that still puts a lump in my throat. I'm proud of America's immigrant history, and grateful that the door was open when my grandparents fled Russia.
In other words, I'm instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration. But a review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular. If people like me are going to respond effectively to anti-immigrant demagogues, we have to acknowledge those facts.
First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates suggest that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.
Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration — especially immigration from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. The most authoritative recent study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard, estimates that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration.
That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants do "jobs that Americans will not do." The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays — and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.
Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should — and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.
Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, "We wanted a labor force, but human beings came." Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.
Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which treats the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born.
We shouldn't exaggerate these problems. Mexican immigration, says the Borjas-Katz study, has played only a "modest role" in growing U.S. inequality. And the political threat that low-skill immigration poses to the welfare state is more serious than the fiscal threat: the disastrous Medicare drug bill alone does far more to undermine the finances of our social insurance system than the whole burden of dealing with illegal immigrants.
But modest problems are still real problems, and immigration is becoming a major political issue. What are we going to do about it?
Realistically, we'll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants. Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration. But the harsh anti-immigration legislation passed by the House, which has led to huge protests — legislation that would, among other things, make it a criminal act to provide an illegal immigrant with medical care — is simply immoral.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bush's plan for a "guest worker" program is clearly designed by and for corporate interests, who'd love to have a low-wage work force that couldn't vote. Not only is it deeply un-American; it does nothing to reduce the adverse effect of immigration on wages. And because guest workers would face the prospect of deportation after a few years, they would have no incentive to become integrated into our society.
What about a guest-worker program that includes a clearer route to citizenship? I'd still be careful. Whatever the bill's intentions, it could all too easily end up having the same effect as the Bush plan in practice — that is, it could create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised workers.
We need to do something about immigration, and soon. But I'd rather see Congress fail to agree on anything this year than have it rush into ill-considered legislation that betrays our moral and democratic principles.
4 comments:
Cornell,
I have to partially disagree with you on this one. If we made it
easier to be American than to be Mexican, these people would become
Americans. We print labels and signs in Spanish. We provide bilingual
assistance. They do not have to learn English. It is ridiculous. As a
person just two generations off the reservation at Cherokee, I see some
real injustice here. My ancestors were tortured, and their children
taken away if they spoke their native language. And now we are giving
away this country. And I deeply resent it.
Jeanne Whisnant
Good morning Cornell,
This is an election year and the politicans need an issue to deliver gross amounts of rhetoric. As I read the News & Observer series of articles the bottom line was these people contribute more to the state coffers than they receive in medical, educational and judical services. They are doing jobs that are undesireable to the "unemployed" worker because their pay is not 3 times the minimum wage rate. And our unemployment is at a near record low so the labor force needs their numbers.
The universities are concerned that the illegal students are taking the place of residental would-be students. Why? Paying students are paying students. Is it because there are more students and the educational costs per student are greater? No, the paying allumni are concerned that their "universtiy" will have less esteem with these illegal folks attending classes. However, the middle class society is highly dependent on the university degrees. As long as the universities expand the advanced education, the middle class will contiune to be the stength of this nation.
I see this as a economic issue as much as a legal issue. And perhaps the "real" issue is located outside our borders. Why are they coming and what would keep them in their "home country"? Oil wells, trade agreements and foreign aid monies have only given them a taste of opportunities available if they try hard. These people are not Anglo-Saxons or African-Americans but they are a select people who have the drive to improve their lives whatever and wherever this desire takes them. This attitude is the stength of the American way and it is reinforced with medical, educational and work opportunities for the labor of doing whatever it takes. These illegally present people are what the early settlers of America were made of......"determination to do better" Name the nations of the over passed 200 years that haven't had people come the American soils. There are not many. I dare to say many of them didn't come thru the Ellis Island terminal. So we want to get them out of OUR satisfied society! They are like our ancestors.
There is the "concern" that terrorist will make it into the states. We can build fences, hire guards, survey the communications, but the ill minded soul will come anyway. For example, I went on a canoe trip along the Canadian border. We went for nearly 2 weeks and saw only one other party of people. The point is our borders are open. Maybe not at the airport or interstate highway check points where cameras, dogs, police, and machines are busy looking for something but not in the middle of Montana or the Dakota border. There isn't enough wire or concrete to "fence" our borders. And look at the Berlin Wall.....how many ways were those fences breached and the numbers of guards that still didn't stop the determined. Look at the Vietnamese and their desire to escape their county.....they endured until they arrived in these states. A terrorist group will come in one way or another.
So bottom line for me is to make them legal somehow. In five years or whatever time necessary to please the society vote. Guest labor, temporary visas, green card, yellow card, you name it, but let them stay, let them work, and let them enjoy our great nation of freedom and all that it stands for. Their contributions are more than their take.
Did you want to know? Now I ask!!
Cornell,
My opinion on this issue is quite strong and, I’m sure, somewhat selfish. It is nonetheless my opinion.
I find it odd that so many of the demonstrators we have seen in recent days, protesting their rite to work and live in this great Nation, are doing so under a proudly flown Mexican flag. At the same time, many of these protestors are shouting their opinions in Spanish. This, my friend, truly bothers me.
As you know I live in South Florida where we are absolutely overrun with persons from our south. It has become necessary to employ at least one bilingual person in each office to communicate with the rapidly growing number of consumers (to whom we may not legally refuse service) who do not speak English. If this were an occasional issue my feelings would not be so strong. Unfortunately it is a daily occurrence.
To say that these people fill a need that cannot/will not be filled by American workers is simply outrageous! AS LONG AS THERE ARE ABLEBODIED AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO ARE UNEMPLOYED, HOMELESS OR DRAWING MONEY FROM PUBLIC ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS, THERE IS NO NEED FOR GUEST WORKERS. If American greed is fueling the demand for illegal workers, the “illegal employers” (those who chose to turn a blind eye to our Nation’s immigration crisis in order to increase their profits) should be charged with a felony count of aiding and abetting. These employers know who they are. They are the ones who do not pay for worker’s comp coverage, pay less than minimum wage and fail to pay social security taxes on their workers who often work in unsafe conditions.
The social security issue is another factor that must be considered before passing any law that will affect illegal aliens. Legalizing these workers and granting citizenship will make them eligible for social security benefits. Our social security system is already struggling to provide for legal workers who spent their working life contributing to the system. A massive influx of benefit recipients will, most likely, topple an already crumbling American institution. It will, at a bare minimum, place an undue burden on millions of American workers who will be forced to fund the retirement of these newly legalized workers who spent many years in this country without paying into the system.
You asked for my opinion and there it is. Thank God we live in a Country that allows me to share it!
F. Smalley
Cornell,
Moral and Democratic ideals? Those concepts are alien to the current politik of the Norte Americanos politicos. Both sides of the political spectrum pay grand lip service to addressing the issues of illegal immigration. While these sycophants to the marginal electorate pontificate to retain respective strongholds of party allegiance, the inertia to manage the basic problem of illegal immigration-- border controls-- increases.
It is a specious argument that native born americans will not do "jobs beneath them" is a fallacy. It is astounding that the labor unions of the U.S.A. are not howling to enroll citizens, not merely 'guest workers' in an effort to get these jobs away from those willing to work for survival wages. When presented for bearable working conditions at a decent wage, those that have not climbed the ladder of corporate success and are determined not to advance skills will take on this kind of work. It is not merely a matter of slapping the wrists of employers that blatently use illegals to lower overhead costs; the fact that so many illegals do not get deported keeps them competition with natives that have a stake in improving their lives here on this side of the border instead of wiring the bulk of their funds south to support their families and the economy of their native land.
We cannot find all of the illegals and send them back. We cannot insist upon a minor fine for them to secure cheap citizenship. We cannot afford to build a fence to keep those determined to escape the poverty of their own nation from getting across the border. After all, if one of us was caught in another country without proper papers, treatment for the offense would be swift and uncomfortable.
Without exporting jobs to other nations, we could encourage other governments to alter laws and policies to promote freedom-- economic and politcal-- and free enterprise for their own people to develop their country from within their own borders. This was the example set by the U.S.A. for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. This is the lead we as a nation must take and vote for those determined to alter the course of our government to lessen dependence of our citizens upon it while our representatives attempt to curry favor with those without allegiance to the U.S.A.
Otherwise, we might as well annex Mexico, Central and South America and eliminate the borders of the western hemispere altogether. But then, we would be accused by the rest of the world as being bullies for conquering those that desire to conquer us through encouraging the undesirables to enter the U.S. and drain our nation dry.
Think about it. Jeff Stern Selma, NC USA
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