As temperatures in the Arizona desert spiked into triple digits, this year's "season of death" along the U.S-Mexican border got off to a rip-roaring start: Twelve dead and a record number of rescues in just the past three days.
More "unintended consequences" of a U.S. border and immigration policy that has failed from every perspective and by every measure.
Compare the scant media coverage of this catastrophic human toll with the wet kisses showered on the Minutemen and then draw your own conclusions.
See my entire post on this news on The Huffington Post.Hat tip to faithful commenter "Woody."
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May 24th, 2005 at 12:05 am
Was just logging off your blog and caught this new post…..
Read it completely…..what by chance is your own idea of some type of real and honest solution?……just your very own personal solution, whether or not it is practical or can be implemented at all?…
I ask you this before others give theirs, as you produced this as a topic of concern for us to answer — but would like to know your own ideas…your being a total native of the SW…and having covered this story for quite awhile now, and may for sure have the best take on some solution…….albeit, your own private take…practical or not…
May 24th, 2005 at 5:54 am
Excellent and sad.
You look like a Soprano in that snap, Marc.
May 24th, 2005 at 9:31 am
Pardon a light observation amidst a very heavy issue, but, congratulatiions - you’re featured on the “news” side of Arianna’s Elephant - just above Phil Spector’s hair ! Excellent placement. That insane picture of Phil’s Fro will surely draw lots of eyeballs in the direction of your column.
May 24th, 2005 at 9:59 am
(Marc, when I click on the links in your article, they take me to a log-in page instead of something that you wrote.)
To me, this is not a left vs. right issue. No one wants anyone to die. At the same time, neither side has workable solutions.
If I had my preference, immigration laws would be enforced and immigrants who made the journey and are here illegally would not be rewarded with work–but, rather sent back or detained. Allow available jobs to go to our unemployed and others who need jobs and are here legally. If you take away the carrot, then the illegal movement slows down.
Regarding the blame, if that’s really necessary, Marc wrote in his article:
“Some have called the soaring deaths the ‘unintended consequences’ of U.S. border policy. It might be better called a national shame.”
Doesn’t Mexico have a stake and some control in this matter? After all, it’s the citizens of that country and the problems with its economy that are pushing the migration. I consider this more their shame that they have pushed on us.
As we sometimes hear in business, “Don’t make your problems my problems.” Does the Mexican government share any shame and does it have any policies other than to encourage more people to make the deadly journey?
May 24th, 2005 at 10:19 am
Woody.. links are fixed. Of course Mexico has a responsibility in this. But the central fact here is a simple one. Put two countries with such disparate economis side by side and millions of people are going to do WHATEVER necessary to get to the other side. If the situation were reversed, Americans would do exactly the same as the Mexicans.
The issue is not stopping the flow… that’s like trying to stop the rain. The question is, what are u gonna do about it? At present, we have the worst of all worlds.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:41 am
Based on your Huffington post, I put the odds of successfully making it through at around 50:50. The mortality rate is about 3.5 in 10000. Clearly worth the risk to millions of people. What are the unemployment and poverty rates in Mexico? And aside from snide racist remarks, what is Vincente Fox doing to fix his side of this sad equation?
I don’t see how you stop high volume of crossings given the current diparity of economic conditions between the US and Mexico. Policing the border is highly ineffectual and costly. I suspect policing the use of illegal labor by business and individuals would be equally effective, which is to say not at all effective.
How about taking all the border control and illegal immigration money the government spends and using it instead to help improve the Mexican economy so as to make coming to the US the less attractive option?
I don’t know the answer, but it seems pretty obvious that our current approach isn’t working.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:57 am
In a way, I don’t blame the people coming here looking for work (except that they know that they are breaking our laws.) I also know that they don’t have the power to repair the economy in their own country.
I really don’t have any background on Mexico’s economy, so I can’t offer solutions; but, President Fox has the experts and power. Maybe he is trying to repair things; but, I only see where he avoids the issue by encouraging people to flood our borders–and, the Mexican government even publishes a “how to” booklet for entering the U.S. and getting needed documents to exist here. (Here’s a link with the manual. I don’t know anything about the site except that they provide a translation of the government printed guide. http://tinyurl.com/9l5ps )
In a way, what Fox is doing is akin to Castro opening up his jails when Carter was President and sending Cuba’s problems to us. As long as we accept his problems and let him get away with it, then nothing will change–except it can get worse.
This is a no-win.
- The U.S. accepts illegal immigrants who take jobs that legal citizens could use.
- The illegal immigrants rarely pay taxes since they exist primarily in a cash economy (which means that their net pay is not much different than the net pay of citizens with taxes withheld.)
- The immigrants use our resources including schools, hospitals, police protection, etc.
- People die.
- The U.S. gets blamed.
- Fox makes speeches and sleeps each night.
It is time to do something before more people die.
1. This country needs to tighten the vise on Mexico to force it to take the right steps to correct its economy, and we should seek compensation from them for our costs through reimbursement with oil or whatever means they have.
2. People who hire illegal immigrants need to pay fines at least equivalent to what their employees cost the taxpayers. This would cut down on the job opportunities and incentives to come here.
3. Besided limiting the opportunities, the punishments to those caught can be increased so that this country is not appealing to someone from the outside.
But, is this right and how do you do it? I can tell my kid that if he doesn’t straighten up then he loses his cell phone privileges. What do you tell a nation?
May 24th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Remember when we outsourced all our manufacturing to Mexico? Remember all those nice new shiny factories we built for them down there? Remember how that would make everyone better off?
Ungrateful bastards!
NAFTA rules! Long live crony capitalism!
May 24th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Important stuff, Marc, as you know. And this season looks to be particularly scary with the triple digit heat kicking in earlier than usual.
May 24th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
Sometimes I think of border-crossing the way we thought of sneaking into rock concerts when we were kids. The live music was important…life-giving. It was our holy communion. We couldn’t experience the music for the sole reason that we didn’t have money. So we got in however we could. Whatever ethical compromise this entailed was overwhelmingly outweighed by the good to be experienced on the other side of the gate.
Some would probably see this need for self-gratification as the blind-spot or sin of the baby boom generation, but it was pretty prevalent in the youth culture.
For you youngsters, public events didn’t used to be guarded by the heavily armed militias you see today [except in Chicago, where Andy Frain ushers were training to be Daley-style cops]. The success rate was similar to that experienced at the border. Or so my sister tells me.
My point, and as Ellen DeG says, I do have one, is that so long as the focus is on the good-ness or bad-ness [i.e. legality or illegality] of the actions of people crossing the invisible barrier, we will be wasting our energy and deriving meritless, unworkable solutions. The only way to approach the problem is to make the “music” available as widely as possible.
There is no reason to pretend that this is an easy solution, but I do believe that it is the only approach worth taking.
May 24th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Sorry…the share-the-music metaphor posting is mine.
May 24th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Sorry for another post so soon, but I wanted to share what I found on the Mexican government site to help its citizens cross illegally into the United States. Below is a link to just one page with the pictures, which warn of heat and thirst in the desert. The English translation is on the link that I provided earlier, but these pictures give you both a mental image and a broader perspective.
There is no doubt that the Mexican government is encouraging and assisting its citizens to move to the U.S. Of course, they can cry that they warned the people of the perils; but, these aren’t warnings; they are instructions–instuctions that encourage and give false hope for success. They’re killing their own countrymen. (You can move forward or backward to view the whole pamphlet.)
So, what’s a few deaths to the Mexican government if it means a million people fell off of their unemployment rolls and government assistance? It also has the benefit of removing dissatisfied voters from the voting rolls leaving mainly those who are happy to support the current administration there.
Bush could do something similar to help us and them–give California to Mexico. (I’d suggest Massachusetts, too, if it were contiguous.)
I’m going back to study my Latin books about the history of the Roman empire. I know that Rome had similar situations that weakened it. We also know that I’m not going to find solutions because we know history and we know how that republic ended. It doesn’t offer much hope.
Okay, here’s that one page on how to sneak into the U.S. to help President Fox stay in office by working less than twenty hours a week. It’s better than those no-money down schemes that you see on television late at night.
http://www.sre.gob.mx/tramites/consulares/guiamigrante/page4.htm
May 24th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
I miscalculated the risk of death by comparing the average number of deaths, on an annual basis, to the number of successful entrants into the US from Mexico, but failed to include those that are caught and sent back. The corrected risk is 1.75 deaths per 10000. Which only helps to make the trip more attractive.
With unemployment in the United States running at, roughly, 5.5% the impact of the influx of all this cheap labor seems minimal. The current system incents business to hire illegal workers in that they are paid lower wages and the business avoids some substantial taxes (income tax, social security tax) as well as any employee benefit costs.
In my earlier post I suggested using all the interdiction money to improve the Mexican economy, thus making coming to the US less attractive. On second thought, maybe we should eliminate the border control all together and allow any and every Mexican that wants to enter the US to do so. We can issue them work permits (work id card, or something else that is difficult to counterfeit) allowing them to work legally. We can then redeploy the border patrol to police the business community for compliance with current employment laws. If we find illegal workers we can document them (issue a work id card) and fine the crap out of the offending business. As for the worker, no work permit, no services (schools, hospitals, etc.).
We’ve tried stopping the supply, maybe we should focus more on the demand. Net tax receipts should increase and the illegal traffic across the border should slow to a trickle.
I’m sure there is much I have missed or not thought through, but I haven’t heard many workable solutions and the status quo is, at best, ineffective.
Btw, Senator McCain, together with the Senator-I-Despise-Most, introduced a new bill today that takes some similar steps.
May 24th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
“Bush could do something similar to help us and them–give California to Mexico.”
Now that’s just silly…everybody knows that that Mike Hernandez already ceded us to Mexico.
Now, Texas, OTOH…
May 24th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
toomanysteves, not a solution. What’s attractive to U.S. businesses about immigrant labor (legal and otherwise) is depression of wages–it’s true that illegal immigration has a number of other pro-employer perqs, some of which you mentioned (benefits, taxes) and others you did not (e.g., safety violations), but granting mass legal work status to immigrants further erodes already declining wages (relative to inflation) and benefits experienced by the average American worker. Plus, visiting Mexican workers can always live in Mexico–where their dollars are worth more–and work in the U.S., with the convenient (for businesses) effect of undercutting American workers’ fight for fairer wages ($5.15/hr. is horrendous in the U.S., but I think I’d get by just fine in Mexico).
So while your first idea of repairing the Mexican economy is less feasible in the short term, it’s the only one on the table that actually would have positive consequences for all parties (except, of course, for those whose over-arching-at-all-costs goal is profit maximization).
May 24th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
“We” should probably give California back to Mexico, and Georgia back to the British penal system whence its founders came.
May 24th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
I checked out the link Woody provided and agree that it is strange for a government to instruct its citizens on the safest way to get the heck out. Not that I can read the text, of course.
May 24th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Michael, below are my selected highlights of the official Mexican government guide to illegal immigration into the U.S. Since it is translated into English, you can use it to smuggle yourself into Mexico. I particularly like pages 28-30 where they give a pep talk about to remember your Mexican heritage. However, the section titled RISKS shows us just how really perilous the journey can be. But, if I were a Mexican citizen wishing to improve my lot in life, this book would serve as an encouragement and would give me confidence that the trip to the U.S. is very doable. It might as well be written by Dr. Kovorkian.
Here are parts of the guide in English:
____________________________
**START**
INTRODUCTION, PAGES 0 - 3
Dear fellow citizen: This guide tries to provide you with some practical advice that may be useful to you in case you have made the difficult decision to seek new work opportunities outside of your own country.
RISKS, PAGES 4 - 11
DANGERS OF CROSSING IN HIGH-RISK ZONES
Crossing the river can be very risky, especially if you cross alone and at night.. Thick clothing weighs you down when it’s wet and makes it hard to swim or float. If you cross in the desert, try to travel when the heat is not so intense. Highways and towns are very far apart, so that it could take you several days to find roads and you will not be able to carry food or water for that long. You could even get lost. Salted water helps you retain body fluids. Although you get more thirsty, if you drink salted water the risk of dehydration is lessened. Dehydration symptoms are: (list) If you get lost follow utility poles, railroad tracks or furrows.
BE CAREFUL OF “POLLEROS”, “COYOTES” OR “PATEROS” [Various names for alien smugglers]
They can deceive you by assuring you they’ll cross you [smuggle you across the border] at certain times over mountains or through deserts. This is not true! They can put your life in danger leading you through rivers, irrigation canals, desert areas, along railroad tracks or freeways. This has caused the death of hundreds of people. If you decide to use the services of a “pollero”, “coyote” or “patero” to cross the border, consider the following precautions to take: (list)
BE CAREFUL OF ALIEN SMUGGLERS
DO NOT USE FALSE DOCUMENTS OR DOCUMENTS OF OTHER PEOPLE, NOR DECLARE A FALSE NATIONALITY, PAGES 12 - 13
IF YOU ARE DETAINED, PAGES 14 - 16
YOUR RIGHTS, PAGES 17 - 21
If you wish more information and you live in Texas or in Ciudad AcuÒa, Coahuila, tune in to “The Powerful Station” at AM 1570.
IF YOU ARE ARRESTED / DETAINED, PAGES 22 - 23
[THINGS TO] AVOID, PAGES 24 - 27
Avoid calling attention to yourself, at least while you are arranging your residence papers to live in the United States.
CONSULATES, PAGES 28 - 30
Always carry your “Guide to Consular Protection” with you at all times. Get Near to the Consulate… Embrace Mexico. It’s your home, fellow countryman!
BOX ON LAST PAGE:
This consular protection guide is not promoting the crossing [of the border] of Mexicans without legal documentation required by the government of the United States; its objective is to make known the risks implied and to inform about the rights of migrants regardless of their legal residence.
**END**
_____________________________
I hope this helped to enlighten some.
The last page is bull. How does this help our border patrol? The more I read about this problem and the deaths and the stance of the Mexican government, the more disgusted I get with them. Their actions and the status quo are completely unacceptable.
May 24th, 2005 at 6:54 pm
The Mexican government has to held accountable. Of course ours is now operating under the same model, so stay tuned. The serfs shall rise.
May 24th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
Marc — I’d argue that your assumptions are dangerous and widely shared. Widely shared in that it’s just assumed there is no remedy to illegal immigration. This along with the bipartisan desire to pander seems to drive the politics on the issue. Enact and ENFORCE tough penalties for hiring illegal workers, construct an Israeli style wall to keep people out, and squeeze Mexico to enact reform. Cut the demand for cheap illegal, exploitable labor, stop the labor from getting here, and force Mexico to deal with it’s own deeply flawed society (mostly due to corruption).
Ironically, MEXICO is facing the same problem on it’s Southern Borders and starting to see it’s own version of the Minute Men.
The assumptions are *dangerous* IMHO because if Robert Frost doesn’t rival Pablo Neruda in romantic poetry, he does in statecraft. Good Fences DO make good neighbors, if the “border is an illusion” and we can’t stop illegal immigrants from swamping our domestic labor market and seriously affecting (negatively) our economic efficiency (cheap labor is a mug’s game) then the US will, eventually, be forced into variations of Pershing’s expedition. Except we’d stay longer and things would be uglier. Mexico exporting it’s population as a failed state/nation just invites ongoing intervention in various ways as much as Pancho Villa raiding a border town.
Too Many Steves — border policing the way it is done NOW is too costly to be effective. This is because we have not operated along Israeli lines. They use man-made barriers, natural obstacles, men, remote sensors, in combinations. We won’t stop EVERYONE but can make it so difficult and expensive in combination with reducing demand that people don’t try. This is different from our current undermanned folks policing rickety wire fences.
ITA that NAFTA was a disaster. People laughed at Ross Perot but he (and not Clinton or Gore) was absolutely right. The proven way to economic success is not cheap exploitable labor with few skills but a skilled and highly adaptable workforce leveraging substantial capital investment to make high quality adaptable products rather than lots of cheap Nikes. PART of our economic problems has been too much of an addiction to cheap labor which masks inefficiencies and hurts economic growth.
May 24th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Thanks for this post, Marc. The tragedy of these deadly border crossings will continue until we look at ourselves as honestly as we look upon illegal immigrants with hostility. At the U.S.-Mexico border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (shown in your map), the barrier consists of three (or four, maybe) strands of barbed wire. It’s quite simple to cross in either direction. But the flow is one-way, and it’s easy to see why.
A life is a life. No excuses and no posturing allowed — especially for “right to lifers.” Berlin Wall? Terrific. I saw that barrier up close, too. Petty tyranny and unspeakable killings. Why are we trying to outdo do that dismal record? More law enforcement? More mini-men? Sure. How about an open border with not only food, clothing, and fuel flowing back and forth, but people too? Real free enterprise, if we have the guts.
After all, wasn’t it Adam Smith who said,”Libertad o muerte”?
And as somebody in one of B.Traven’s novels put it,”This is the real world muchachos, and you are in it.”
May 24th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
The Berlin Wall, which was built to keep citizens in, is a far cry from a border patrol to keep non-citizens out. Tearing down the wall and guarding borders have the same effect–allowing and protecting freedom. Remember, at the Berlin Wall, President Reagan discussed freedom and said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’” The same president, in reference to uncontrolled immigration also said, “”A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.” Because of inherent limitations in jobs and resources, allowing some to be here unlawfully has the result of keeping lawful others out. The world does not have an unlimited right to become U.S. citizens.
May 24th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
Woody.. yes there is a difference. But there are also similarities in terms of the desperation of the victims. It seems — in a sentence– that there is something very ugly about this situation: we blink at literally millions who work for us in the lowest economic and social rungs but we wont give u a drivers license, we wont give u a way to legalize urself and we make you run a guantlet that kills 350 people a year. I think that qualifies as “shameful.”
May 24th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
Woody, I’ve got some conflicted feelings on this. I totally understand your points, but I share Marc’s abhorrence of the hypocrisy at the root of this issue and the human cost to the folks at the bottom of the food chain. But I didn’t chime in to add my two cents to the discussion, since I’ve ranted at length before and don’t have an easy answer.
I just wanted to tell you, reading this thread, that Billy Madison would be proud.
May 24th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Marc,
Thanks for putting this embarressing problem into perspective. The Berlin Wall analogy is superp.
This is one of those issues that show just how lazy and cowardly our policy makers are. Like the war on drugs, instead of figuring out a real solution that would work in a real world, they only throw money at it and hope for the best. These flash issues have the potential to ruin political careers, and they won’t risk it. How inhumane is that?
Afterall, why should they risk their careers on people who aren’t even American? What’s a couple hundred dead Mexicans mean to anyone in middle America? No one cares about them. So many people sneer at the word immigrant, like it was a piece of dirty laundry. Maybe it comes down to racism.
It’s one of those slippery issues that no one knows how to frame, so it falls to the wayside, like so many of the illegals.
Although President Fox’s choice of words can be questioned, he’s got a point: There are plenty of shitty jobs in America that Americans don’t want to do, so they fall to the illegals. If the illegals complain about it, there’s always the threat of being fired or sent back. For the most part, they live a life without any kind of power.
Like the conservatives on this board, I think the government should pursue companies that employ illegals, but only to make sure they are receiving at least minimum wage (which is still way too low, but it’s a start).
But then again, I say let them in if they want to come. How can you be so rough on people who want to better themselves so badly that they are willing to risk their lives walking across a desert? Make it easier. Expand the sponsorship programs. Get them prepared to live in a new country. Put some of the millions toward this.
And stop pretending that the immigration battle is just another front in the war on terrorism.
Or something like that. I know the solution can’t be found in our current immigration policy with Mexico. This is something that may require a social and cultural shift (the culture of life, anyone?) that I’m afraid can’t happen in this culturally divided country.
May 25th, 2005 at 4:22 am
This issue has many facets that get in the way of developing an effective solution. There are strong, and often conflicting, opinions about the facts too: concerns for human life, issues about laws being broken (by the immigrants and business), economic realities (some of which are themselves disputed), and so on. Add to this that the direct impact falls nearly exclusively to the few states that form the border with Mexico and you find that the other States tend to yawn when the topic is raised. All the incentives are running in the wrong direction.
It seems to me that the best solution is the one that is most simple but which is the most difficult, in terms of effort and time, to implement: make staying in Mexico more advantageous and desireable a place to live and work.
May 25th, 2005 at 4:30 am
Sorry, last sentence should be:
“make Mexico a more advantageous and desireable place for Mexicans to live and work.”
It’s early and has been cold and rainy for nearly the entire month of May, thus my mind to keyboard circuits are acting up.
May 25th, 2005 at 8:53 am
It’s not that what you all say is not true, but it’s not the whole story. And that’s why the left can’t get traction in politics–because it’s religious dogma, not a plan of action.
We don’t just blink at the poor, Marc, illegal or not, who do the jobs “even blacks” won’t do. We give them medical care, education, job training, English classes, low interest home loans and remove the threat of deportation from anyone seeking those benefits. If you’re worried about the crossings, go down there and carry some water, organize the Leftist Minutemen!
Meanwhile, the bosses are raking in the dough, not the consumer. My Japanese gardener hires illegals and sends the added profits home to his parent corporation, not to me.
Mexico is responsible for its own failure. Why can’t anyone say that out loud in polite liberal company? Corruption destroyed their economy. As for racism: why is it all the Mexicans who sign up for our MBA look like Europeans and all our janitors look like Mayans? How many journalists have been killed in Mexico this year?
If the border situation were reversed, they would have troops on the border, like they do in their south.
http://www.worldpress.org/0901feature22.htm
As long as the left romanticizes their plight, the right will laugh its way to the bank, and it will be your noble savage who will suffer.
May 25th, 2005 at 9:20 am
Rockford, as usual, has been snooping around in his own ass again. Look to Israel, he says, that model of tolerance, democracy, and stability. A quick Google session illustrates the problem with your wall: Israel is constructing, at great public expense, a wall that covers less than 200 miles (including the wall around Jerusalem). The United States and Mexico share over 2100 miles of border. Besides that, Israel is concerned about people coming to blow them up while we’re concerned about people coming to work. Perhaps even you can see that the same sorts of punitive measures are not reasonable.
PJ, saying Mexico is responsible for its own failure solves nothing. Absolutely Mexico has had lots of problems - some of which have to do with it’s neighbors (the US and others), but a lot has to do with poor economic management (including ratifying NAFTA). Unfortunately, we still need to come up with some solutions.
May 25th, 2005 at 10:06 am
Re-stating up front that I don’t like people dying or suffering, let me say things that might make you think otherwise.
1. Berlin Wall: Still a bad analogy. If the western allies had erected it rather than the Soviets, then it might be closer. Also, that wall divided families, a city, and a nation over ideology rather than economics–which was a latter issue and didn’t involve survival. Our border patrol is hardly a wall manned with machine guns.
2. I wonder how many people from Mexico immigrate to this country who are not impoverished but simply looking for better jobs. I am only guessing, but I suspect that at least one-third. Maybe better jobs rather than survival motivates them to take life-and-death risks. That is not our moral dilemma. It’s no different than people who drive from 100 miles away each day for better construction jobs in Atlanta and take increased risks for that long commute rather than work for the mule skinner. For these people, it’s all about choices–inconvenience and risk for opportunity–not morals.
3. Imagine a small independent,principality in southern California similar to Vatican City. The name of that city-state is Cooperania. It’s just like the Vatican except it is protected by an alarm system rather than Swiss Guards, and the Vatican does not have fish trophies hanging in the family room. The citizens there live comfortably due to their hard work and the capitalistic system that they foster. Now, down the road from Cooperania is another country called L.A. Nation, run by corrupt politicians and inhabitated by many people who can barely survive. (This is entirely hypothetical.)
My question is: Should the citizens of Cooperania disable the alarm system and unlock the doors so that the poor people of L.A. Nation can come in to take the food and furniture that they need, although they have no legal right to do that? Cooperania would hardly miss what they take, and it would only be a little cramped when the L.A. Nation people take over one of the bedrooms. What is the response of the King of Cooperania, Marc–Ruler of Blogs and Fish? Does he open his gates because people are hungry or does he try to bring change to L.A. Nation to help those people stay and prosper there?
(reg, I know that this falls back under that Billy Madison scenario, so you don’t have to say it.)
May 25th, 2005 at 10:12 am
That was a compliment…
May 25th, 2005 at 10:22 am
PJ, maybe I’m afraid you’re either not reading the comments closely, or you’re just locked into knee-jerk interpretations about what “the left” thinks. Myself, reg, Jim Rockford (hard to classify you, Jim!), and other “more left than right” folk have overtly taken on the unpleasant facts of this issue: illegal immigration is HURTING the average American overall, in a number of clearly stated ways (downward wage pressure, OT and working condition abuses, education and healthcare costs, overpopulation, etc.). If anything, you should be pleased (as I am) that some of us on the left and right can agree on what are some of the root causes, and that they need to be addressed more DIRECTLY and pragmatically–sadly, though, this does not include the Bush or Clinton Administrations. Mexican economy a problem? YES! Should we reduce the northward flow of immigration? YES! How we go about this is at issue, but at least we are for the most part here agreeing that efforts must be coordinated in the same direction (i.e., reducing illegal immigration). Hell, I’m still trying to overcome my astonishment at my being in agreement (somewhat) more with Woody on an issue than with Marc!
May 25th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Woody.. ur examples make little sense. The U.S. is not cooperania. It has assimilated successfully various waves of millions of immigrants over the decades and has prospered in doing so. It is not analagous to any other major industrial power (all of which had its own indigenous population before the industrial revolution). When we say America was built by immigrants, that is not a nice slogan. It’s a reality. There is nothing different about the current wave of immigrants except our collective refusal to legalize them and recognize them.
Currently, you are out of step even with the major business lobbies in America, including the Natl Chamber of Commerce, all of whom want comprehensive reform(including a form of amnesty and channels of legalization). The only way to regulate or begin to stem the flow of migrants is to redirect them to our legal ports of entry and and register them and normalize them.
The business lobby wants this why? Because it wants a cheap labor pool? if that were simply the case, the current situation would be more acceptable– one under which workers form no unions, make no workman comp claims, make no wage demands etc etc because they are illegal.
Do a little reading on the matter and you will find that american business wants this reform because the DEMOGRAPHICS of America are such that soon they will run out of laborers for future expansion. This is already the case in western states agriculture where there is a labor shortage (an acute one) even with millions of illegal immigrants.
This is coming in any case and you cannot resist it. Not only that, but you will survive it– just like your predescessors survived and prospered as millions of Russias, Poles, Ukranians, Swedes, Italians, Irish and even Germans have always moved to America to make their homes.
P/S: Regarding your argument that maybe 1/3 are here to only get better jobs… and? This isn;t something Americans dont do all day and night? Like men witt big families and small jobs who decide to go drive trucks in Iraq for 10 grand a month at the risk of being beheaded? Is that in any way different than jumping the Rio Grande to get a job in a car wash? Except that the latter pays 10,000 a year?
May 25th, 2005 at 11:09 am
MC: “…you will survive it–just like your predescessors survived and prospered as millions of Russias, Poles, Ukranians, Swedes, Italians, Irish and even Germans have always moved to America to make their homes.”
Marc, everyone thinks that my predescessors prospered when Africans “moved” to America.
___________________
Now to the real comment….
Marc, I’m out of step with everybody. The only thing that I’m in step with is the law, which is never going to be enforced. Laws are passed because representatives, that we elect, believe that those are the best formulas for managing, in this case, our immigration and labor supply. Who is anyone else to say that they know better than our elected officials on what the policies should be? You, me, the growers, judges, union officers,…who? If someone else knows better, let them run for office rather than ignore, break, or twist the law.
I don’t defend businesses that want to take undue advantage of illegal workers. If businesses have a labor shortage, let them pay higher wages to get the legal workers that they need from our existing labor pool. I can’t believe that this country would shut down if we enforced our laws.
Now, if none of this is practical, maybe we should export our farm jobs to Mexico. Okay, that was just to check to see if you were paying attention. If none of this is practical, then we may need a control system to allow the workers to be here legally and for them to have the benefits and rights that our current workers have.
However, and this is a BIG however, I am *totally 100% against giving any foreigners the right to vote* in this country. As it is, quite a number of them register to vote illegally and, as we saw in Wisconsin, there was substantial vote fraud and voting by non-citizens, which gave that state to Kerry and might have stolen the the election for the Democrats. You and I know that the next step after giving the workers legal status for jobs is to give them legal status for voting. I am quite sure that the Democrats would pander to them and their unions and promise huge give-aways just to get elected. No, and forgive me Lord, hell no. Maybe, just maybe, this is what some people are really seeking and what some are seeking to avoid.
Now, will someone tell me and other Americans how to register to vote in Mexico so that we can vote its current cast of crooks out of office and change that country?
May 25th, 2005 at 11:13 am
Marc, I made the point earlier that a larger labor pool–even if entirely employment-authorized–is by definition a CHEAPER labor pool–certainly cheaper than one consisting of workers who are not fighting each other for too few jobs. And what is this “labor shortage”?!?!? I am so sick of the argument that we need to import labor because no Americans want to pick strawberries. Bullshit! What no American wants to do is pick strawberries for minimum wage (which is what would happen if workers were legalized–an improvement over slave wages but NOT fair or livable), get paid zero benefits, and live in an overcrowded trailer lot. But I guarantee you, if strawberry-picking paid livable wages, these jobs would be filled in a heartbeat. Of course, this opens a whole new can of worms in that many American companies are ever upping the ante in driving down labor costs, and will always attempt to define what a job is worth: crucially, their job is made easier when the jobs are scarce and the labor is plentiful. Unionizing the larger labor pool, as you mention, is an obvious plus, but the business community’s argument that labor is/will be scarce is a crock of shit–of course they have to say this, I wouldn’t expect otherwise (it’s business, not religion/ethics/social planning). But the truth of the matter is that labor will not be scarce: labor will rather be too scarce to maintain the same wage and benefit structure that has stagnated since the early 70’s. Will business go elsewhere? Yup, continuing inevitably to relocate to China and East Asia (though many jobs are not relocatable), until either one of two things happens: 1) we tighten trade standards; or 2) we raise the standard of living of workers worldwide–something agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA have decidedly worked against. I’d prefer the second, of course, but I think that has to be done gradually and in conjunction with #1 (albeit indirectly)–that is, keep fighting for leverage and closing one loophole (e.g, the loophole of crappy U.S. wages and benefits) while slowly beginning to increase this leverage by closing loopholes in other places (L. America, China, etc.).
So let’s not kid ourselves–while granting work status to immigrants en masse would potentially eradicate some of the egregious wage and safety violations, the effect on the majority of Americans would be a negative one. Also, I have to disagree with the claim that this is just like any other immigration pattern we’ve experienced in the U.S. The crucial difference is that Latin American immigrants–particularly those from Mexico–do not need to integrate culturally or even–most importantly–economically to the U.S. In fact, as long as Mexico stays dirt cheap they have an added incentive not to: who wouldn’t both want to maintain strong ties to home AND spend currency that has more buying power? I know my Italian grandparents would have if they could have. So there’s no guarantee at all that granting work status en masse (or via a nauseatingly anti-labor “guest worker program”) to undocumented immigrants would result in a stronger and more U.S. labor force. Likewise, comparing the current immigration boom to that from Europe, China, etc., is therefore not an accurate one.
May 25th, 2005 at 11:17 am
Woody said:
“If businesses have a labor shortage, let them pay higher wages to get the legal workers that they need from our existing labor pool.”
Okay, whoever kidnapped Woody just tell us what the ransom is and we’ll go from there…
May 25th, 2005 at 11:31 am
Rich, I agree with you that the posters are well meaning and in basic agreement that it’s a bad situation. But good intentions are not enough, especially for the Dems, who claim to be a viable political party. I agree with you and Mavis that searching for root causes and for good solutions is a wonderful goal; however, the time is past for talk. We need action NOW. California is bankrupt and even Marc admits it’s the Season of Death. 80 percent of the budget goes to social programs. How can anyone claim that immigration doesn’t impact the budget–in real and not philosophical terms? When the state lays people off, like they did last year, those people no longer pay taxes. When middle class workers leave, as many are doing, they take their taxes with them. It’s a downward spiral.
I hope the gang at Huffington Blog realize they will be left to pay the bills for all this. But with an unlimited checkbook and a gated home with security guards, who cares?
May 25th, 2005 at 11:40 am
You have to see this. I went to google to do a search on how to register to vote in Mexican elections…no kidding, just did it for a hoot…, and I ran across a site that did have quite a few references on voting problems related to illegal residents. The site has a number of links including one where you can report an illegal immigrant on-line. Unbelieveable.
Here’s a simple part of the site that I liked–the pictures. http://www.illegalaliens.us/pictures.htm As you can clearly see from the top one, all we have to do to stem the migration is to post these signs along the border which state that it’s against the law to come in illegally and that you are subject to a $50,000 fine! There is someone pointing at that to drive home the point. Now, that’s what our elected officials are for!
May 25th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
I’m sorry–it’s my glasses. The fine is only $5,000–not $50,000. At first, I thought it was an amount beyond what the typical border-crosser could afford. Glad to set this straight.
May 25th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
For those interested, Marketplace (on NPR), is in its 3rd day of an excellent 5 part series on immigration called “The Undocumented War.”
The first segment begins with Marc’s pal, the brilliant writer/journalist Charles Bowden, as its philosophical guide. (Chuck Bowden’s voice has the been-to-hell-back- and-then-some wise and world weary resonance of Tommy Lee Jones hybrid with Sam Elliott, yet Bowden’s not a….you know….actor.)
His views are poetic, insightful, tragic and as Marc will confirm….correct
You can listen to the first two segments and read material on the upcoming segments here:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/undocumented_war/
May 25th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
I don’t see a solution to this on the horizon, because there are too many conflicting interests coming from too many contradictory directions - and the political class is mostly just paralyzed on the issue.
I do doubt that the apathy of the affluent commentariat over at Arianna’s place is part of the problem. Nor do I see a 2000 mile fence as a credible solution. If such a fence ever does get built, however, I would suggest it get sold to Americans as either a memorial to Robert Frost or the latest conceptual art by Christo. On the Mexican side it could be put forward as the world’s largest public mural, with lots of commissions for muralistas to decorate the damned thing. Maybe nobody would notice the gun towers.
May 25th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
Incidentally, rich, if Woody was indeed kidnapped, I predict that the “Red Chief” effect of Woody’s diatribes driving his captors bananas will effect his release more quickly than any ransom.
May 25th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
Mavis you’re deluding yourself, as usual. Ideology trumping common sense. This is a rich and powerful country. If we can’t control our own borders we will just end up intervening in Mexico. If tiny, 5-6 million population Israel can put up barriers to keep people out, so can we, a nation of over 300 million people. Of course, that means more spending on security and less tax breaks for rich people, and throwing away the Leftist/Liberal delusion that America cannot and should not look after it’s own citizens first and should instead cater to the wealthy elite that run the failed state of Mexico.
As for Israel, it IS a model of stability and tolerance and democracy. Unlike it’s neighbors, Israel has no death penalty. Unlike it’s neighbors, Israel tolerates Gays, indeed has Gay Pride marches in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; whereas Gays are summarily executed in Muslim countries including all it’s neighbors. Unlike Jordan or Syria or Lebanon or Palestine or Egypt, Israel has free and fair elections where Muslim citizens elect their own representatives to Parliament. Unlike it’s neighbors Israel has freedom for Women, including topless beaches, let alone the right to vote which most Muslim countries suppress. Unlike it’s neighbors Israel is ruled by it’s citizens and the laws they make, not mobs or gangs of gunmen and tribes. Israel compares favorably with even European states such as Italy, let alone it’s horrifically repressive neighbors (not to say that it is perfect).
Sorry Mavis your typical Leftist double standard, hatred of Western values, and borderline anti-Semitism is showing. [Leftists hate Israel because it shows the superiority of Western culture and the total failure of Islamic societies]
Marc — the business lobby is addicted to cheap labor. It allows them to be in the loser’s game of racing for the bottom in labor costs and thus increasing profit. This is to be expected. The role of government is to increase the general welfare of all the people, not simply the investor class. This means promoting capital investment to leverage a skilled labor class not turning this country into a giant sweatshop. You’ll always find Chinese or African peasants working for 12 cents an hour churning out cheap Nikes. Americans win by making lots of skilled labor products such as aerospace, custom electronics, and other innovative products.
Running out of labor? That’s a laugh. There are PLENTY of folks who’d prefer to make things rather than starvation wages at Wal-Mart. Business wants a cheap and reliable source of labor hence the pressure for another Bracero program. This is also btw a guaranteed union busting measure. Moreover our economy is not that of 1910’s. Trying the argument that a country that only recently closed the frontier absorbed lots of immigrants in industrial expansion is like comparing 16th Century Venice to Los Angeles.
Example: no bracero program, farmers are forced to use a few skilled American workers with specialized machines to pick strawberries at a lower total cost than unskilled manual labor. Workers operating the machinery, making the machinery, etc all win. Consumer gets a better product (strawberries) at a lower cost (increased automation/robotic pickers). Industrial innovation expands increasing American competitiveness.
Mexico can’t absorb all the Central American immigrants pouring in either heading north for the US. So this is a global problem of relatively rich countries next to poor ones. France is leaning no on the EU constitution on fears of Turkish workers flooding the country, so are the Dutch and Brits. Cheap labor = return to Dickensian working conditions and life.
May 25th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
It’s funny (among other things in your post) Rockford, that you equate leftism with hatred of Western values. I have to say that the part of my “leftism” that’s most closely aligned with marxian critical analysis fully embraces fundamental Western values, including the spread of global capitalism (because that’s what the Old Man would have wanted). The part of my “leftism” that’s rooted in my Christian upbringing tends more to the kind of moralism that middle-class, anti-globalist, solidarista lefties often turn into a fetish. There’s always a tension between those parts of my “leftism” and my leftism is always in tension with a large dose of patriotic fervor and good ol’ American cultural ethnocentrism . I’m not ashamed of any of it…but I find your equation of “leftism” with “anti-Western” ironic, if not necessarily completely unfounded in certain quarters.
As for the specific attack on Mavis, it was pretty unhinged of you.
May 25th, 2005 at 3:50 pm
http://www.theonion.com/history/index.php?issue=4121
Relevant historic document…
May 25th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
Woody, You have some thoughtful comments, and I respect your position even if I disagree with it. But you are deeply confused about the Berlin Wall. It WAS built to keep people out — of West Berlin. If you don’t understand that, please leave the Berlin Wall issue alone. Adios.
May 25th, 2005 at 8:00 pm
WMD, this could go on forever. Rather than keeping people OUT of West Berlin, the wall was built to keep people IN East Berlin. I see the wall’s similarity with our border in that there are people who want to cross it–even if for different reasons. I do understand your point, but to me the Berlin Wall is so symbolic of a different struggle that it needs to remain in its own class. Okay, that’s enough from me.
Thanks for everyone’s concerns about my abduction. I was kidnapped by a Mexican male and a white woman driving a blue van, who took me from Atlanta to Albuquerque where they released me and I phoned the police. Fortunately, I was not inappropriately assaulted. I think my constant tomahawk chants during the Braves game along with my complaining about Mexicans taking over this country was more than they could take. Was someone pretending to be me on this thread?
May 25th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Woody…are you sure this wasn’t just some hoax you perpetrated to avoid taking your wife out to dinner for your anniversary ?????
May 26th, 2005 at 12:00 am
I have another post on immigration coming on Thursday nite so we can rehash all this again at length. But here’s the one 900lb irony sitting in the middle of this thread:
Those who want to close the border (impossible anyway) and who decry the business community’s “addiction” to cheap labor come from that side of the fence most opposed to a) IMPOSING a liveable minimum wage on those businesses and b) giving ordinary workers more power and ability to organize unions. Come one, folks, you can’t have it every which way.
You think Americans are being pushed out by cheap labor? Fine, Make Wal-Mart and McDonalds pay a $10 an hour minimum wage with some fringe bennies and watch what happens to the emploment market.
But no… let’s keep the minimum at a risible five bucks an hour and then scrath our heads wondering why illegal immigrants find it so easy to get a job!
May 26th, 2005 at 4:14 am
It is worth noting that if the numbers cited are correct, i.e.; 2 million attempting to enter, 1 million successfully, the problem, in the context of the total population of the United States (~ 300 million), is rather small. And the economic impact of lower wages (costs) and higher government services outlays, largely offset each other.
This is not, certainly, a small problem for the people of Texas, Arizona, California, etc., but it is so to the rest of the States that would have to support any sort of serious national effort to address the situation.
May 26th, 2005 at 9:01 am
I’m not opposed to a minimum wage; I just realize that if employers can find a cheaper way around it, they will and they do now. There will always be an illegal to hire, whether from Mexico or in a container from China–or they will hire people at 19 hours per week to avoid paying the benefits that kick in at 20 hours, as many do now.
How can the government or the unions enforce morality, and your sense or morality, at that? Tell me one country where that works and still is prosperous. IMO it’s the very avalanche of well meaning social legislation that started the rush to hire illegals in the first place.
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