Just For the Record: I Don't Get It
So, um, apparently I'm an evil person on account of believing that people who come into this country should do so legally. It seems really weird to me that this is somehow supposed to be reactionary or something.
So, um, apparently I'm an evil person on account of believing that people who come into this country should do so legally. It seems really weird to me that this is somehow supposed to be reactionary or something.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:13 PM
16 Comments:
Yeah, Im with you there. During some of CNN's coverage a Latino man says into the camera, "Im not a criminal, I just want to live and work here like anyone else."
Excuse me? Assuming you are here illegally then, yes you are in fact a criminal--albeit a non-violent one.
This issue is one I find particularly irritating because the interest groups involved use political correctness to control the language of debate. If the man mentioned above is to be believed, sneaking into the US is not a criminal act because he simply wants to make money and succeed like any one else.
It also smacks of an "everyone else is doing it" kind of argument.
But even if there is no immediate malicious intent, illegally immigrating to the United States is still a crime. It is a crime that hurts people, business, and politics.
Also, this is not a race issue. So many immigrants seem to twist the discussion into one of culture and ethnicity. If you are Irish and you are in the US ilegally, you are still a criminal. The same goes if you are Japanese, Mexican, Canadian, and Arab.
Last point: Relaxing immigration policy is a dire security threat. South and Central American drug-runners and gang members too easily slip into the US, walking American streets with illegally purchased and concealed firearms. Do I even need mention terrorism? The converse is true also for criminals from the US fleeing to Mexico and beyond.
If it were just that simple. The real issue is how to deal with these criminal migrants without damaging our economy. According to the BBC there are 11.5 million illegal alienss in the US (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4840396.stm). What do you think would happen if they suddenly disappeared? What would happen if 10 million workers just stopped working? On the other hand, what would happen if 10 million jobs opened up?
It's not in my view fair to say to X, "You're breaking the law to come here", when your countrymen A, B, C and D are telling X, "Come work for me so you can feed your family"; and when your countrymen E-H are demanding A-D to keep wages low (i.e., hire X), keeping wages low so their returns will be high; and voting for Senators I-K to make sure there's no enforcement.
More objections skipped as incendiary if misconstrued.
Hey, I'm all for getting rid of illegal immigration if it means that all jobs in the US will have to pay a real, living wage.
No more under-the-table jobs, everyone pays into Social Security. Sounds pretty good to me.
I doubt, however, that most people would be willing to pay the increases in prices that would come with such changes.
If 11 or so million illegals were forced out of the US who would take their jobs? Well, perhaps some folks from Ford and GM would be interested in work. Maybe my step-father who was laid off from Mitsubishi could find some kind of employment. Hell, I was recently laid off from my job working in a BAR of all things and I cant even manage to get a job at MacDonald's. Why? Because Im competing with every illegal immigrant in Chicago for an entry-level, unskilled way to pay the bills.
As for any subsequent price increases Americans would endure if illegal labor was taken away: Suck it up. In an age where we busy ourselves with satisfying manufactured needs, I think the average American can absorb the cost.
Unless there is reason to suspect that specific persons seek entry for nefarious purposes, I think we should welcome immigrants with open arms. I chose to live in a neighborhood with large immigrant populations from both Latin America and East Asia -- precisely because I think people trying to make a good life for their families make good neighbors.
But, um:
1. Don't some of these arguments presuppose that it's o.k. to stick immigrants with the crappy jobs.
and
2. None of these arguments shows that we should continue to allow so much *illegal* immigration. At best they show that we need many immigrants. Seems to me that even if we did need more immigrants we should adjust our quotas so that we can let in enough people legally.
3. There's no way we can keep up a policy like this. Overpopulation is already a serious problem.
I see where you're coming from, WS, and I don't disagree, but there are a few issues to consider.
1) It's not that these arguments presuppose that "it's o.k. to stick immigrants with the crappy jobs," so much as recognize that as things are now, for the most part, right or wrong, O.K. or not-O.K., illegal immigrants have GOT the crappy jobs . . . and if they're gone, someone is going to have to do them . . . and probably for more money.
2) Nor does it point to a need for more legal immigration as a solution to the above problem . . . Napa Valley wine growers (insert your agricultural region of choice here) prefer illegal immigrants precisely because they're able to pay them far, far below minimum wage to pick grapes (insert your agricultural product of choice here). This wouldn't be possible with legal immigrants precisely because it's fear of deportation that prevents many illegals from contacting the authorities.
3) Anonymous' complaints about jobs from GM/Ford/Mitsubishi being taken by illegal immigrants are, to the best of my knowledge, wildly unfounded. I'm sure it happens on occasion, but that's not the main issue in those industries, nor is it representative of the sorts of jobs illegals end up performing when they come to the US. If you want your step-father to find work, fight foreign outsourcing. It's not at all surprising that the same politicians who bellow and curse about how illegal immigrants are taking 'your' jobs seem to not so much give a shit about outsourcing . . . why not? Well, it places the blame for lost jobs where it belongs, on corporations.
So what's the solution? Well, my answer is twofold . . . sure, fight illegal immigration at the supply-end (the immigrants themselves), but fight it a hell of a lot more than we are now at the demand end (the U.S. companies who hire illegal immigrants and pay them subhuman wages). Until it is more expensive to hire an illegal immigrant than it is to pay a US worker a fair wage, illegal immigration will continue. It just will.
Suppose my roommate and I order two pizzas from Dominos. When the delivery man gets here, our neighbors across the hall see him drop the pizzas off. The neighbors are unemployed and can't afford a pizza of their own, so they offer to clean our apartment in exchange for a few slices. We agree, and the barter is made.
Now suppose we order 5 pizzas (maybe we're having a party). This time the entire building shows up at the doorstep offering to do chores and run errands for us in exchange for a meal (or suppose a busload of people crash the party just for the free pizza). The roomate and I make a deal with some people but turn others away cause theres just not enough pizza (or beer) to go around.
Now suppose my roommate makes a deal with me. In exchange for a bigger piece of the [pizza] pie, he agrees to do the dirtiest of the dirty jobs: cleaning the bathroom (or perhaps cleaning up after the party). He then goes to one of those people we had turned away earlier and offers them a half-slice if they'll clean the bathroom instead of him.
Has my roommate acted wrongly? Is the bathroom-cleaning neighbor blame-worthy for accepting the deal? Does it matter that the neighbors might be Latino? What (if any) kind of punishment should the roommate recieve for making deals behind my back?
Another thought I had on reading this post: lots of people violate the drug laws of this country by buying and selling pot for personal use. I think it would be a bit reactionary to believe they should just obey the law and should go to jail when caught. Or that gays in Texas ten years ago should just have had sex legally.
Yea, I'd really like to hear WS explain the consistency of his position in this post and (I presume) his position on marajuna use.
Not sure I understand your point Rilkefan...the relevant drug laws and sex laws are unjust. I've been presupposing that immigration laws are just...seems that, so long as we accept people who are seeking asylum from psychos, and letting in a reasonable number of immigrants, and our policies are not, say, racist, then our immigration laws are just. Do you deny that nations have a right to regulate immigration at all?
So the relevant comparison is not with unjust drug laws, but with, say, just traffic laws or laws about theft.
Again:
My point is just that if we *should* be letting in n% more immigrants, then we should modify our immigration quotas, not keep the same laws and fail to enforce them.
Similarly with drugs, incidentally. In that case, however, the laws are unjust and should be revoked.
Have you actually read the bills in question? Simple things like giving medical aid to children of imigrants is made criminal.
There's a difference between a rational position on imigration and these reactionary bills. If you don't see that, then perhaps you should read the text of the bills and then let us know that you don't see anything wrong with them.
Also, people protesting is a rather popular and time proven way of saying "the laws are unjust and should be revoked". Or am I missing something?
Not enforcing laws we don't like is a standard way of doing business - many blue laws on the books aren't enforced, and aren't removed because I guess the fundies would scream and it's not worth the trouble.
But sure, we should make the laws correspond to desired behavior.
Whether immigration laws are just - i.e., determining what resources we will allow to people who will die without them - I leave to someone who believes in morality.
WS, here's the flaw in your position:
"I've been presupposing that immigration laws are just"
They're not, and they're not close. The problem with the "it's simple! legal or not!" position is that it presupposes some Platonic ideal of legality that everyone will agree to, when in fact the laws governing immigration are human-crafted, increasingly byzantine, and incredibly onerous.
Look at it this way. . I'm no expert on the history of immigration law, but I'm pretty sure that 'legal' immigration in the 1700's required:
A boat or a pair of shoes.
In the 1800's, my recollection is that 'legal' immigration required:
A boat or a pair of shoes.
A sign-in procedure at Ellis Island or elsewhere
What does it take now? My wife is an Australian national, whom I married 5 years ago. In order for her to get her permanent resident status in one of the most straightforward classes of immigration (marry a citizen), we spent over $1500 in processing fees over the course of 3 years. We saved money, mind you, by not hiring a lawyer, which required that we understand the incredibly arcane forms we were required to fill out (with the help of our ability to navigate information on the Internet). Had we not had that ability, it'd easily be over $2k.
During the course of those 3 years, she was in provisional status, which meant that if she left the country, it would be perfectly possible for a border agent to refuse her entry on the other side, for whatever reason that border agent felt like putting forth, without any easy recourse, meaning I'd be separated from my wife and son indefinitely trying to sort out the bureaucracy. Needless to say this severely limited our international travel.
During this process, we had two sets of forms lost by Immigration (and which we had to re-file at our own cost), which technically put her over deadlines and could technically result in deportation, though fortunately we were able to talk officials through the problem without excellent command of English.
Now imagine what the experience is like for someone who a) is not married to a US national, b) does not have command of the English language, and c) does not have the money to pay for these forms, lawyers, or the education to understand what the hell is going on.
We quietly and slowly cut legal immigration off for the poor, and nobody even noticed. And so illegal immigration is all that's left them, and now we get a chorus of 'it's obvious! it's illegal!'.
All that being said, the right solution isn't to enervate the law (just as that isn't the right solution with marijuana). The right solution is to adjust the law to fit our requirements. One of our requirements, I thought. . having been around the Statue of Liberty recently, is that we allow earnest and hard-working people who want to come to this country to earn a life to be able to do so. So the stupid immigration maze has to go.
interesting points, S. Eminently worthy of consideration.
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