ME: Let’s Talk Illegal Immigration

23 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  Sisyphus on May 13 at 7:29 a.m.

  Defensive much? If you wanna avoid the racist label, talk about immgration without reference to race and negative stereotypes. But the point is well taken that one person’s flippant remark can expose the dark underbelly of bigotry and hijack a thread.

  But the comment speaks volumes. I really don’t see people supporting illegal immigration. I see disparate but powerful groups turning a blind eye to decades of enforcement and other very vocal groups unrealistically thinking that the clock can be turned back and create what they deem should be the current status quo. What is needed is a realistic approach aknowledging facts as they exist today, that we have 12 million illegals that really can’t be deported without tremendous expense and a porous border in which people compelled to find the American dream, can access it by circumventing regular channels.

  This situation is odd in that the big business groups that tacitly approve of obtaining labor that can be exploited without repercussions are banking the cost savings for themselves that they would otherwise pay in a living wage to citizens who are allowed to access the legal system should they be mistreated. Presumably this latter group is the one most vocal about deportation and paradoxically are anti-union. The irony is that both groups tend to be Republican and the last two attempts to address the problem divided the Party. As a result, and because of the other priorities on the national agenda, don’t look for the political will to address the issue to resurface anytime soon.

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  misc on May 13 at 7:45 a.m.

  You’ll be hard pressed to find someone who supports illegal immigration. I don’t support it, but I understand why it happens, and I have sympathy for those who work hard to improve their lives. I also strongly dislike people who use the issue as an excuse for racism and bigotry.

  If this country wants to get serious about illegal immigration, we’ll need to get serious about business owners who exploit it for cheap labor.

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  BigMac on May 13 at 7:50 a.m.

  ” But the point is well taken that one person’s flippant remark can expose the dark underbelly of bigotry and hijack a thread.”

  And in your opening paragraph, you still can’t help but affix the “racist” label.

  Look, I understand where it comes from. Many opponents of illegal immigration are racists. There’s no denying it. But there are many good arguments to be made for enforcing existing law that make no reference to race. Here’s an economic argument.

  American immigration law has always been centered on economics. We’ve always wanted to bring in workers who have skills we need and exclude those who don’t. At one point, the skills we needed were agricultural. At another they were industrial. Now they are technical. We don’t really need a large workforce of unskilled or semi-skilled labor.

  I often hear that “Illegal immigrants do the jobs Americans won’t do.” I’m not sure that there ARE jobs Americans won’t do. I’ve known some Americans who’ve cheerfully done some pretty awful jobs … for the right price.

  Over the past 25 years, during the greatest period of economic prosperity the world has ever seen, real wages for working Americans have been stagnant. That seems odd. Good studies have correlated the shadow workforce of illegal immigrants with a low wage floor in the job market. That low wage floor affects the base wage of all skills above it. So a carpenter that might expect to make around $25/hr in today’s money (based on 1965 wages adjusted for inflation) makes only $15/hr.

  By not conforming our immigration enforcement with our immigration law, we’ve ensured that blue collar Americans haven’t shared in the economic boom. That’s a very good reason to address the illegal immigration problem.

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  Howard_Martinson on May 13 at 8:00 a.m.

  Misc has it right - the laws should be enforced. That said, I understand why The US is such a draw for immigrants, both legal and otherwise, and have compassion and empathy for those who are simply trying to find a job and support their families.

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  Sisyphus on May 13 at 8:08 a.m.

  “And in your opening paragraph, you still can’t help but affix the “racist” label.”—to whom exactly? I set forth an analysis that deliberately avoided it. One in which you and I apparently agree.

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  ThomasPaine on May 13 at 8:13 a.m.

  On a related topic, what do we do about illegal immigrants who are the parents of US citizens? I’m not talking about changing our citizenship laws which would impact children in the future, I’m talking about those that are here right now. Do we deport them and make their children wards of the state? Do we grant the parents amnesty, at least until their children reach the age of majority? Do we deport the children too, thereby keeping the family together? I’m not trying to side-track this thread, it’s just one of those issues related to illegal immigration that is very troubling to me.

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  BigMac on May 13 at 8:20 a.m.

  Sisyphus: to opponents of illegal immigration.

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  Sisyphus on May 13 at 8:21 a.m.

  Personally I think deportation has to come off the table. It really wouldn’t be fair to anyone concerned. Enforcing existing laws will be expensive enough.

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  Sisyphus on May 13 at 8:25 a.m.

  Actually bigmac I affixed the label only to those who make: “reference to race and negative stereotypes” which I think is a commonly held definition.

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  toadman on May 13 at 8:26 a.m.

  I don’t support illegal immigration, but I do support amnesty, and I do understand why people enter this country illegally. Yes, they are breaking the law, but once they get here, they are treated like chattle, over-worked, and underpaid, by unscrupulous and greedy American business owners. I have first hand experience with this, having worked in Texas in construction. The Hispanic people I encountered during that time, both legal and illegal, were hard working honest people, just trying to do what they could to change their situation. They lived lean here in the US, and sent almost every penny back to their families in Mexico, or wherever they were from.

  What I don’t support, is a wholesale rounding up of these desperate people only to send them back to a desperate situation in their own country. I think we should be better neighbors to our friends to the south, and do something to encourage more accountability in their government and boost their economy, which should create more incentives for people to STAY in their home countries, instead of being desperate enough to try and come here illegally.

  Also, I do NOT support a wall, or a fence…I do support high tech monitoring devices, however, to watch for drug runners…

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  spokelooneh on May 13 at 8:30 a.m.

  “Those that support illegal immigration…”

  What a hoot!

  That would the owners and managers of mostly large scale farm operations, especially ones that are labor intensive, who wish for their labor costs to be as small as possible, and hiring illegal aliens makes that possible.

  Anybody with that resume on this blog?
  Doubtful.

  Anybody with that resume gonna admit that?
  Not a chance in hell.

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  terrymr on May 13 at 8:30 a.m.

  There wouldn’t be illegal immigration if there wasn’t demand for illegal workers. However the highly publicized workplace raids always seem to generate stories of US Citizens being hauled away in cuffs until they can prove their status too.

  Another issue is that legal immigrants suffer ever increasing fees and poor standards of service because much of the money gets diverted towards enforcement.

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  BethB on May 13 at 8:44 a.m.

  Just a couple thoughts… Can’t deport U.S. citizens, TPaine, so we can’t deport illegal immigrants’ children if the children were born in this country. Also, I had a touch of an experience with the disparate treatment of an illegal immigrant (my client) and his boss who employed a ton of illegals - my guy got charged criminally and deported, while the government simply accepted the employer’s statement that they didn’t realize my guy was the same guy without legal papers from before… when he’d worked there for some outrageous number of years in the past already… It’s my opinion that if we are going to take a stand, we need to take it with the employers. The laws punishing employers already are on the books - both criminal and civil. I’d rather see us work systematically, starting with the top echelon, then just randomly going after the regular Joe (Jose?) worker. That way, we will get a real sense of the employment needs - legal employers have the voice to speak up.

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  Don_Sausser on May 13 at 9:38 a.m.

  It is not just “big business” attracting illegals. In many communities the illegals congregate on a corner to wait to be hired for day labor. They are mostly hired by neigborhood residents for yard work. Hypocritically many of these same folks complain about illegal immigration while local governments give a pass to enforcement.

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  LukeB on May 13 at 10:14 a.m.

  Personally I support totally open labor markets - if US businesses and government want globalization let’s take it all the way.

  I also support workers unionizing whenever possible.

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  Phaedrus on May 13 at 10:36 a.m.

  I would like to actually hear something from those who support it and why they do.

  The Agri-Business Industry and other employers who benefit from low wages are the only ones that I have heard of who support and benefit from the labor of illegal immigrants.

  Here’s a take humorous take on the situation:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEOsJVyxnIw

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  spokelooneh on May 13 at 11:04 a.m.

  “Here’s a take humorous take on the situation:”
  -Phaedrus

  Who’s gonna build your wall?

  Beware the white developer in a golf shirt talking on his cellphone.

  Funny stuff, thanks.

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  piah on May 13 at 11:29 a.m.

  Having spent the last three months dealing with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement – what used to be Immigration and Naturalization Services) in an attempt to get my completely legal yet foreign citizen brother out of immigration jail, I feel qualified to say it’s not just about enforcement at the border or raids on businesses.

  The immigration court system is, in my humble opinion, completely broken. I mean, how does it help anyone that we continue to arrest people if we can’t process them through an underfunded and overworked immigration system?

  During the three months my brother spent in jail, he saw inmates being released and deported to their home countries, and he also saw the same people return to jail a few weeks later, after they once again were arrested by ICE.
  How is that effective?

  I do know that my brother’s case was dismissed on a Monday and he wasn’t released until the following Thursday. You would think a person would be released the day the case is dismissed – yet tax payers got to pay for his room and board for three extra days.
  How is that effective?

  I also know that he had three hearings before an immigration judge, at which the US Government was represented by three different assistant attorneys with little or no prior knowledge of his case. They all asked for more time to consider the case – and got it, while he was sent back to jail. How is that effective for anybody?

  There were never any criminal charges against my brother and he was a legal resident. The immigration judge refused, until after the third hearing, to explain exactly why he was kept in jail – we couldn’t get a reference to a paragraph or code of law he’d violated. When we finally got a written explanation from the judge, it turned out he was in jail because of a long letter full of false allegations – none of them immigration related, all dismissed by the district attorney in the county where he lives – submitted by the woman he is separated from.

  I could go on and on and on, but the personal story ends here – I’m not for illegal immigration, but I’ve seen the inside of a system that’s clearly broken. There has got to be a better way than how we are doing things today.

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  toadman on May 13 at 11:54 a.m.

  Good story Pia.. well said…and you’re right. The system is beyond broken.

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  Liz on May 13 at 12:39 p.m.

  Wow, I have nothing to add that wouldn’t be repeating much of what has already been said here.
  When someone of my aquantance goes off on rants about illegal immigrants, I almost always cut this individual off and say that if there is anger, it should be at the business owners and individual employers who hire them in the first place. Because that is where the fault really lies. Not that the people crossing the border are devoid of blame, but if no one would hire them, then they wouldn’t be crossing the border in the first place.

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  Sisyphus on May 13 at 12:57 p.m.

  “The immigration court system is, in my humble opinion, completely broken.” I’ve also been privy to some pretty egregious abuses caused by the system which seems totally arbitrary. I agree with that assessment and it is one of the reasons why I think deportation is unworkable. One would hope that an overhaul of ICE would accompany any proposed reforms.

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  brentandrews on May 13 at 1:36 p.m.

  There are about 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States. There are also about 10 million marijuana smokers, according to NORML. (As many as 30 million Americans have tried marijuana, NORML says.) The more time and money the government spends pursuing them, the less time and money it has to pursue us, is my view. That is not the official NORML line. If only there could be amnesty for all of us … you’d have 20 million happy neighbors, instead of having to always build new prisons for them.

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  Arch_Druid on May 14 at 12:08 p.m.

  I don’t regard an opposition to illegal immigration to be “racist.” At least one that is honestly appraised of the facts. A fellow who enters this nation legally on a tourist or student visa, then overstays his welcome, becomes an illegal alien. They don’t only have to come from specific geographical locations. And while the vast majority of them are here for economic reasons, some do come to this country out of fear for their own lives because of the political situation at home.

  Quite frankly, I’ll agree with the above posters that we could do with a massive re-writing of immigration law. But it will take a massive amount of time and money to get to something that actually works.

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