If it's "a lot better to be a Mexican in America than a Mexican in Mexico," if you're right that Latinos don't necessarily want to live in countries with Mexico's problems, then you don't have to worry about Latinos "turning" the U.S. into "Northern Mexico."
But let's be serious: if current U.S. immigration laws are meant to prevent or discourage illegal immigration, 12 million undocumented immigrants means that these laws have been a crashing failure.
To what can we attribute this failure?
We certainly can't attribute it to the migrants, alone. If elected officials really wanted to keep illegals out, surely they would have done a better job of enforcing these laws over the decades that this problem has grown?
Since Latinos have historically had low voter turnout, I certainly don't think that it's been the Latino vote that has caused elected officials to neglect this issue.
Rather, I suspect that the underlying explanation for their inaction has had something to do with economics: with the employers who depend on these workers, and with consumers' dependence on the cheap goods they produce.
Meanwhile, there are people who want these jobs so badly that they'll risk death in the desert or in shipping containers to get here.
If we seriously mean to address this issue, then we have to stop kidding ourselves: Any solution has to take into account the fact that there are 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country, that many of these immigrants now have children who are (per the Fourteenth Amendment) U.S. citizens, that some of these migrants risk death in remote desert crossings and cargo containers just to work in menial jobs here, and--last, but far from least--that there are politically influential industries that rely on the presence of these low-wage workers.
So how, seriously, how do you propose to a) reduce or eliminate the political influence of the industries that rely on these workers; b) deal with the economic consequences of losing this low-wage workforce (presumably either higher prices for the goods they produce, lower wages for some Americans, or lower profits for those politically influential industries, or some combination of the former); c) deport 12 million people (I spoke about the logistical nightmare that this would likely involve, above); and d) keep yet more desperate people from slipping in? Sounds like kind of a tall order.
The advantage of a guest worker program, as I believe that the President has pointed out, is that it provides a legal avenue for these people to participate in our economy. And I strongly suspect that migrants will prefer having a legal avenue for coming to this country to risking their lives trying to get here as freight or at desert border crossings. It also avoids having to overcome the considerable obstacles outlined, above.
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Date: 2006-04-13 03:57 pm (UTC)But let's be serious: if current U.S. immigration laws are meant to prevent or discourage illegal immigration, 12 million undocumented immigrants means that these laws have been a crashing failure.
To what can we attribute this failure?
We certainly can't attribute it to the migrants, alone. If elected officials really wanted to keep illegals out, surely they would have done a better job of enforcing these laws over the decades that this problem has grown?
Since Latinos have historically had low voter turnout, I certainly don't think that it's been the Latino vote that has caused elected officials to neglect this issue.
Rather, I suspect that the underlying explanation for their inaction has had something to do with economics: with the employers who depend on these workers, and with consumers' dependence on the cheap goods they produce.
Meanwhile, there are people who want these jobs so badly that they'll risk death in the desert or in shipping containers to get here.
If we seriously mean to address this issue, then we have to stop kidding ourselves: Any solution has to take into account the fact that there are 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country, that many of these immigrants now have children who are (per the Fourteenth Amendment) U.S. citizens, that some of these migrants risk death in remote desert crossings and cargo containers just to work in menial jobs here, and--last, but far from least--that there are politically influential industries that rely on the presence of these low-wage workers.
So how, seriously, how do you propose to a) reduce or eliminate the political influence of the industries that rely on these workers; b) deal with the economic consequences of losing this low-wage workforce (presumably either higher prices for the goods they produce, lower wages for some Americans, or lower profits for those politically influential industries, or some combination of the former); c) deport 12 million people (I spoke about the logistical nightmare that this would likely involve, above); and d) keep yet more desperate people from slipping in? Sounds like kind of a tall order.
The advantage of a guest worker program, as I believe that the President has pointed out, is that it provides a legal avenue for these people to participate in our economy. And I strongly suspect that migrants will prefer having a legal avenue for coming to this country to risking their lives trying to get here as freight or at desert border crossings. It also avoids having to overcome the considerable obstacles outlined, above.