Why I Don't Like the Immigration Bill

I want to make it crystal clear that the United States needs immigrants. Legal immigrants, with skills and willingness to work that know English (or want to learn!) and become taxpayers and citizens and be an asset to our country. Never mind the influx of ideas they bring (which are also valuable). The expansion of our economy requires more people to work in it, and our current citizens are just barely replacing ourselves. If not for immigration, our economy would be a lot less vibrant than it is.



We do not need potential immigrants who don't want to learn English. They get established in segregated ghettos and create more and more problems as time goes on. Most of western Europe is finding this out the hard way right now.



We do not need potential immigrants who may not be able to pay for their own medical care, or pensions. Our system of social services is already overburdened and is actuarially certain to suffer massive failures in the next decade or so. Every person we add who becomes a net drain on the system makes those failures occur both sooner, and more disastrously.



We definitely do not need potential immigrants who are unrepentant lawbreakers. We might as well tell the people who spend years on applications and waiting lists and patiently crossing t's and dotting i's to come here legally that they are stupid victims of a con game meant to keep them out.



The whole immigration issue makes me feel like a spouse that's been cheated on one time too many. Except that it's more like 101 times too many.



My whole life - and I'm getting close to 50 - we the citizenry of this country have been sold one bill of goods after another on immigration issue. Every time, the powers that be tell us that they'll Really Enforce The Law This Time, and get the borders under control. Tom Lehrer was writing satire on Senator George Murphy back in 1965, when I was four years old, that included this very issue. The issue keeps getting recycled, and every time the people with incentives to keep the borders open tell us that if we'll just give them this one more chance to do what they want, they'll stop for good this time. Kind of like the Palestinians and the Israelis, except that even the Israelis have finally wised up.



The issue has become one huge festering tragedy of the commons, because so many people have a finger in the pie of illegal immigration, they don't realize what it's costing them.



Big business is obviously one. Higher supply of unskilled labor means lower prices for it, not to mention the fact that they can use illegal status as a lever against their employees who are violating the law. It's a reason why they can't complain about any number of employment law violations. From the employer's viewpoint, not only do they get cheap labor, but they don't have any reason for complying with the OSHA, FLRB, etcetera. Who's going to complain? Measures meant to protect the health and safety of the public at large, not just the workers, go unenforced because illegal workers don't want any kind of law enforcement anywhere around. Where legal American workers would complain about substandard construction, unsanitary food processing, etcetera, illegal workers won't.



Minority advocacy groups obviously understand that in a democracy, numbers translate into power. They want as many members of their group as possible, and they want to keep them segregated and out of the American mainstream. Ideal is if they can keep the new arrivals and their children for the next six generations from understanding everyone else, so that they will have no choice but to use the self-appointed advocacy groups as their mouthpiece - because that's the only possible interface between this group and the rest of the population.



Skilled workers see unskilled ones as a personal benefit. Why? Because unskilled workers aren't competing for technologically challenging jobs, while it means that they can get their lawns mowed for $5 on Sunday afternoon while they watch the game.



Politicians, for their part, are simply afraid to offend anyone for fear it may somehow cost them an election some time. This is why immigration advocacy groups tell so many lies about the Minutemen and similar organizations - because it shows the beginnings of political organization which might cause politicians to heed those who want to close the borders.



The upshot is that those with reasons to want the immigration laws to go unenforced have influence out of all proportion to their actual numbers in the electorate. This isn't a racial hate issue, no matter how various organizations try to paint it as one. When you talk to hispanics who are citizens, they want the borders controlled even more than the most rabid white supremacist - who doesn't mind Jaime or Jose mowing his lawn for $5 provided they know their place. The hispanics who are already citizens and members of our society understand how the flood of illegals hampers their nephew who is also a US citizen but couldn't afford college or their cousin still in Mexico who is patiently awaiting their turn legally. The same thing applies to groups from elsewhere, I suspect, except that I don't know as many of them personally. But painting it as a racial hate issue lets advocates shut down the rational debate.



It comes down to this: I don't believe they'll enforce the borders. Like I said, I feel like a spouse that's been cheated on 101 times too many. The immigration issue comes around at pretty regular intervals, and every time, those with an incentive to want illegal immigration tell us they'll Really Enforce The Borders This Time if only we'll give them what they want One Last Time. It happened in the mid 60s, it happened in the early 70s, it happened again in the late 70s, it happened yet again in 1986, it happened one more time in the 1990s, it came up again in the election of 2000, and here we are still dealing with it, again, for the Nth time, and not once since the Eisenhower administration has there actually been anything done on all the promises about controlling the borders - For Real This Time!



Well, since September 11, 2001, we can no longer pretend that people here in the country who should not legally be here cannot hurt us. Our non-existent immigration enforcement, fueled by people whose bread is buttered by lack of enforcement, is the unindicted co-conspirator of terrorism in this country, past, present, and future. The economic damage done by illegal immigration itself may not be so obvious, but it is grievous, endemic, ongoing - and growing - trivially more than the destruction of the World Trade center annually in increased costs to us as a society.



At this point, I'm pretty much with those who, like the Isrealis with the Palestinians, have had enough. I want to see the borders enforced so that people born in this country who couldn't afford college can get jobs that pay a living wage. I want to see the borders enforced so that jobs are available to relatives of people who are already citizens and they can be granted a the Visas they have waited decades for, secure in the knowledge that they'll be able to get a job, not see it go to some illegal working under the table for half the wages. I want the borders enforced so that the workers who are here legally can be secure in reporting their employers for violations of the rules and regulations we have agreed are necessary, not be worried about the cops deporting them while they're investigating. I want the borders enforced so we have some kind of clue who might be in the country with the idea of doing us harm (Can you prove Osama isn't hiding in Detroit? "Homeland Security" can't!). Most of all, I want the borders controlled because I'm an American, and all of this politically correct non-enforcement isn't fair to good people the world over who have learned our language, learned skilled professions, want to become Americans, and have spent decades trying to come here legally.



In short, once we've got the borders under control, I'll be willing to talk about letting even more folks in than we absolutely need right now. But like the Indians of the old frontier, I've been the victim of too many broken promises to control the border later.



No more broken promises. Get Our Borders Under Control NOW!