Cinco de Mayo
Posted by Greg on May 8, 2006
Crossposted by Sean from Hiding in the Backwaters
Midvale had a small Cinco de Mayo parade this morning. Very small, which sort of surprised me. The metro area of Salt Lake City has no shortage of Latinos, though I don’t know how many of them are from Mexico. D participated with some Mexican friends of his who run a skate shop. There were probably half a dozen of them zipping about on racing roller blades.
I doubt I would have gone to the parade had it not been for D. Indeed being with D has made the immigration debate just a bit more personal for me. D is one of those who has immigrated legally, so that’s not it. He is nevertheless an immigrant and Mexican. I have thus been reading a lot trying to form a coherent position on the immigration debate. I don’t know that I’ve found one yet, but here are a few thoughts.
Undocumented workers – I’ve never been a fan of politically correct speech. Even “illegal immigrant” isn't accurate, since I think an immigrant is someone who has become a U.S. citizen. D has a green card. His official status? Resident alien. You have to be a resident alien for five years before you can apply for citizenship. What does that make the rest then? Illegal aliens.
The Wall – A 1,951 mile wall. What a great idea! The most conservative estimate of length of the Great Wall of China is 1,500 miles. Some say it could have been up to 4,500 miles. National Geographic describes the effectiveness of this enormous physical barrier as “spotty.”1 But it sure makes a statement!
The expense isn’t finished once the wall is built either. Unless you build guard towers, have enough of them so that at least their rifle ranges over lap, and then man them, a wall isn’t going to stop anyone who is even moderately determined. What made the Berlin Wall effective was the guards with machine guns. I suppose we could create some no man’s land and put land mines down. Of course, they’d have to be sensitive enough that they’d go off if someone tried to dig a tunnel under them.
Felony – The only idea more stupid than the wall is the idea of making it a felony to be in the country without proper documentation. Hello! It’s already against the law to be here without proper documentation. That’s why they are called illegal aliens. We don’t enforce the laws now. How is making it a felony going to make it easier, cheaper, or more practical to enforce? Where are we going to put them? Are more prisons included in this program? Idiots.
Amnesty-The conservative side of me rankles at the idea of people breaking the law and “getting away with it.” On the other hand, if government didn’t turn a blind eye to agribusiness and the service industry hiring illegal aliens, then the job market for them wouldn’t exist and they probably wouldn’t be coming in the numbers we are currently dealing with. Who’s really to blame then? Even if I thought rounding up and deporting all illegal aliens was a good idea (which is right up there with felony laws and the wall), the logistics and expense are prohibitive. I say grant amnesty to anyone who doesn’t have a criminal record and who can show gainful employment.
Nuestro Himno – As I sat waiting for the parade to start, pondering the question of immigration and nationalism, I had to come to the conclusion that nationalism is just one more thing people use to exclude others. You were not born on the right side of the border/tracks. Your English isn’t good enough. You’re not white enough. You’re not smart enough. You’re not rich enough. You’re not straight enough. Identifying with a group isn’t necessarily a bad thing except that humans seem to enjoy giving in to their baser tendency to demonize and persecute their out groups.
What does it mean to be American (or Mexican or Canadian) anyway? D’s friend, E, who owns the skate shop is native born Mexican, but, being of Dutch descent, he’s more blond and more fair than this American of Irish descent. It was interesting to watch a Dutch broadcast of a speed skating competition where E skated first and D skated second. When D went to the line the Dutch commentator said, “Ah, here’s the real Mexican.” (I speak German. I can understand some Dutch words and phrases.)
So what makes D the “real” Mexican? His dark skin? That can’t be it. That would be racist. Is it the fact that D’s family has been in Mexico longer than E’s? My grandfather immigrated from Ireland. I’m not sure when the other side of my family first came to America, but it was several generations ago. Which line do we use to determine if I’m a “real” American? Back to my grandpa. We can find no record of his entry into the country (current speculation is he came in through Canada via Wales), so the odds that he entered the country legally are pretty low. It’s quite likely that my grandfather isn’t the only Irishman to enter the country illegally. Why isn’t anyone bitching about St. Patrick’s Day parades? (If you think people aren’t bitching about Cinco de Mayo, I’ll get to that.)
Immigration Reform – Is it necessary, yeah. What should it look like? I have absolutely no idea. Will it happen? I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why. The U.S. is slipping below the fertility rate necessary to sustain the population. That rate is about 2.1 children per woman. The U.S. is hovering around 2.0. What this means is we aren’t creating enough of our own workers to keep society rolling. As the population declines, so to does the standard of living. Let me give you an example. In a shrinking work force, managing Dillards becomes less important than garbage collection. You could probably survive without the latest in fashion trends, but things will get ugly and smelly really quick if there is no one to pick up your garbage.
There are two solutions to this problem, raise your fertility rate or immigration. Since I don’t see the fertility rate going up (in fact it’s more likely to go down), let’s reform immigration. Which jobs do you think these new immigrants will get? Gee, might it be the jobs Americans don’t want to do? What have we created but an underclass to serve the upper class?
You might be saying, “But that’s what we have now, dummy!” Yes, that, however, brings me to…
American Jobs – Here is where the rubber really hits the road. Frankly, I think this argument is pretty much horse shit. If Americans really wanted those jobs, they could have them, but they probably get more from welfare than they would working at the wages sans benefits illegal aliens get. Maybe the problem is our welfare programs then. Take that away and there would be Americans desperate enough to work for next to nothing.
You can bitch and moan about depressed wages all you want, but wanting something to be true, doesn’t make it so. The job market is something like collectible. An antique is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So to with a job. It doesn’t matter if I think I’m worth $50/hour. If no one is willing to pay me $50/hour, what I think means nothing.
It seems to me if we actually prosecuted employers for hiring illegal aliens, heavy fines and jail time ought to do it, it would go a long way to stemming the tide of illegal aliens. However, do you think corporate America is really going to give up it’s cheap labor? Yeah, right. Immigration reform, while solidifying the current class structure, would also legitimize the lower class and give them rights and legal recourse. How much of what you have heard from Capitol Hill is more than grandstanding and hot air? Until you get government and big business out of each other’s pants, I don’t see that much is going to change.
No matter what solution is decided upon, it’s not going to be cheap. I don’t think that anybody really gives consideration to the expense of any program, whether it’s hiring more border patrol guards or more bureaucrats to administer some guest worker program. Are U.S. citizens willing to accept a tax hike to pay for any of this? I doubt it.
Now, back to my comment about people protesting Cinco de Mayo. There was, of course, a fair set up in a city park after the parade with ethnic foods and music. Just outside the boundaries of the event was a lone display with four or five people dressed as pioneers touting American heritage. I found it offensive. There was no need for them to be there other than to make a statement about their political beliefs. Jerks.
1“Wonder Walls,” CSO Magazine, May 2005, csoonline.com.
adam said
Though you bring up some good points, I find it ironic that you criticize Congress (a body of over 500 politicians trying to each make their constituents happy) for not being able to come up with a solution to the immigration problem and yet you yourself (one mind to please, not 500) have no suggestions on what to do other than amnesty for the good illegals.
My question is this: once we give them amnesty, do businesses have to pay them like all other legal workers? And if so, doesn’t that take us right back to where we were? Won’t that create demand again for more illegals to do the under-the-table-jobs? That’s what I thought. We did the amnesty thing back in the 80’s. It’s only a temporary solution.
From what you’ve discussed, here are the only solutions: (1) let’s be liberal economists and get rid of the border and minimum wages and let free markets do their thing OR (2) let’s lock down the border and make it unprofitable for businesses to hire illegals through hefty fines accompanied with strong enforcement OR (3) let’s somehow make Central America as economically advantaged as the US so that none of the people from those countries would have a desire to leave their own countries for a chance at a better future here.
If you have an other ideas on fixing the illegal problem for the long-run, please let us know.
Greg said
Sean will have to respond for himself, but I would point out that sometimes the goal of an analysis of an issue is just to understand, not provide comprehensive solutions.
I’m not sure it can even be agreed upon that we have an immigration problem. Surely a security problem in this day and age of terror alerts, but that’s not immigration.
The bottom line still seems to come down to the basic economics of supply and demand. We have more demand for low and medium skill workers than the native population can supply. Even with illegal immigration, unemployment is still low.
Sean said
Well, I said upfront that I hadn’t formed a coherent opinion and that I was only offering some thoughts. As for Congress, I don’t criticize them for not being able to find a solution. I criticize them for not presenting anything even approaching realistic and feasable, in other words, for not even trying. They’re just making a lot of noise so the people on the street think they really care. I don’t think the people with the money and influnce have any real incentive to change anything. The status quo favors them too well.
Yes, a guest worker/amnesty program will mean employers will have to pay better wages and probably some health care. But they’re already here. How else are you going to deal with them? Ask them politely to go home? Deport them (assuming you even could) and punish them for participating in a system we knowingly and willfully created?
Yes, that also means you have to tighten the border at the same time and prosecute employers who break the law (they’re easier to find and target anyway). Otherwise, yes, we’ll just be right back to where we started.
I would love to see the standard of living raised in Central and South America. That would certainly be another element to a truly successful plan (which by the way, probably incorporates a little bit of all three of your solutions and does not confine itself to one or another.) But once again, those in power have no real incentive to do so. The very rich in any country, who have enormous influnce in government policy, have no interest or incentive to share the wealth. Treaties are about lowering barriers to business, not improving the lot of the poor. The trickle down theory works very well. By the time money reaches the poor and the destitute it is indeed a trickle.
PoliticalCritic said
As someone with an investments and economics background, the wage issue is both real and fake. Wages are depressed versus what they would be otherwise. If you removed all illegals, you would significantly reduce the labor force and wages would increase dramatically because the unemployment rate would rapidly decline beyond its already low level. However, that is not an advisable economic outcome. If that occurred, the Fed would jack up interest rates to slow economic growth. The country needs immigrants if only to account for new jobs created. The problem is that we can’t expand legal immigration because illegal immigration is out of control. You need a controlled flow of legal immigrants from many countries, not just one.