Thought I’d elevate this exchange to its own post, to stimulate more comment.
Back on this previous post in which I tried in vain (on a dare) to sum up the immigration issue briefly, Doug Ross wrote:
If you are fine with “market forces” driving wages down on the lower end of the job spectrum, so am I. If you are in favor of not providing benefits to workers, that’s fine also. Just don’t be surprised when you end up with shanty towns full of sick people. You can’t have it both ways. Pay a living wage or pay an illegal who is willing to move up a rung on the poverty ladder.
Here’s how I responded…
Doug makes excellent points, bringing up things I have long been concerned about — the exploitation of disadvantaged labor.
I’ll take it a step further: I have this theory that ever since 1865, South Carolina has been struggling to re-establish its force of free labor — or come as close as it can. Not educating people to be able to compete elsewhere kept the labor force captive here to a certain extent. But the stories I’ve heard over the years about the shanty conditions that migrant workers live in in many parts of our state make me think maybe SC has nearly accomplished the goal that seems ingrained in our economy.
Now, that’s one side of the coin. And I do worry about it. Here’s the other side: As Nicholas Kristof frequently writes, it’s all well and good for liberals (and people of liberal sensibility) to weep for people in the third world working in sweatshops. But that ignores the fact that the sweatshops provide a far better economic opportunity for those workers than what otherwise is available to them. I think the same is true of the jobs largely filled by illegals in this country. The only thing worse than those folks being exploited here is for them to stay at home and starve, along with their families.
So what’s the solution to this dilemma? It’s to regularize these people. Create a process whereby they can become legal, and therefore be less susceptible to exploitation. Give them a path to becoming legal, and they can demand better wages and benefits and working conditions, and then we’ll see if Americans will do those jobs. What creates this crazy situation is that we artificially keep the number of people we let in legally so low that people come in droves illegally, which creates a labor pool that is easily exploited.
So if you care about these folks being exploited, you want to do what Graham and Bush and McCain et al. tried to do a couple of years back.
But if you are someone who RESENTS these people being here (as opposed to worrying about them being exploited), then you want to punish them for their unforgivable crime of being here without the proper paperwork. And there is where we have our big disagreement. When people shout “Grahamnesty” in response to rational reform efforts, it persuades me that they don’t want a solution to the problem; they just want these people not to be here.
What you’re suggesting is to penalize the immigrants who do things by the book to become a citizen of this country in order to not offend those who made the decision to not go by the book.
Why would an illegal citizen attempt to go through the citizenship process and wait 6-7 years to become a citizen when they can just jump the border and be handed their citizenship papers in much less time using your logic?
Stiffening the penalty of employers who hire illegals would be the best place to start. Make it stiff enough that they’d have to consider bankruptcy if caught.
Brad’s solution reminds me of teachers who grade on a curve. Penalize the students who studied and scored the highest in order to bring up the lower test scores of those who decided they didn’t need to study.
What Brad is suggesting is nothing more than the public school’s (and Benedict College’s) system of social promotion.
This points to a cognitive divide that I don’t know how to bridge. Michael P. seems to think I’m concerned with “not offend(ing) those who made the decision to not go by the book.”
Let’s set aside the assumption that this was a matter of choice, that these workers, with every opportunity to come in legally just spread out in front of them CHOSE to come illegally. Out of some perversity in their personalities or something.
What I want to focus on is this concern with whether we’re treating these folks in a way they deserve or want to be treated. I focus on it because it seems at the root of much of the indignation from the anti-comprehensive reform crowd — the very idea that these people who don’t DESERVE to be here would get to stay.
Doug, responding to the same points back on the previous post, writes “You’ll never convince me (or the majority of people who think like me) that rewarding people who have managed to cross our borders illegally is the right path.”
See? Rewarding.
It would never occur to me that I was REWARDING one person or PENALIZING another, because I don’t concern myself with that. I look at the overall situation — one in which we have 12 million people here illegally largely because we didn’t have a path for admitting that many people legally — and I think, what would be an intelligent way forward that would do the most good and least harm?
But the angry folks don’t see it that way. You think you’ve come up with a way to deal with the situation, and they sputter, “But THIS person doesn’t DESERVE for this to be solved that way!”
Forgive me if this analogy is insulting, but it is the one that occurs to me. When I hear people screaming, “But Johnny doesn’t DESERVE to get a cookie; only I deserve to get a cookie,” I want to respond, “Don’t worry yourself about what Johnny gets and doesn’t get; that has nothing to do with you.”
What a petty reason to reject sensible reform: But this person did this terrible, awful, unforgivable thing (cross a line in the desert without the proper paperwork), and I want him PUNISHED.
Of COURSE we want people to follow the rules, even when the rules are as fouled up and poorly administered (and not available to enough people) as they are in this case. But when you’re looking to solve a problem, you look for a rational solution, rather than worry about whether the people who came in the legal way will resent it or feel slighted.
But here’s the thing people: I don’t want to come up with a practical solution to dealing with the ones who are here because they DESERVE it or because I want to be nice to them or not “offend” them or whatever. I want to do it because it makes sense. Getting all these people out of the country and doing 12 million do-overs to make them go through the legal process (get at the back of the line, or whatever) is impractical.
I want to figure out a way forward. And I want to know who all these people are and where they are and what they’re doing, as a matter of national security. What Johnny “gets” to do, or whether he “deserves” the “reward” of being treated in a manner that makes practical sense in the aggregate, is simply not a thing I’m worrying about.
Michael and I agree on my “teacher” analogy, I see. Of course, he uses it differently. And again, he gets into that thing of “just deserts.” In this case, deserving a grade.
But lets get a little more literal: I’m the teacher who knows where most of his students come from. I know they live in this school zone, and I have their records and I know their needs and capabilities and I know how to reach their parents if I need to.
Only I’ve got some kids in my class who I know nothing about. I don’t even know if they live in the district. I don’t know who their parents are or how to reach them. What I want is to learn all those things about them. My aim isn’t to throw them out of my class (although in some cases that would be the solution, just as if you find out you’ve got a member of a Mexican drug gang in the country, you want to deal with that). My concern is to address this madness of having these official nonentities in my class.
My husband is a college professor. He has given exams for more than twenty years. Even so, sometimes he makes them harder than he intended, and everyone, or most everyone, would do very badly. So he curves the grades to reflect a reasonable outcome. If only a few students wiped out, no curve. He simply cannot fail everyone because his standards are too high–or his test writing is too tough.
Tests are not scientific. Neither are immigration laws.
It’s like the homelessness issue: do we try to save money–which points to Housing First type initiatives–which deal with the hard-core emergency-room frequent-flyer deadbeat/mentally ill types, or do we try to judge people on merit, and house the “worthy homeless” who actually don’t cost us much money, since they kip on the couches of family and friends.
Michael, I agree that if we want to stem the tide of illegal aliens we should target the people who hire them. If the jobs weren’t here they wouldn’t be coming in such numbers. At the same time, their is a difference between legal residency and citizenship. If we truly need people to fill these jobs (assuming that the people hiring are not breaking other laws having to do with wages and working conditions), then we need to consider easing the requirements for work visas. I keep getting the feeling that all too many want to ensure that these people have no legal recourse, because then they can exploit them most easily.
I sense that there are many categories of people who don;t like current immigration policies and practices:
1. People who don’t want immigrants exploited.
2. Employers (and their customers) who want low cost labor.
3. People who are racist/xenophobic.
4. People who are stingy about taxes and government services.
5. People who disapprove of scofflaws.
6. People who want a simple system that treats everyone equally.
Any others?
Brad,
If I buy the flour and sugar and bake the cookies, forgive me for getting “angry” when Johnny sneaks in through the back door and steals one. I’ll just bake more cookies so more Johnnies can sneak in and fill their bellies.
Your argument falls apart because it depends on people buying into your idea that the crossing of a country’s border illegally is just a paperwork issue. And it falls apart further when those paperwork challenged felons (it is a felony, right) commit additional crimes to remain in the country.
If an illegal crosses the border today and is spotted ten yards past the line today, I assume you would expect law enforcement to send the person back. The crime remains the same no matter when it happened or how far past the border the criminal made it.
Really? YOU baked the cookies? These people come here and do stoop labor, picking our vegetables, or processing our chickens, or building our houses, and live in crowded conditions, in fear of being found out and deported, sending home the pathetic amounts of money they EARN by backbreaking labor, and YOU baked the cookies? You’re worried that they’ll get some of YOUR cookies? What? They’re going to live in YOUR nice house and enjoy your income and your freedom from fear of deportation, your special status that you have because you were smart enough to be BORN here? YOUR cookies? Really?
Kathryn,
7. People who want strong borders
8. People who are concerned about what the impact of bringing in millions of unskilled laborers will have on our economy
9. People who know illegals are very involved in the distribution of hard drugs
10. People who are not happy with using limited resources to instruct students in a language other than English
Expecting tax dollars to be used to improve the lives of Americans is not “stingy”.
11. People who think “alien” means they’re from another planet.
12. Jack Bauer, who finds that every damn’ foreigner he meets is trying to blow up the country.
Sorry. I was just trying to make it an even dozen.
Whose cookies are they, Brad? Oh, yeah, they came from the Magic Cookie Oven that produces a never ending supply for everyone who is hungry. You have a truly fundamental lack of understanding of the way economies work. It’s amazing how you can ignore the simple fact that there is not an unlimited supply of tax dollars to pay for everything you want.
If we bring in millions of Mexicans, is it really difficult to see that America will become more like Mexico (you know, the country they are willing to commit a crime to leave?) It’s like telling Steve Spurrier he needs to bring in more 5’8, 160 pound linemen because they aren’t getting playing time at their high school. That wouldn’t make the team better.
And they don’t have to fear deportation if they come in the front door.
Define “cookies.” To me, it’s these jobs they come here for. To you — it must be something else.
I don’t follow your analogy about the little linemen. Are you saying the people who pluck our chickens need to be taller?
Finally, we’re back to this assumption that the front door was OPEN to them, and they just came in through the window because they’re such awful people who perversely insist upon breaking rules just to break them and to tick you off.
What??? Do you read what you write? “They’re going to live in YOUR nice house and enjoy your income and your freedom from fear of deportation, your special status that you have because you were smart enough to be BORN here? YOUR cookies? Really?” Were these people forced to move to this country? If I enter another country illegally and work there without the right to work there, yes I would live with fear of being deported back to my home country. This is how the system is supposed to work. Do you feel for the burglar who breaks into a house because he doesn’t have as nice of a house of his own and that the legal system should take that into consideration when determining punishment?
Brad, do you appreciate people who cut in front of the line you’re standing in? If I’m a person from another country trying to go through the legal process of becoming a US citizen, should I feel angry toward your idea of allowing these people to stay here staying in housing I could be living in or working in jobs I could be working at?
What other country allows illegals to reside in their country, protest, use services, etc… and get away with it? None that I can think of.
Yeah, I read what I write, and I thought that was a good answer to Doug thinking the illegals were eating his cookies. But the whole cookie analogy was getting a bit slippery there.
And we’re still faced with that same cognitive problem. I look at a big mess and try to figure out a practical way of sorting it out and making it orderly, but y’all are way concerned with this business of being indignant that these UNDESERVING people not escape punishment for their crime of not getting the paperwork on the front end. I’m trying to make things right; I’m trying to get the paperwork done. But y’all insist that what they did was so awful that just doing the paperwork doesn’t solve it.
I fret about the immorality of rape, murder, theft, or running red lights. I just can’t get as indignant as y’all do about THIS. We have a huge administrative problem that we need to get sorted out for national security reasons. The problem arose because we didn’t get our act together and provide legal pathways for the huge numbers of laborers that economic conditions attract across our border. Markets working the way they do, they came anyway. So I want to get this sorted out. But y’all want to punish the workers for coming, because you think what they did was so awful.
Don’t think we’re ever going to agree. Which makes solving this problem extremely difficult.
Yes, but this is AMERICA. My ancestors were immigrants, and they just came over, no visas, nothing because it was the 19th century and they could. Pretty much everyone else here has ancestors who did they very same thing. Why does first in time equal first in right to you?
There are two questions here: do we enforce the laws and do the laws need changing.
We should enforce the laws, and we need to change them.
Lots of other (European, especially) countries allow fairly free immigration and liberal protest and service use. Using the term “illegals” muddies the water. It answers the question to you, and forget the rest of the discussion–“Illegal” = “”100% wrong”, so let’s talk in terms of immigration policies–restrictive and otherwise. What should our immigration policies look like?
Not a thing, Maude. By all mean, write them a ticket.
But here’s the thing: These people need jobs that we happen to have available. They committed a technical, paperwork crime to come do that backbreaking work, following a work ethic followed by millions of other immigrants who built this country.
But we are a nation of laws. So how do we sort out the fact that we have these 12 million people here? Some insist that they all have to leave before we can fix the problem. That seems to me wildly impractical. We should look at why we have this law, and whether it’s doing the intended job, and how to fix it if it isn’t. And along the way, what do do with the people who came in while it was broken.
I wonder if Kathryn’s ancestors immigrated to this country within the current laws and regulations of the time. If so, why is she using this as an excuse to justify those who are entering the country illegally today?
The city of Columbia trolley buses aren’t being used, they’ll each hold about 40 illegals (or 140 if you watch how some come into this country) that could be driven to the border.
But, Brad, if it’s just a paperwork issue then you are saying we should have more clerks at our borders instead of protecting them.
Until the law is changed, should we have guards protecting our borders and turning back anyone who attempts to enter illegally? Or do we continue to allow those who break the law to have a path to citizenship?
They’re still coming… every day… and if they think they are going to get amnesty, the pace will pick up even more.
And here’s the other scenario to consider: Suppose that you get your wish and all 12 million illegals are allowed to remain. What happens if they don’t come forward? What happens if the employers tell them that if they think they are going to get a living wage and benefits, that they will be out of a job so they remain underground? Then what do you do with them? I’m trying to understand under what circumstances you would think that deportation is justified?
We should try to keep illegals out. Clerks would do for the most part, though, frankly. Despite the rhetoric about “invasion,” this is not a matter pulling our troops out of Afghanistan to meet the “menace” from down South. We just need some order — a few cops will do — and documentation.
And a sense of perspective. We don’t need armies; we don’t need an impenetrable wall. We just need common-sense administration.
Only one thing to do: keep the xenophobes happy.
Strictly enforce the laws we have. Send anybody who hires an illegal to jail. Send all the illegals back home and keep’em there. Seal the borders.
Start saving now. Your food budget will double.
FYI, last night in a debate, all four Republican candidates for governor said they would support an Arizona style bill to deal with illegal immigrants.
“”If Washington won’t act, sometimes the states have to,” McMaster said.”
Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2010/05/04/1271664/gop-hopefuls-oppose-cigarette.html#ixzz0mxaTVV28
That’ll keep the illegals out… Howard Sprague (from Mayberry RFD) with his rubber stamp.
If the current armed and trained border guards can’t keep them out how will “a few cops will do” keep them out?
Michael P. I guess I need to say it more clearly–my ancestors came over before we enacted the draconian, xenophobic immigration laws in the 20th century. It was not always illegal to come searching for a better future in the Land of Opportunity. Why should it be different now?
George W. Bush, quoted in today’s The State Leonard Pitts piece, said,
“I know this is an emotional debate,but one thing we cannot lose sight of is that we’re talking about human beings, decent human beings that need to be treated with respect.”
Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2010/05/04/1271328/pitts-shame-on-arizona.html#ixzz0myCWjPoL
Ow! Nice shot, Michael P.! I love that you used Howard Sprague (possibly the most off-putting character ever to appear on a past-its-prime TV show), but am deeply insulted that you thought you had to tell me who he was.
Now, if you’d allow me: I don’t want Howard Sprague. I want Andy. The sheriff without a badge, enforcing the law with common sense and good humor. What I DON’T want is Barney running around waving his .38 special.
And to go back up there to Doug. It is NOT my fond wish that all 12 million get to stay here. I’d send them all back, if we could do it by snapping our fingers rather than by spending millions. And then I’d have them go through a streamlined process for coming back legally — a process we’d need to devise, one that widened the pipeline considerably.
Not everyone who wants the border laws enforced are xenophobes. Some of us are of the opinion, and rightfully so, the law is on the books. Either enforce the damn thing or change it. Both sides need to stop using it as a divisive tool for political gain.
If the federal government won’t do it’s duty, and if states have to do the job because of drug problems, overburdened budgets, and other legitimate concerns created by an influx of illegal immigrants, the federal government should shut the hell up. They are the ones who abdicated their responsibility, not the states.
And, those of us who believe the law should be enforced are not against immigrants or immigration. We are not so ignorant, or racist and know we come from immigrant stock ourselves.
At some point, every country has enacted an immigration law. Are we to be the exception and allow our borders to be open to anyone who wishes to come in without question? Sweden tried it for years and finally had to enact their own laws. Ours is no more xenophobic than Swedens, if anything, less so. They only allow people from Africa in under very strict rules vs no rules for other Nordic countries.
If you want to take it to an extreme example, remember when Castro emptied his prisons of the most violent offenders and sent them to us several years ago under the guise of political dissidents?
Ha! There’s my laugh for the day – someone thinking they needed to tell Brad who Howard Sprague is!
Okay, I’m starting to understand what Kathryn wants… wide open borders for everyone who wants to come to this country can just stroll in regardless of what it will do to the schools, medical facilities, homeless shelters, not to mention the lowering of the wages paid to citizens performing the same job as the illegals.
Brad, I mentioned who he was not for you but for the others who may not be familiar with him.
We can send them all back, if we’re willing to pay the bill for it. That’s not where I would prioritize money to go at this point, however.
Michael, thank you for saying that. Last thing I need is for readers to think I don’t know my Mayberry…
Karen it would be an investment. If we need itinerant workers to keep food costs down, fine. But they need to go home during the off-season
Fine, Maude. but it would take literally billions to hunt them down, and get them headed back into old Mexico, and more billions to keep them from coming right back. Then of course, the prices for all your fresh foods would go up, since we got rid of the cheap stoop labor. And of course, you are willing to pay the increased taxes necessary for these extra border police and fencing (or whatever other means of keeping the boader closed are used) while also paying for the past 2 wars and and the spending necessary to keep this recession from turning into a drastic depression? I’m willing to raise taxes to pay down debt, and to try to get our public “safety net” back, but I haven’t got that kind of dough!
That’s why you start with employers, not employees. You’re not going to get 100% success rates, but even 50% would save this country billions of dollars. When you put the squeeze on employers with huge fines and possible jail time, they’re going to regulate themselves. If employers can drug test and criminal background check employees, requiring proof of citizenship should be easy.
Karen how much do you think it costs to keep them here? To feed, educate, and provide medical treatment for their children?
Also, resorting to hyperbole such as “xenophobe” makes me (a yellow dog Dem) cringe.