Warning, this column has adult-only content, I’m going to use some words currently off limits in polite society, so before you continue to read this, please make sure the kids are not looking over your shoulder. Ok, this article is about – whisper – illegal immigration.
Some people prefer the term “undocumented,” but that’s like calling me “un-thin” – it feels good, but it doesn’t change a thing.
The issue of illegal immigration is the most politically explosive since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. For all its complexities, civil rights are child’s play compared with illegal immigration. It’s about who has a right to become an American and to receive the benefits of our society and whether they can be obtained by default. Like civil rights, it involves race, but it also involves legality, language, culture, poverty, religion, crime, origin, birth rates and, most of all, opportunity.
Even so, we cannot shy away from it if we are ever going to solve the problem and that’s imperative because the status quo is not a viable alternative as security, economic or social policy.
A critical difficulty is our inability to generate one vital statistic with any confidence – the number of illegal immigrants currently in the country. Educated guesses range from 12 million to 20 million – no one really knows. That huge range reminds me of Bob Newhart’s befuddled submarine commander who predicts that the boat will surface somewhere near New York City, or maybe Buenos Aires.
I haven’t seen any proposals from the Bush administration, candidates or Congress that, taken as a whole, make any sense as it’s hard to get past all the political posturing. Perhaps the posturing will generate the appropriate voter response for each group in the next general election, but it certainly will not solve the problem.
The truth is that the primary driving force behind illegal immigration is economics. The vast majority of illegal immigrants come to the U.S. to work and enjoy better economic conditions and its associated higher standard of living. They often export that better standard of living back in their countries of origin by sending their earnings home, and it comes to the better part of $23 billion a year.
There are two economic forces involved, pressure and the pull. The pressure comes from the conditions and lack of opportunity in the immigrants’ native countries; the worse the conditions are at home, the more powerful the pressure to go somewhere else. Unfortunately, America has only a limited ability to improve the economics in foreign lands because many countries jealously guard their failed economic and social systems.
The other and equally important force component is the pull. The pull consists of porous borders (including lack of visa control), easy availability of counterfeit documents, lack of employment enforcement, and the clamor of many U.S. industries and individuals for low-skilled and low-paid employees who won’t rock the boat. Unlike the push, over which we have little influence, the pull components are completely under our control.
This push-pull combination working in tandem is very powerful and that’s the reason proposals that do not clearly put border security and employment enforcement first will always fail. They are doomed because increasing the incentives to come and stay, no matter how humane or well intentioned, only provide more pull, moving more and more illegal immigrants through the huge holes that exist in the system. It’s not rocket science. It’s just human nature.
Border security and employment verification do not have to be perfect to be effective, but they must be seen as serious. Once we establish effective enforcement based on performance, not merely budget, anything is possible because we are once again in control. The faster we accomplish these critical goals, the faster we can move on to legalization programs that will allow many worthy immigrants to have their dreams fulfilled.
As long as we have significant illegal immigration, we will be reluctant to take more legal immigrants, and that is simply not fair to those following the rules.
Eliminating the pull components of illegal immigration negates the argument that legalization programs are just more never-ending expedients, as they have been in the past. Without performance-based border security and strong employment verification, the situation is hopeless.
It’s much easier to plug the holes in the boat than to bail it out after the water is in. If this issue is not defused an explosion is inevitable, this is where national leadership counts.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. His column runs Tuesdays. Reach him at cw*****@ya***.com.