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The cost of doing business
Why we don't simply shut out illegal immigrants
Published May 11, 2005 (Clarence Page)
WASHINGTON -- Leave it to the nation's most famous immigrant governor to trip himself up over the issue of immigration.
In a recent policy speech to newspaper publishers gathered in San Francisco, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prescribed an unintentionally inflammatory remedy for illegal immigration: "Close the borders. Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and the United States."
When the stuff later hit the fan, particularly in California's immigrant communities, Ah-nuld clarified that he meant "secure the borders," a politically safe position these days for politicians as diverse as President Bush and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Yet if stopping illegals, whether at the border or in the workplace, is such a politically safe position, why can't Congress and the White House do more to secure the borders?
The answer seems to be a variation of what Pogo, the cartoon possum, famously said about meeting the enemy: We have met the open-borders crowd and they are us.
"This country has become hooked on cheap labor," Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, said when Fox News Channel talk-show host Bill O'Reilly recently asked why Congress doesn't order the president to secure our borders. "A lot of pressure is put on individual congresspeople to not do anything about the borders for fear of impeding the flow of cheap labor."
Tancredo is on the right track, but I would go a step further: Employers--from factory owners to large-scale vegetable farmers to families seeking a nanny or a gardener--want the cheapest labor they can get. The problem is that Americans are not hooked on cheap labor as much as they are devoted to cheap prices.
Ask people whether they favor a "fair living wage" for everyone and most would probably applaud. Ask those same people if they want cheaper prices, no matter what the workers who produce the desired goods or services are paid, and the applause may be more muted, but it will be there.
Illegal immigration is attractive because cheaper labor leads to cheaper prices for goods or services.
Bush and others refer, for example, to "jobs that Americans don't want." More Americans might want those jobs held by illegal immigrants if the jobs paid more. But that would mean higher costs passed on to consumers who would rather not pay more for T-shirts or fresh produce.
And cost-of-living problems for low-wage workers are getting worse as the federal government argues about the future of Social Security and does nothing about the immediate problems of shrinking medical coverage and rising health-care costs.
Since politicians don't get many votes by telling us that our salaries are too high, the pols instead are promising us that they will protect us from "illegal aliens" hellbent on taking our jobs and from runaway employers who are outsourcing our jobs overseas.
Yet even with post-Sept. 11, 2001, concerns about possible terrorist infiltration, serious border-security measures are having a tough time getting through Congress. In addition, Bush seems more eager to talk about amnesty programs than border security.
Schwarzenegger felt safe enough a week after his border flap to praise border Minutemen, armed volunteers who set up their lawn chairs, sport-utility vehicles, coolers, walkie-talkies, binoculars and sunscreen in Cochise County, Ariz., to patrol a 23-mile stretch of the nation's most penetrated border. Bush called the Minutemen "vigilantes," but Schwarzenegger was downright congratulatory. "They've done a terrific job," he said. "They have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage."
The Minuteman craze probably will blow over and illegal migration will continue. The federal government estimates that a million migrants cross the Mexican border illegally each year. Other immigrants who want to remain in America just overstay their visas.
Our immigration policy, then, is largely make-believe.
We need low-wage workers, so the notion of real immigration enforcement gets a wink and nod. Sanctions against employing undocumented workers are barely enforced. Honest employers run up against a sophisticated industry of counterfeit document producers and, besides, politicians are reluctant to offend employers who make campaign contributions.
For now, we will continue to play the cat-and-mouse game of chasing a few illegals across the desert. We have an enforceable immigration policy. Maybe someday Washington will enforce it. Until then, it's easy to blame illegal immigrants for doing what we invited them to do, come and find work.
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Why we don't simply shut out illegal immigrants
Published May 11, 2005 (Clarence Page)
WASHINGTON -- Leave it to the nation's most famous immigrant governor to trip himself up over the issue of immigration.
In a recent policy speech to newspaper publishers gathered in San Francisco, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prescribed an unintentionally inflammatory remedy for illegal immigration: "Close the borders. Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and the United States."
When the stuff later hit the fan, particularly in California's immigrant communities, Ah-nuld clarified that he meant "secure the borders," a politically safe position these days for politicians as diverse as President Bush and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Yet if stopping illegals, whether at the border or in the workplace, is such a politically safe position, why can't Congress and the White House do more to secure the borders?
The answer seems to be a variation of what Pogo, the cartoon possum, famously said about meeting the enemy: We have met the open-borders crowd and they are us.
"This country has become hooked on cheap labor," Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, said when Fox News Channel talk-show host Bill O'Reilly recently asked why Congress doesn't order the president to secure our borders. "A lot of pressure is put on individual congresspeople to not do anything about the borders for fear of impeding the flow of cheap labor."
Tancredo is on the right track, but I would go a step further: Employers--from factory owners to large-scale vegetable farmers to families seeking a nanny or a gardener--want the cheapest labor they can get. The problem is that Americans are not hooked on cheap labor as much as they are devoted to cheap prices.
Ask people whether they favor a "fair living wage" for everyone and most would probably applaud. Ask those same people if they want cheaper prices, no matter what the workers who produce the desired goods or services are paid, and the applause may be more muted, but it will be there.
Illegal immigration is attractive because cheaper labor leads to cheaper prices for goods or services.
Bush and others refer, for example, to "jobs that Americans don't want." More Americans might want those jobs held by illegal immigrants if the jobs paid more. But that would mean higher costs passed on to consumers who would rather not pay more for T-shirts or fresh produce.
And cost-of-living problems for low-wage workers are getting worse as the federal government argues about the future of Social Security and does nothing about the immediate problems of shrinking medical coverage and rising health-care costs.
Since politicians don't get many votes by telling us that our salaries are too high, the pols instead are promising us that they will protect us from "illegal aliens" hellbent on taking our jobs and from runaway employers who are outsourcing our jobs overseas.
Yet even with post-Sept. 11, 2001, concerns about possible terrorist infiltration, serious border-security measures are having a tough time getting through Congress. In addition, Bush seems more eager to talk about amnesty programs than border security.
Schwarzenegger felt safe enough a week after his border flap to praise border Minutemen, armed volunteers who set up their lawn chairs, sport-utility vehicles, coolers, walkie-talkies, binoculars and sunscreen in Cochise County, Ariz., to patrol a 23-mile stretch of the nation's most penetrated border. Bush called the Minutemen "vigilantes," but Schwarzenegger was downright congratulatory. "They've done a terrific job," he said. "They have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage."
The Minuteman craze probably will blow over and illegal migration will continue. The federal government estimates that a million migrants cross the Mexican border illegally each year. Other immigrants who want to remain in America just overstay their visas.
Our immigration policy, then, is largely make-believe.
We need low-wage workers, so the notion of real immigration enforcement gets a wink and nod. Sanctions against employing undocumented workers are barely enforced. Honest employers run up against a sophisticated industry of counterfeit document producers and, besides, politicians are reluctant to offend employers who make campaign contributions.
For now, we will continue to play the cat-and-mouse game of chasing a few illegals across the desert. We have an enforceable immigration policy. Maybe someday Washington will enforce it. Until then, it's easy to blame illegal immigrants for doing what we invited them to do, come and find work.
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