Senator Menendez of NJ got on TV yesterday to ask who would pick all the fruit if it weren't for illegals crossing the border. Jeez, Mr. Menendez, haven't you heard that the unemployment rate among black youth is 50%?! He went on about the hotel industry - who would make the beds, who would provide maid service, the construction industry - who would hang drywall, the food and restaurant industry - who would cook our food etc. Now there's a huge disconnect between the people who say that illegal labor is necessary and required in this country and those American citizens who are out there begging for jobs. You don't think that a government program to connect up unemployed American citizens with jobs that illegals are now doing would alleviate both situations? High unemployment and illegals coming across the border to work?
But American employers don't want to replace illegals with legals because illegals have no rights in the workplace. They don't have to pay them minimum wage or give them any other rights or safety standards. OSHA is non-existant for illegals. So there is structural citizen unemployment and structural illegal employment. Businesses that hire illegals would have to be given disincentives for hiring them and incentives for hiring unemployed American citizens because they won't change their hiring habits without incentives/disincentives. They prefer illegal labor and eschew American labor. Illegals are more compliant and not as likely to complain about ill treatment. They would have to pay American citizens at least minimum wage. Politicians float the awful specter that citizens would have to pay $10. a pound for tomatoes! So where is the government program to hook up American citizens with the jobs that illegals are now doing? MISSING IN ACTION.
It seems like such an obvious thing to do but the free enterprise system won't do it of its own accords. They like things just the way they are. If they can't export the job to cheap labor pools abroad, they prefer to let the cheap labor come here - illegally - because of the many advantages to their bottom lines. Jobs could be provided for legal citizens by ramping up government efforts to crack down on employers who employ illegals. After some of them go to jail and have their businesses shut down, the word will get around that hiring illegals is not such a good idea.
But instead of ideas like these and what I blogged on yesterday - a national ID card for everyone that would link to a database that would determine citizenship - the whole illegal immigration debate has already turned into a political football. Democrats don't want to do anything to offend the growing Hispanic legal minority because they consider them potential Democratic voters, and Republicans don't want to crack down on illegal immigration because the businesses that are their constituents want to employ them. Hispanics want to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration and portray the situation as one of racism and discrimination towards all Hispanic immigrants, legal or otherwise. Viewed from a rational perspective, illegal immigrants need to be cracked down on while preserving the civil rights of legal Hispanic American citizens and legal permanent residents. I support legal immigration but not illegal immigration. I would even support a bracero program to provide continuity until illegal labor can be replaced with legal labor.
The first plank in any immigration reform bill should be strengthening border protection. This means a huge increase in the Homeland security budget while at the same time decreasing concomitantly the bloated fantasy military-industrial complex budget. R&D dollars should be flowing to better border and port protection. The budget of the Coast Guard and Border Patrol needs to be increased. Troops should be stationed at bases along the border instead of at 1000 bases overseas. Drones should be patrolling the border instead of bombing civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There is much that could be done to curtail the flow of illegal persons and materials across the border in both directions. The illegal drug situation could be brought under control, for example.
At the same time immigration reform should assure legal Hispanic American citizens that their civil rights will be protected. Random and arbitrary searches and apprehensions should not take place. All contact with the police should be for probable cause and reasonable suspicion. Traffic stops should entail not only criminal background checks but citizenship checks for all those stopped, not just for Hispanics. After all aren't we trying to protect against terrorists who are in this country illegally and are probably not Hispanic? That's why a simplified national database is important especially in an era of terrorism. Non-citizens who are legal permanent residents or on student visas or green card holders should be hooked into this national data base so that any checks by police can be expedited and don't result in taking people to jail until they can prove that they are legal citizens or come up with their birth certificates. "Your papers, please" should be replaced with "Your ID, please" and unreasonable searches and seizures should not be tolerated. On the other hand, cracking down on illegal employers and hence illegals caught at the workplace is entirely appropriate. Cracking down on illegals engaged in criminal activities is entirely appropriate. A line has to be drawn between protecting civil rights and apprehending illegal non-citizens.
But turning every situation into a political football makes for better media coverage. Instead of rational solutions, we have a lot of exciting TV guaranteed to drive up ratings. Instead of a calm hand at the wheel we are faced with hyper-bloviating politicians and pundits whose minds are on vacation while their mouths are working overtime as Mose Allison would say.
