Illegal immigration has been at the forefront of news lately. Tomorrow on May 1st, millions are expected to walk off their jobs in a sign of solidarity with immigrant workers.
This is a complex issue with more than 2 sides in opposition. First, there are businesses who claim that there are many jobs that Americans won’t do, and these must be filled by immigrants legal or otherwise. Then there are the immigrants themselves who come from severe poverty and are willing to risk their lives in a effort to better the lives of themselves and their families. Then there are the people caught in between the illegal immigrants and their employers. People who have to live with altered communities and less prospects for higher wages as illegal immigrants drive wages lower. Then there are those who benefit from the additional goods and services that are bought by having more people come to an area. It is indeed a complex issue with many sides.
I try (as I often do) to think what I would do if I were placed in each side’s position. What if I were a poor unemployed or underemployed person living in Mexico with a family to support. What would I do? I would try to immigrate legally, of course to America where opportunities are more plentiful. (In fact that is not so dissimilar than my moving to California from Ohio.) However, it is not so easy to get into America and that seems on the face of it absurd for a country that has always been a destination for people from other places. Every study I’ve seen shows that immigrants (legal and illegal) actually contribute more to the economy than they take. It seems to be that by allowing more people to enter legally, we’d reduce the amount of illegals coming in. We can’t fault people for wanting to better themselves – that would be… …un-American.
So what of the people caught in the middle? The people who’s communities are altered by strange faces and languages being spoken? Well, in my opinion, any time in America’s history was a time that people had to deal with this. There was opposition to immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Poland, etc. By allowing more people from various places in, one culture won’t dominate and thus, we will all have to work toward common goals. As far as taxes and services are concerned, having legal immigrants around helps. So it would be in the best interests of most communities to allow more legal immigration. It is not as if there is no room here in one of the largest pieces of real estate on the planet. I don’t mind people from other places living near me – I welcome it –I think that is one of America’s strengths. Certainly the statistics will back this up – look at the work of Richard Florida. Openness to immigrants is one factor that tends to predict an area that will be economically strong.
So now we turn to the employers. These are the people who provide the jobs that bring the illegal immigrants here. They say that there are jobs that Americans won’t do. I doubt that. The real statement should be that there are jobs that Americans won’t do for such low wages and lack of job security or protection of the law. These workers, while making more than they would in their native lands, put up with turn-of-the-last-century lack of protection. They have no heath care (like many of us native citizens) but also have no real recourse to protections that many of us take for granted. Some of these contractors may not be able to find workers, but there are many I’m sure that would be the first to show up at the slave market if it were open. It’s disgusting, but it is homeowners who are the largest employer of illegals. This dilemma is one that “average” Americans have created for themselves. I would never hire some for whom I couldn’t be responsible, simply requiring them to do my bidding then throwing them away. Thus I lay most of the blame on homeowners who’d rather save money by hiring an illegal worker to do menial work, just so they can save up more quickly for filling up that Hummer for a trip down to Disneyworld.
If we want a better America, we can’t keep hiring people that must live a separate life, cut-off from the dominant society for fear of discovery by the authorities. Such a situation breeds gang violence, drug trafficking, and a collapse of community.
I certainly hope that for all the attention that this issue is getting, that something is done to punish those who ignore our labor laws. I hope that something positive will result from his debate. But I’m sure nothing will happen. A few window dressings may change, but the cheap-labor shop will remain open for business. After all, the kids need a new toy for Christmas, why hire someone who wants to buy their own children a toy for Christmas, let’s just grab a throw-a-way person from Home Depot to fix up our house.
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About Me
- Matt
- Lima, Ohio, United States
- I was born and raised in Ohio. I am a lifelong Catholic Christian who has always been interested in the big questions of life. I have a passion for learning especially Philosophy, Science, Religion, History and Culture. I graduated from the University of Toledo in 2001 with a B.A. in International Relations. I married my soul-mate, Jen in 2001 and we moved to rural Tanigumi-mura Japan where we taught English for 3 years. We moved to California and lived in San Francisco and the Bay Area for 4 years. Tired of sitting on the sidelines, I began volunteering for the Barack Obama campaign in March of 2007 and was eventually hired as a Field Organizer. Through the Obama campaign, I found my calling and moved back to Ohio to continue organizing. In 2009 I helped the field operations of the Keith Wilkowski for Mayor of Toledo race. After that, I was hired as a Regional Field Director for 15 northwestern and north central Ohio counties for the 2010 Democratic Coordinated Campaign. Jen and I are continuing to volunteer as we wait for the next organizing opportunity to present itself.
8 comments:
Yeah, back in the day of the German then Irish then Polish then Italian waves of immigration people made the same claims of a "destruction" of America. So... Back in the late 19th /early 20th century we cut off immigration to many based on the whole notion of eugenics, and we didn't ease this until the 1960s.
It's time to rethink our restriction on immigration.
It's time we actually investigate and prosecute those businesses breaking workforce laws by hiring immigrants. They're in a good spot: they don't mind paying low wages, and they get the government to pick up the tab for the things they should be taking care of, like healthcare.
Well put, Tim!
Matt,
Here is what I don't understand. By what right are there immigration laws at all? One group that's been involved is a group called Mexicanos sin fronteras (Mexicans without borders). By what right is there even a United States?
The situation that drives immigrants here is even more complicated when one realizes that it's the free trade agreements, the work of the World Bank and IMF through structural adjustment programs, that first drives people away from the rural areas into the cities and then from the cities desperately looking for work here. Why is the focus of outrage on poor people who are merely trying to survive and not on the American government, on multinational corporations, on Free Trade agreements, and the malicious way that the World Bank hands out loans and the similarly malicious way that the IMF finances those loans? It makes absolutely no sense to me why the debate is even framed in the way you have explained it because I can see no reason at all to first separate illegal immigrants from legal immigrants (when both as far as I'm concerned are oppressed classes of people) and then to frame the problem in terms of immigration when the problem at root is multinational corporate capitalism and neoliberalism.
The other problem, let's face it, is outright bigotry, which is why many of the minutemen who realize that the so called free trade agreements only serve the rich don't take their ire out on them with the tenacity they take it out on immigrants with whom they should be in solidarity.
Jim
Like it or not Nation-States do exist. Perhaps society needs to be reshaped for the good of all. I can beleive that. But until it is, we have to deal with the system in place.
I do recognize a difference between illegal immigration and legal immigration, even if the system set up is dysfunctional.
Illegal immigration is precisiely part of the problem. Having undocumented workers is a recipe for exploitation and discrimination.
Certainly, illegal immigration is a recipe for exploitation. No one can deny that. I have experiences out trying to look out for day laborers that suggest that exploitation does occur very regularly.
But, the fact of exploitation certainly isn't reason to punish those immigrants for their predicament.
And, furthermore, if you simply punish employers for hiring them, you are still punishing immigrants for the lack of jobs available to them. It's not ethically criminal that someone hires someone else just because they don't have the right papers.
Yes, this is a recipe for disaster, and that disaster plays itself out all the time, and you see what we call "poverty pimps" looking for workers that they often don't even bother to pay, let alone give anything like benefits. And, yet these immigrants are desperate enough for work that they will show up at the day laborer site and sometimes take jobs they shouldn't while they wait in line to get jobs from people who have been screened (and, even then).
But, punishing immigrants is not a solution to this. Punishing employers who hire them does nothing for their plight. One can insist that employers pay a decent wage and provide benefits, and that's being done by immigrants rights groups, but it shouldn't matter then whether the immigrant is legal or illegal then. That's when the minutemen scream about illegal immigrants making demands.
There's no way to get around the systemic problem, and there is not a reformist solution that has the slightest bit of weight. In the end, the system of borders needs to be challenged and capitalism needs to be challenged. Whatever the fact is about nation-states, doing something about the evils associated with that fact needs to be considered.
On my blog, I just wrote something yesterday on this topic (of immigration and nation-states).
Jim
PS As an aside, I have written some philosophy to a dear friend who considers herself atheist/agnostic on the issue of the resurrection. I'd like to send it off to you. I've entitled it, "On the Mortality of the Soul."
Ultimately, I’d like to see free and easy access across borders, but I’m not sure that any community could handle the strain of a sudden, massive influx. I’m in favor of greatly increasing immigration into the United States as a matter of principle. However, there are pragmatic concerns that must be addressed.
First, yes punish the employers who break the law and hire (and exploit) illegal workers. I’ve seen and experienced enough law-breaking on the part of employers as a legal citizen, I can’t even imagine the level of exploitation these workers face. Having workers who are legal gives them protection under the law. At least give them that resort. As an illegal worker, one couldn’t reasonably be expected to report one’s exploitation.
We have laws and I believe they should (for the most part) be followed until changed. It’s a easy argument to show that there is no solid basis for the existence of any nation-state. Certainly it is not by the consensus of the people who were never asked. However, we are left with the existential problem – it exists. We can ignore it, pretend it does not, but it still exists. We can point out all states rest upon the threat of force (they certainly do) but that does not change the fact that they exist. Since our state is (at least in theory) a democratic institution, we can try to change it.
I’m not sure in what kind of system a self-proclaimed anarchist would want to live, but I’m sure I would not like it. It sounds like everything would be fine until someone disagrees. Then what? Beating of pots and pans until they submit to the will of the majority? That’s certainly not high-minded dialogue but just another kind of forceful intimidation. What about when someone advocates and then resorts to violence? Perhaps it is fine to live the life of a prophet, and die the death of a martyr, but surely there is someway to live a good life without resorting to that. I’d like to find it. I am searching. When (and if) I do find my goal, I’ll want to try to change the system that is into the system that should be…
P.S. I would be very interested in hearing what you have to say about the resurrection, Jim.
Matt,
I don't have time to write much at this moment, but you have a lot of misconceptions about decision-making process among anarchists and how that plays out practically.
Even so, one reason I consider myself more happily an "anti-war" activist than a "peace" activist, though I am a pacifist, is because I think the first step toward any improvement in society is resistance against human vanity, resistance against claiming to know what one does not know. And, generally almost anything that claims that it knows it can make human life better, is guilty of vanity since it proposes something whose consequences only an omniscient being could understand.
I do not know what a better world looks like, but I do know that the injustice in the world results from vanity in human judgment. If there is to be hope of coming to terms with a world more in tune with the demands of love, we have to remove ourselves from the veil of this vanity, and resist the absurd condition of the world.
We do not have a democracy in California or anywhere else on any kind of mass scale. I think that "representative democracy" is an oxymoron, and the fact that your vote, your voice does not count one bit, not in the least toward changing policy, influencing policy is important to note. So, what are we hoping to change and by what means? Who are we hoping to change and by what means?
Like justifying keeping troops in Iraq is an exercise in paternalistic vanity, supposing all sorts of things we do not know in order to defend an injustice that we do know, we cannot support creating distinctions between two kinds of immigrants on the supposition that: 1) it's the reality, and we aren't about to change it (which is also nothing more than a disempowering self-fulfilling prophecy), 2) we need to protect the immigrants and ourselves from the negative consequences that will surely happen. To point 2, no matter what we do, there will be consequences we know not what that are negative. It's no reason to support dividing people unjustly into classes and working to perpetuate the underlying systemic bigotry inherent in the law. If we aren't resisting those underlying causes, then we are supporting the rationale inherent in the vanity that sets up the United States as a worthwhile advance toward a better society.
In the short term, you'll ask what we should do given the actual state of affairs, but I think the answer you give is upside down. Whatever the California legislature or Congress does has little to do with what we should do - I can see no way in which they fit into the "we" equation. Instead, the "we" equation that I understand concerns people who live and work in the reality that these policies create. What actually is done to protect immigrants is to create effective day laborer sites, which do in fact screen employers, and help create a community of empowerment for workers to be able to go somewhere they trust and can be part of the overall solution facing their own destiny. That to me is a real, tangible thing that we can support and make a difference toward protecting against exploitation in the short term.
And, as far as the law goes, I would only work to resist those who would make it harder for immigrants and who would make the border more militarized, not by lobbying, but by direct action.
You decry the tactics of "pots and pans" only because you still believe there is something rational or discursive about our system of government. When you give yourself up of that illusion, you'll realize that "pots and pans" are merely expressions of the absurdity that is the world (if the antecedent is false, anything follows), which if effective at disruption, will always provoke the question why. In fact, the backlash against the tactic is one of the more gratifying indications to me that it's more effective at breeching the gap that prevents dialogue than anything we've ever done. The backlash creates grounds for dialogue, it acknowledges what's being done. When we simply talk, we speak, but no one hears us. When we make noise outside a home, and it sounds like nothing, why does it speak so loudly? Challenging the context reduces the veil, and rational discussion now has grounds to bear fruit. When we are acknowledged as being disruptive, suddenly the pretense is destroyed, and we have conversations like the one we are beginning to have.
But, for all that, another day...I'll send along the other essay/letter.
Jim
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