Homeland Stupidity
Homeland security czar Michael Chertoff wants to seal our borders and boot out our large immigrant population. (The full text of his comments is available at the DHS Homepage: here)
I doubt this is possible, but if it were the price to our economy would be large.
Chertoff and other border enthusiasts like to talk about “immigrants,” but what they always mean is Mexicans. We aren’t talking about an over-abundance of Canadian loggers, here.
The Bush administration prior to September 2001 had a vital plan to make Mexican immigration for labor safe and legal by granting temporary work visas to migrant Mexican workers. It was scrapped in the ensuing maelstrom.
This pre-9/11 plan must be considered again.
Chertoff’s comments are being taken to usher in the end of our ‘catch and release’ program–whereby immigrants are let go almost immediately after being caught trying to enter the border.
His fix would be to ensure that they are placed back in their countries. Chertoff probably loved to play those carnival games where you bash one groundhog in the head and another one immediately pops up somewhere else.
While I take issue with comparing immigrants to fish (and ask forgiveness for my own groundhog analogy), I am more offended by the notion that Mexican immigration is a problem. The few rebuttals to Chertoff’s offensive note the pain and suffering that a true closed border policy would have on immigrant families.
Rubbish. The true pain would be ours.
The American Immigration Law Foundation notes that:
The owners and managers of factories, restaurants, hotels, construction sites, hospitals, orchards, and innumerable other places of employment have been clear about their need for continued access to immigrant workers, a large portion of whom, statistics show, come from Mexico.
The film, A Day Without A Mexican, has a jocular tackle of this topic, but the economic realities are not at all humorous.
No sensible employer would run the legal risk of employing illegal immigrant labor if there existed a legal and cost effective alternative.
Mexican President Vicente Fox was blasted for making this point earlier this year. He made it in a bad way, using racial invective with which no one can agree, but his core economic argument is sound: if U.S. citizens wanted to work at the same wages as immigrants, the jobs would be theirs.
National security demands iron borders.
Industrial efficacy demands fluid borders.
The compromise is a semi-permeable membrane of a border.
Obviously, too many undocumented people of many stripes are able to enter our country undetected. This must stop, but Chertoff’s plans show a lack of willingness (for whatever reason, be it political, logical, emotional) to offer a sensible solution to the problem.
Look at what Chertoff praises:
Last month, I authorized eliminating the environmental challenges that had blocked completion of the 14-mile Border Infrastructure System near San Diego ? an issue that languished for almost a decade. We listened to Congress and moved forward in an effort to strengthen border protection in the San Diego area.
We recently obtained a Predator B unmanned aerial vehicle to enhance our ability to secure the southwest border, and we?ve partnered with the Department of Defense to take advantage of training opportunities.
With funds appropriated by Congress earlier this year, we have begun to hire ? and have already begun graduating ? 1,500 new Border Patrol agents for deployment along the entire border.
A huge wall, aerial surveillance (!), and more guards.
This all defies logic. Ideally, he would have us construct a solid dome above the entire U.S. and allow for a few heavily monitored gates. Still, terrorists will find their way in. The most motivated individuals will always find ways to skirt the law. Why fight an upstream battle?
The better way to deal with immigration is to de-motivate the border-jumpers.
Make it possible for immigrants to obtain temporary work visas. Then begin truly enforcing labor restrictions LOCALLY using LOCAL POLICE who are well-equipped to conduct RANDOM SEARCHES of workplaces. U.S. employers are already required to confirm the work status of their employees. I had to provide proof of citizenship when I got my current job. So did you, I imagine (or you should have).
If employers can not provide this documentation, fine and/or imprison them. See how fast they continue to employ illegal labor. The risk/reward of using illegal cheap labor disappears when employers are faced with large fines.
At the same time, acknowledge reality by documenting immigrants and allowing them to work in these jobs. Then we would know where they are and for whom they work. Wherever the U.S. hands out work visas, a long long line will form. The border jumpers will come to us, rather than us wasting resources chasing them.
Overnight, the borders will become barren. You will kill the immigrant smuggling industry and all its hideous sins (including indentured servitude of the skilled and carnal nature).
Overnight, border jumping will cease to make sense to immigrants (why risk it?). The only remaining border jumpers would be those denied work visas. For this reason, we should not deny any willing laborer a temporary visa excepting bad seeds, such as known criminals.
The counter I’m expecting is that this would brnig far too many immigrants to our country. So? They will fill as many jobs as we have to offer, as many jobs as we need them to fill. The ones who can’t find work aren’t going to hang around.
Of course, there’s the problem of illegal immigrants taking advantage of our educational services. So, require schools to only enroll the children of documented laborers. What about the strain on local hospitals? This is trickier.
Emergency rooms can’t very well turn away the ailing, but how many people unable to find work are going to hang around long enough to put a dramatic burden on our emergency rooms?
I don’t know the answer, but if it becomes a problem, it is one worth solving and not a reason to abandon a sensible immigrant labor policy.
As for those turned away, they may still attempt entry, but they will have a much harder time finding work in the U.S. even if they get here, as few employers will take the risk of hiring them when so many legal immigrant laborers with documentation would be available. In this way, we could somewhat eliminate the desire of the job-seeking undesirables to come here.
Only the worst of the worst will now attempt illegal entry. But they’ll have to get here themselves or pay a lot more for it than they do now, because if they are caught the penalties will be much clearer.
In this scenario, having an aerial infrared scan of the southwest might not be a bad idea. It’s going to be a lot easier to catch the rare ‘lone gunman’ in the desert than to round up hundreds of thousands of immigrants in a net in an effort to snag the few terrorists attempting to smuggle themselves across the border in immigrant caravans.
Chertoff does not deal with any of these economic issues in his comments. His is a hammer-looking-for-a-nail approach to problem solving, and it is facile.
Continuing to temporarily lock up hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and quickly return them to their country will only increase the cost the better, more effective, smugglers would charge to get them here.
How many more Mexicans will end up “vacationing” in Canada and heading south? Really, Chertoff, how much Air Canada stock do you own?
Black markets for labor, as for anything, exist when sensible, cost-effective and legal alternatives do not.
An enduring solution involves creating such an alternative.
