|
We Asked; You Said
Feedback From Communitarian Update
Number 65
We asked:
How should we treat illegal immigrants? Some hold that making for stronger borders is
essential for fighting terrorism and ensuring that those who wait in the queue for legal
immigration will not be discriminated against. Others argue that many industries would have
to close if illegal immigration were not tolerated. And the point is often raised that if one
is serious about stopping illegal immigrants, one should go after the employers - not the
immigrants. Furthermore, some argue that when caught, illegal immigrants should be shipped
home without delay unless they can make a strong case that they would be endangered if they
returned to their country of origin. Others call for due process, which may take considerable
time and resources. Still others feel that borders should be opened up to one and all. What
say you?
TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION, email aeblog@gwu.edu
Here are the responses we received:
********************************************
Illegal immigration is having a heavy economic, social, and demographic impact, and it is past time to make a liberal case for controlling illegal immigration. Economic and social justice is the glue that holds liberals together. I first got interested in illegal immigration when a Colorado packing plant fired a group of Hispanic Americans and replaced them with illegal immigrants. A small group of the fired workers came to me, as Governor, to complain. There was little I could do. I called the President of the packing plant who nicely told me to mind my own business and claimed that all his new workers had Green Cards, which indeed they had, bought in the underground market along with fake Social Security cards for $25 apiece. Some time later, the INS raided the plant but the workforce evaporated during the raid, to return (or to be replaced by other illegal immigrants) shortly thereafter. The plant continued to employ a largely monolingual Spanish-speaking workforce until it was bought out and closed ten years later.
It is easy to see why this underground workforce is attractive to employers. These are generally good, hardworking people who will quietly accept minimum wage (or below), don't get health care or other benefits, and if they complain they can be easily fired. For some employers, certainly not all, it is an abused form of labor. Even minimum wage is attractive to workers from countries whose standard of living is a fraction of ours.
But that is not to say it is "cheap labor." It may be "cheap" to those who pay the wages, but for the rest of us it is clearly "subsidized" labor, as we taxpayers pick up the costs of education, health, and other municipal costs imposed by this workforce. These have become a substantial and growing cost as the nature of illegal immigration patterns has changed.
For decades illegal immigrants were single men who would come up from Mexico or Central America, alone, pick crops or perform other low paid physical labor, and then go home. They were indeed "cheap labor." But starting slowly in the 1960s, and steadily increasing to this day, these workers either brought their families or smuggled them into the country later. They become a permanent or semi-permanent population living in the shadows but imposing immense municipal costs. Illegal immigration today isn't "cheap" labor except to the employer. To the rest of us, it is "subsidized" labor where a few get the benefit and the rest of us pay. These costs ought to be obvious to all, but the myth of "cheap labor" and "jobs Americans won't do" persists.
It is hard to get an exact profile of the people who live in the underground economy, but studies do show that the average illegal immigrant family is larger than the average American family. It costs Colorado taxpayers over $7,000 a child just to educate a child in our public schools. Realistically, no minimum wage worker, or even low wage worker, pays anywhere near enough taxes to pay for even one child in school. Even if they were paying all federal and state taxes, Colorado's estimated 30,000 school age children of workers illegally in Colorado (out of an estimated population of 200,000 illegal immigrants) impose gargantuan costs on our taxpayers.
We have here in Colorado, and increasingly nationwide, single houses with three or more families of illegal immigrants earning between $20,000 and $25,000 per family, but with kids in the school system costing our taxpayers more in education costs alone than all three families gross. Studies show that approximately two-thirds of illegal immigrants lack a high school diploma. The National Academy of Sciences has found that there is a significant fiscal drain on U.S. taxpayers for each adult immigrant without a high school education. These are expensive families to provide with governmental services. Some people are getting cheap labor and externalizing the costs of that labor to the rest of us. Americans pay in more ways than just taxes.
Cheap labor drives down wages as low income. Americans are forced to compete against these admittedly hard-working people. Even employers, who don't want to wink at false documents, are forced to lower wages just to be competitive. It is, in many ways, a "race to the bottom" fueled by poor people often recruited from evermore-distant countries by middlemen who profit handsomely. It isn't only wages; the employers of this abused form of labor often violate minimum wage, OSHA, and over time laws, and if injured, these people often have no access to Workmen's Compensation.
The Americans who pay the price are those at the bottom of the economic ladder who directly compete with this illegal workforce. The very people that liberals profess to speak for and care about pay the price in lost and suppressed wages, while employers get the benefits of reduced wages. Professor George Borjas of Harvard, an immigrant himself, estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market by newcomers.
The dilemma is compounded by the fact that approximately 40% of illegal workers are paid in cash, off the books. Go to any construction site, almost anywhere in America, and you will find illegal workers who are paid cash wages. Virtually every city in America has an area where illegals gather and people come by to get "cheap" cash wage labor. High costs, low taxes, this is not cheap labor; this is the most expensive labor a community could ever imagine.
We must get a counterfeit proof Social Security card or some form of ID that shows people are legally in the country, and I would suggest that, correctly analyzed, this is a liberal issue.
Richard D. Lamm
University of Denver
Governor of Colorado, 1975-1987
Suppose that immigrants to the United States say that the land we occupy in the southwest was stolen through war and plunder. They have a "right" to be back on their land. They might even say, "It's not how we treat them. It's really the question of how they treat us, or should treat us."
Marcus Raskin
Washington, DC
I would take it for granted that non-defensible communitarianism would suggest that a community has no obligations to those outside its borders who are affected by its actions. The United States' foreign policy--political, economic, and military--has dramatic effects around the
entire globe. Among those effects are the enforcement of neoliberal economic policies that throw millions of people out of work and deny them access to other forms of support (by destroying subsistence agriculture through the dumping abroad of heavily-subsidized food exports, for example). Even if those policies were reversed tomorrow--something that will clearly not happen, given the current administration--the impact of those policies would linger for quite some time. Under those circumstances, it would be the height of hypocrisy for the United States to deny entry to people leaving countries where neoliberalism has destroyed effective economic opportunities for those at the bottom.
Peter Stone
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Stanford University
What exactly are immigrants fleeing? In most cases, U.S. policy. U.S. policy in cahoots with the oppression of local elites. If we don't want "them" here, then don't rail against them. Most of us in their situation would do exactly what they're doing -- if we had the gumption. Instead, rail against arms exports. Rail against international lenders and forced austerity. The biggest problem in Third World countries is land hoarding. Offer free trade and free travel (no visas needed) to any country that charges land taxes or land dues or land use fees that would break up the latifundia. And set a better example at home. Quit subsidizing our own elite with corporate welfare. Quit taxing our own workers, making them unduly expensive. Instead, recover the socially-generated values of our land - especially downtowns - and of our resources - especially oil fields. Use this public revenue to fund not special interest favors but a broad Citizens Dividend, making up for loss of low-end jobs to foreigners (both here and in their own countries). That would make it easier to welcome them to this corner of the planet that we call ours. Yet if rights are equal and people are equal, then any of us has the right to visit and live anywhere, as long as one compensates those whom one excludes from one's occupied location (pays land dues). As long as immigrants respect the customs of their new neighbors, one's place of origin should not offend; the diversity should be a source of pleasure.
Jeffery J. Smith
President, Forum on Geonomics
Portland, Oregon
Historically, when the founding fathers drafted the U.S. Constitution they selected "jus soli" (law of the soil) rather than "jus sanguinus" (law of the blood) as the standard for establishing American citizenship. Thus, by operation of law, any second-generation person born in the United States or its territories became a citizen by operation of law, regardless of the citizenship of his or her parents. Jus soli, as a legal principle, is a distinctly minority position, and so far as I am aware (although I could be mistaken), no other western democracy has such a provision in its constitution.
At the time of the founding of the United States, the policies underlying jus soli were sound, as the country was underpopulated and needed immigrants. However, this is no longer the case. A "back of the envelope computation" (in other words, a crude first approximation) will demonstrate somewhat persuasively that the planet is overpopulated. The numbers I derive suggest that the overpopulation ratio is somewhere between 3 and 10. Any suggestion that closed borders will destabilize the economy is disingenuous. The economy would adjust (supply and demand, and the rest of econ 101).
What a policy of open borders does produce is the exploitation of its northern neighbor by a seriously overpopulated country (Mexico), which cannot feed, house, provide jobs for its citizenry, or control its numbers. If such exploitation is allowed to continue indefinitely, we will have two seriously overpopulated countries that cannot feed, house, provide jobs for their citizenry, or control their numbers. What then? Do we then shift the problem one border north and repatriate illegally to Canada?
Ultimately, the first principle of ecology is population control. Having developed agriculture and technology, humans (especially those who live in countries possessed of high standards of living) somehow think themselves immune to the controls built into a closed ecosystem. Sooner or later, mother nature will control our numbers if we do not control them ourselves. Illegal immigration is but one aspect of the worldwide population control problem. Sooner or later it must be addressed. Personally, I would prefer sooner, while there is a reasonable chance to arrive at an effective solution.
Let us come full circle; closing the constitutional loophole and enacting a constitutional amendment changing the constitutional requirement for citizenship from jus soli to jus sanguinus would do at least two things: result in U.S. citizenship standards that are in sync with international standards and close a gaping loophole that illegal immigrants use to bootstrap their way to legal status: crossing the border into the United States to give birth. When the loophole is closed, anyone who crosses the border illegally cannot achieve citizenship for his or her children.
When a parking lot reaches capacity, the operator puts out the "full" sign. It does not matter how many cars are in line waiting to get in. There is no more room. A nation, especially one interested in preserving its national assets and resources for its future generation, ought to have the right to do the same.
Robert Jansen
Anaheim, California
Illegal immigrants are only illegal because the law makes them illegal. They do not commit any crimes against people or property. They are criminalized for daring to dream of a better life. Yet, it was not always so. Immigration laws barely existed a 100 years ago. In the 19th century, not a single person was excluded from the United Kingdom, the world's most powerful nation. Most of Europe availed itself of the right to travel and lead better lives. In the early 20th century, 2 out of every 5 Irish people were living outside Ireland. Europeans populated lands as far away as Australia, South Africa, and America. Today it is the turn of the Third world. Today they have the means to buy cheap airline tickets and go searching for work and better livelihoods away from centralized, corrupt, and inefficient governmental systems. The right to migrate is the most effective solution to world poverty. The remittances that migrant workers send home often exceed foreign aid and even GDP. We talk of globalization. Yet, we are insincere in this so long as we only have the globalization of capital and not of labor. To have a truly globalized economy of free markets there must again be free movement of peoples. It is the most fundamental of all rights. Universally-recognized values such as mutual aid, humanity, hospitality, comity, mutual intercourse, and good faith all depend on the right to free movement. Terrorism blights the world, but most such cases can be dealt with through the normal laws of state prosecution and extradition. Most immigrants are not terrorists. Just people like you and me.
Dr. Satvinder Singh Juss
Reader in Law
King's College London, London University
England
I came to the United States 49 years ago with my parents. My parents went through the process of becoming American citizens, learning the language, the history, and the ideas, i.e. the Constitution, upon which this country is based. We waited six years and committed ourselves and our futures to this country and society. This is a great country because of its immigrant traditions. But the bigger issue is at what rate can this country effectively integrate new people? I think that there is a maximum number beyond which the process begins to break down. I think we have long reached that point, and major challenges are showing up. I do not think that it is an issue of keeping people out but rather an issue of how to integrate those of us who want to come here and contribute to this society. We as a society and country need to think creatively and out of the box for the solution, otherwise we become like every other society and country that has faced this challenge in the past and I think we are better than that! If the response is to fortify the borders and create police state conditions then we would loose the very aspects that make this country unique and powerful. Thank you!
Ulrich Semrau, M.Ed., M.A., Ph.D.
Why was it you chose to use the term "illegal immigrants" rather than "undocumented immigrants?" Unless you've already staked out a position on this issue (your use of language seems to indicate that you may already have), you need to be just as careful about the framing of this issue as are those who speak in terms of either "right to life" vs. "right to choose" or "death with dignity" vs. "murder."
Lloyd Burton
Professor and Director, Program Concentration in Environmental Policy, Management, and Law
Graduate School of Public Affairs
University of Colorado at Denver
Colorado
Borders should not be as open as they now are, and reasonable efforts to strengthen them should be implemented. The contemptible speechifying that links terrorism to borders should cease. Work permits should be made available to millions of illegal aliens who take unwanted jobs in the U.S. economy.
The immigrants are energetic, hard-working people, drawn by the hope of a better life. One has to sympathize with them. Yet unlimited immigration does have an important down-side. Large-scale illegal immigration is bad for the less-privileged people in our society. Those are the people with whom illegal immigrants compete in the labor market, particularly blacks. It is common to hear "they do jobs nobody else will do." However, those jobs would attract more applicants if they paid more. The availability of immigrants keeps those wages from rising to the point where they would attract citizens who would be willing to do them. Another problem is the incompatibility of open borders and an extensive welfare state, which would mostly benefit low-income people. Illegal immigration could be controlled by enforcing the laws against employers who hire illegals and stiffening them. It is, of course, in the interest of employers to get the cheap and compliant labor that illegal immigrants provide, and their influence has gone
against enforcing current laws or increasing the penalties for violations.
Barbara R. Bergmann
Professor Emerita of Economics
American University and University of Maryland
Illegal immigrants should go back! My Grandmother came from Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s and went through Ellis Island. She underwent medical examinations and the whole works. She and my Grandfather had already married, and he was born in the United States; so, her sponsorship was taken care of. She had to learn English. She worked. She came here to be a CITIZEN, not a societal/national goods shopper. The process she went through did a great deal to ensure both her welfare and the welfare of a country that was absorbing millions of people from different parts or Europe.
Now I can understand how some might quail at such a "processing" of immigrants, with possible rejection of many. We do not want to be unfair or inhumane. To be sure, there will always be exceptions to rules, but those exceptions do NOT eliminate rules. Rather, they work within constraints beyond those that were planned for and, as such, can be contingently planned for. I do think that, by and large, the rules that my Grandmother submitted to were unwise. They covered many issues that the United States struggles with now due to immigration, both legal and illegal: transmission of sickness, communication through common language, and respect for the traditions of the welcoming country. My concerns with modern policy decisions is that they are often hinged on manufacturing policies that don't work, supported by bureaucracies that would be better off fulfilling a civil mission via effective policies, and spending money in wasteful ways (i.e., the money that goes to completely changing all public signs in a state to bilingual representation rather than teach immigrants English!) We cannot ignore the human needs of those who wish to come into our country illegally, but we do need to make clear that immigrants should come through the front door, not the back. There are plenty of non-profits who work to provide for the missing requirements of those fleeing oppression in other countries. Perhaps instead of being lenient in our immigration policies, we should stiffen them appropriately and then provide additional support to those organizations that help immigrants meet standards. And don't think we can't be tough in immigration laws. Take a look at how few Irish are allowed in the good old U.S. of A. I always find it interesting how there are times that there is no lack of power or control to accomplish some goals, but at other times the same possessors of power and control lament how they have no such power and control. Methinks the exercise of them is selectively selfish.
Fred Scharf, M.A.
Political Economist
Any communitarian wondering about whether anyone has a right to be in another person's country has a woefully inadequate understanding of the actualized dream that is America. The issue is hardly about rights. Rather, the reason for open borders derives from the history and core values of the United States as a refuge for the world's exiles. This discussion needs to be informed by the words describing Lady Liberty, including her own anguished, but fervent, words of welcome:
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she
With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'"
These words exemplify that America offers liberty not only to the affluent, the secure, and the powerful. No, America's liberty is also for the homeless, the destitute, the hopeless. In America, the Lady welcomes anyone who yearns to "breathe free." Of course, the prospect of terrorism or other woes reveals that this welcome is not absolute; nor must it be perennial. However, the welcome implies that ours is a community designed for those who need a second chance, and this design should function as an overwhelmingly strong (if not always dispositive) presumption against tampering with such a beacon of redemption. There is no right to be in another person's country. We are speaking of values much deeper than rights. Rather, it is part of America's self-definition to welcome and nurture those who need to be free. We treat it as an ordinary policy question at the risk of abandoning our greatest legacy.
Robert Justin Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of Law
Delaware
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
How quickly we forget these profound words. This is America's foundation giving all people the "right" to our country. If we change this, should we tear down the Statue of Liberty? All Americans who do not call themselves Native American are decedents of immigrants, both legal and not. So, what truly is the impact of the flow of illegal immigrants? American civil society will always sort out what the federal government continues to find difficult; Citizens harbor and protect illegal immigrants within our religious communities. We hire them to do the low paying jobs that most Americans find "beneath them," yet are so necessary. We welcome them into our communities and even our homes. We share their cultures, their ideals, and our children play together. Most of all, we guide them in their quest to become upstanding U.S. citizens. Sealing the borders to prevent illegal immigration will be as difficult as keeping the honey bee from sugar. There is no net strong enough, yet we will spend trillions tying to create one.
Fail not to realize that the terrorists of September 11 did not enter this country illegally, they all had passports and were welcomed in. Shouldn't we address the true problem?
Judith McLaughlin Sheehan
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army
Great, Great, Great Granddaughter of an Illegal French Immigrant
The treatment of applicants for asylum is a big issue here in Australia as well. Such people are not of course "illegal immigrants." People are within their rights to enter a country and then ask for the right to stay. This right is inscribed in international law. I am concerned that posing the question in terms of "illegal immigrants" can lead to confusion. In Australia, most actual illegal immigrants are British, New Zealand and American people who overstay their tourist visas, and actually, most people in Australia really don't have strong feelings about this practice. The newspapers and conservative politicians of course like to inspire terror in people and focus their campaigns on economic and political refugees exercising their rights under international law to seek asylum in Australia, and frequently refer to these people as "illegal immigrants" without any basis at all.
Andy Blunden
Writer
Melbourne, Australia
Thanks for the opportunity to comment on the immigration issue. I was struck by your comment that "A communitarian may wonder why anyone has a right to be in another person's country." [see www.amitai-notes.com/blog/archives/001205.html] I suppose that might have been what the native Americans were thinking many years ago. So let me state at the outset, I am not against immigration. Indeed, I believe that if it is true, as some proclaim, that many industries would close if it weren't for illegal immigration, then we should increase the numbers of legal immigrants as economic necessity or other factors dictate. If this is not true, then we should undertake efforts to limit as best as possible the entry of illegal immigrants and return those who are unable to make a case for political asylum. It does seem wrong to me that we contend we need immigrants for our work force and at the same time restrict their numbers. It also seems unfair that illegal immigrants are able to take advantage of benefits paid for by legal immigrants and U.S. citizens.
Robert Kennedy
Professor of International Affairs
Georgia Institute of Technology
Not one of the 19 Saudis who brought down the World Trade Center illegally crossed a U.S. border. They all legally entered the United States.
The Bush Administration has successfully marketed the slogan "War on Terrorism" which is as brainless as such expressions as "War on War" or "Terrorism on Terrorism." It is a meaningless expression crafted and sold by the White House for political advantage by fear.
The United States currently is at war with Islamic fundamentalists, not with impoverished Mexicans who pick our crops, cut our meat, clean our living spaces and most honorably wire their meager earnings, less a shameless service charge, back to their families.
We should grant work permits for the millions of foreign workers who are willing to take jobs that Americans don't want. Only then can we end the federal government border guard charade exposed by the Arizona vigilantes, successfully tighten up the borders, and reduce the illegal alien population in the United States, which is estimated to be ten million.
Linking terror to illegal border crossings is an example of the total contempt that the President and the Congressional majority have for the American people, and its continuation represents a report card on our intelligence.
Tom McGoff
Moscow, Pennsylvania
Borders must be closed and illegal immigration halted. If industries need workers, that must be handled through legislation. Illegal immigrants are simply jumping the queue, making it easier to keep restrictive immigration laws in place; encouraging illegal activity, including drug running; endangering the lives of the illegal immigrants; and threatening security. Fairness, security, and the needs of the economy are ill served by illegal immigration.
Herbert Danzger
Professor of Sociology
Lehman College and the Graduate Center CUNY
New York
We should have a mechanism through which we permit immigrants to come to work in this country: we need the labor; they need the money. They are incredibly hard workers, and for the most part they do jobs under very hard conditions. I conduct research on children of immigrants, and in some of these families each parent has 2-3 jobs in order to make it. Their children are excelling in school. The parents and children are making a contribution to our economy and our society.
Cynthia Garcia Coll, PhD
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island
The immigration problem is not solvable until we help Mexico increase its standard of living to the point where few people will want to risk their lives to come to this country. In the mean time, we have to accept the risks that are involved in letting people come in because our economy requires them. We need a guest workers programs.
Harry Triandis
Professor Emeritus
University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana
I think that it is necessary to respect the laws existing in each country. And I hope that this law, while respectful of human rights, provides for a rigid control of immigration, which usually entails not only benefits but also problems, both of social character and of security.
Prof. Umberto Melotti
University of Roma "La Sapienza"
Expert of migration and migratory laws in Europe
I think that Americans should decide who is allowed to enter the United States. There are legal channels for applying for entry, and we should not create an incentive to bypass those channels by allowing people to remain after entering illegally.
Jeff Stake
Professor of Law
Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington
1. Drug dealers (who make $3,000-$4,000 per day) and gang members cross the Mexican
Border everyday into California.
2. Our public schools are overcrowded and bad, due to the children of illegals. They do not
understand English well enough and drag education down for others.
3. Emergency rooms are closing due to the free care they have to give to illegals. Citizens pay enormous medical insurance payments to subsidize the illegals.
4. Many illegals get on welfare. How?
5. Temporary construction workers made good money--how come only illegals get these jobs?
6. House cleaners make $20-30 an hour, not less than minimum wage as publicized, and pay no taxes.
7. It costs California $10.5 billion to care for illegals.
8. Mexico receives $15 billion a year from Mexicans living in the United States.
9. Vicente Fox demands that we take his uneducated and poor people, since he then doesn't have to deal with them.
10. Mexico is not our friend. It took them 2 weeks after 9/11 to decide to be on our side or the terrorists' side!!
Carol Schneider
Newport Beach, California
The Communitarian Network invites you to:
Order communitarian books by Amitai Etzioni, Edward W. Lehman, Daniel A. Bell, and Philip
Selznick at a 40-50% discount! For more information, please visit
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/order.html
Check Out Our Website and Weblog! Head to http://www.communitariannetwork.org for
communitarian publications, events, news, and ideas. Visit http://www.amitai-notes.com/blog for
current communitarian musings.
Send us your news. If you have news that highlights the communitarian perspective please
forward it to comnet@gwu.edu with "News" in the subject line.
**********************************
Endorse the Communitarian Platform!
Join other communitarians who have read and endorsed our platform. Visit our web site:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/rcplatform.html.
************************************
We apologize if you received this message in error. To be removed from this list send the
message "signoff comnet" to listserv@hermes.circ.gwu.edu or reply to this message with the
word "remove" in the subject line.
The Communitarian Update is compiled by Emily Pryor. Please consider forwarding the Update
to others who may be interested.
|
