In a desperate bid to retain control of Congress, last summer the Republicans decided to play the race card and make illegal immigration one of their top issues. For months the right wing lunatic fringe, led by poster child Tom Tancredo, had been whipping up hysteria about the issue. Convoys of gun toting xenophobes and racists calling themselves "minutemen" rushed to the Arizona border to posture, menace unarmed civilians, and drink beer. The whole idea was to persuade middle America that brown skinned illegals were to blame for their increasingly difficult economic lot in life -and to appeal to that ingrained xenophobia and propensity for paranoia that has played so well for the neo-cons since Reagan. Unfortunately for Rove and his colleagues, while most Americans ARE concerned about the stagnation of their wages and declining standard of living - they are also smart enough to recognize that illegal immigrants are not engaged in a vast conspiracy to ruin the American economy as the rhetoric suggests.
The Democratic response was to mobilize large numbers of the hispanic community, including large numbers of illegals, and claim that illegal immigration wasn't a problem but rather a benefit to America. By pointing out the inherent racism of the Republican rhetoric, they cynically hoped to score big popularity points in the hispanic community - a key battleground demographic in a lot of purple states. To an extent, it worked. They gained significantly in popularity with hispanic voters. However, with typical Democratic shortsightedness, they did so at the expense of credibility with middle America.
Middle America understands that, rhetoric aside, illegal immigration IS a serious problem for the American worker. While the rhetoric about their drain on social services is largely fictitious, we all know that illegal immigrants do take American jobs, and that they drive down wages in the industries in which they work. The truth is that, coming from countries where the cost of living is a small fraction of what is typical in the US, these workers can afford to work for wages so low that American's can't afford to take them. By sharing costs, and keeping living expenses to a minimum, illegal workers can send dollars back to countries where such currency is able to purchase a much higher standard of living than they would be able to earn working on their own local economy. American workers can't do this - they have rent and utility payments due in dollars at American rates.
At the same time, while we resent the unfair competition that these illegal workers represent, most of us respect the courage, work ethic, and devotion to family that drives someone to risk death or deportation to find work that will provide a better life for their children and families. We understand that the vast majority of these folks aren't robbers, or drug dealers, or murderers. They are normal folks who have strong moral and family values -and make good neighbors and friends. These aren't bad people - but by the nature of who they are and what they are doing - they ARE taking the food off of the tables of American workers.
So if the illegal immigrants aren't the economic terrorists and social parasites that the right wing is claiming, and they aren't the saintly victims of unreasonable prejudice that the left is claiming - who are the bad guys? The answer is simple - the corporations and business owners who are hiring illegals.
Business owners and corporations are almost the exclusive beneficiaries from illegal immigration. Businesses are able to hire illegals for a fraction of the wages that an American would require to live a reasonable lower middle class life. Because of this unfair competition in the labor market, they have been able to lower wages in industries that used to provide respectable working class jobs only a few decades ago. Illegal immigrants do take jobs that many Americans would want. The current classic example is construction. The work crews at most of the construction sites in the Southwest have an inordinately large percentage of illegal immigrants. This isn't by accident. Such workers are willing to take jobs for $8 or $10 per hour that five years ago were paying $10 to $12 per hour and providing good jobs for young Americans just out of high school. Moreover, these workers are at the mercy of their employers. If they complain about unfair treatment, non-existent benefits, safety violations, or illegal activities - they can not only be fired, they can be deported. It's a win/win for business owners - who get to exploit the illegal immigrants, gain a workforce that is almost entirely at their mercy, and keep the extra money they gain by doing so for themselves.
Unfortunately, this exploitation not only hurts the illegal immigrants that have to suffer it, it hurts American workers. As an example, they keep wages so low in the service industries that many Americans simply can't afford to do such work. In many places, it is possible for both parents in a family of four to work full time in such jobs and have the family still not rise above the federal poverty level guidelines.
Business interests claim that illegals take jobs that American's won't do. That's a lie. They take jobs that American's won't do FOR THE STARVATION WAGES BEING OFFERED. Place an advertisement for hotel housekeepers for $15 per hour instead of $6.50 per hour and see how many qualified applicants you'll get. Last year, Senator John McCain met with union representatives to discuss the issue of illegal immigration and told the audience that Americans wouldn't do stoop labor if it paid $50 per hour. He was drowned out by a chorus from the audience who said that they would. The truth of the matter is that there is no job being done by illegal immigrants that American workers wouldn't do if the pay were good enough. If the US labor market was truly a fair and competitive market, businesses would be forced to pay such higher wages. It is only because of the distortion of having a large supply of illegal labor willing to work for noncompetitive wages that they are able to keep wages so low.
So if the bad guys of the illegal immigration issue are clearly the business owners and corporations that hire illegals, and illegal immigration is clearly hurting American workers, why aren't they a prominent part of the debate? Why aren't the Republicans screaming for criminal punishment for those that hire illegals? The reason is simple - the businesses and corporations that hire illegals are also political contributors.
Last month immigration officials raided Swift meat processing plants in a number of states. They found that the number of illegal workers at some plants constituted more than 80% of the workforce. Thousands of workers were detained and are currently being processed for deportation. Local workers in many of these areas had long alleged a clear corporate bias for illegal workers -and had complained to immigration officials and politicians with no result. Yet despite this consistent pattern of hiring large numbers of illegal immigrants visible at plants across a number of states - no corporate officer at Swift has reportedly been detained or threatened with prosecution. Does anyone really doubt that the hiring of illegal immigrants on this scale was done without corporate knowledge and complicity? It was clearly in the Swift company's interest to hire illegals over regular American workers, and they clearly profited by doing so. Yet the only ones who are likely to pay are the workers who got caught, and perhaps a few shift foremen. The corporate officers who benefited from the violations of the law will go off Scot free -and hire more illegals as soon as they feel they can safely do so.
If we want to solve the illegal immigration problem, the only way to do so is to focus our efforts on the businesses and corporations that hire illegal immigrants and create the demand for illegal workers. If the jobs aren't available, illegal immigrants won't come. To do this, we need for existing laws to be enforced, additional laws that make it a criminal offence to hire illegals, regulations that allow a pattern of paying excessively low wages to constitute evidence of an intent to hire illegal aliens and grounds for investigation, and an immigration service that takes its focus away from rounding up illegals at the border to rounding up corporate executives and business owners. When we see border patrol agents at golf courses leading construction company owners and meat processing company executives off in handcuffs, we will know that we are finally getting a handle on illegal immigration.
If the Democratic party wants to really help American workers and take this issue away from the Republicans, that is where their focus needs to be. The real criminals of the illegal immigration issue are the business owners and corporate managers that hire illegal immigrants -and that's where the focus of new legislation and new initiatives needs to be. Not on building fences, making it easier for businesses to use guest worker visas to keep wages artificially low, or punishing the victims. However, I bet that's exactly what we will wind up doing.
The Democratic response was to mobilize large numbers of the hispanic community, including large numbers of illegals, and claim that illegal immigration wasn't a problem but rather a benefit to America. By pointing out the inherent racism of the Republican rhetoric, they cynically hoped to score big popularity points in the hispanic community - a key battleground demographic in a lot of purple states. To an extent, it worked. They gained significantly in popularity with hispanic voters. However, with typical Democratic shortsightedness, they did so at the expense of credibility with middle America.
Middle America understands that, rhetoric aside, illegal immigration IS a serious problem for the American worker. While the rhetoric about their drain on social services is largely fictitious, we all know that illegal immigrants do take American jobs, and that they drive down wages in the industries in which they work. The truth is that, coming from countries where the cost of living is a small fraction of what is typical in the US, these workers can afford to work for wages so low that American's can't afford to take them. By sharing costs, and keeping living expenses to a minimum, illegal workers can send dollars back to countries where such currency is able to purchase a much higher standard of living than they would be able to earn working on their own local economy. American workers can't do this - they have rent and utility payments due in dollars at American rates.
At the same time, while we resent the unfair competition that these illegal workers represent, most of us respect the courage, work ethic, and devotion to family that drives someone to risk death or deportation to find work that will provide a better life for their children and families. We understand that the vast majority of these folks aren't robbers, or drug dealers, or murderers. They are normal folks who have strong moral and family values -and make good neighbors and friends. These aren't bad people - but by the nature of who they are and what they are doing - they ARE taking the food off of the tables of American workers.
So if the illegal immigrants aren't the economic terrorists and social parasites that the right wing is claiming, and they aren't the saintly victims of unreasonable prejudice that the left is claiming - who are the bad guys? The answer is simple - the corporations and business owners who are hiring illegals.
Business owners and corporations are almost the exclusive beneficiaries from illegal immigration. Businesses are able to hire illegals for a fraction of the wages that an American would require to live a reasonable lower middle class life. Because of this unfair competition in the labor market, they have been able to lower wages in industries that used to provide respectable working class jobs only a few decades ago. Illegal immigrants do take jobs that many Americans would want. The current classic example is construction. The work crews at most of the construction sites in the Southwest have an inordinately large percentage of illegal immigrants. This isn't by accident. Such workers are willing to take jobs for $8 or $10 per hour that five years ago were paying $10 to $12 per hour and providing good jobs for young Americans just out of high school. Moreover, these workers are at the mercy of their employers. If they complain about unfair treatment, non-existent benefits, safety violations, or illegal activities - they can not only be fired, they can be deported. It's a win/win for business owners - who get to exploit the illegal immigrants, gain a workforce that is almost entirely at their mercy, and keep the extra money they gain by doing so for themselves.
Unfortunately, this exploitation not only hurts the illegal immigrants that have to suffer it, it hurts American workers. As an example, they keep wages so low in the service industries that many Americans simply can't afford to do such work. In many places, it is possible for both parents in a family of four to work full time in such jobs and have the family still not rise above the federal poverty level guidelines.
Business interests claim that illegals take jobs that American's won't do. That's a lie. They take jobs that American's won't do FOR THE STARVATION WAGES BEING OFFERED. Place an advertisement for hotel housekeepers for $15 per hour instead of $6.50 per hour and see how many qualified applicants you'll get. Last year, Senator John McCain met with union representatives to discuss the issue of illegal immigration and told the audience that Americans wouldn't do stoop labor if it paid $50 per hour. He was drowned out by a chorus from the audience who said that they would. The truth of the matter is that there is no job being done by illegal immigrants that American workers wouldn't do if the pay were good enough. If the US labor market was truly a fair and competitive market, businesses would be forced to pay such higher wages. It is only because of the distortion of having a large supply of illegal labor willing to work for noncompetitive wages that they are able to keep wages so low.
So if the bad guys of the illegal immigration issue are clearly the business owners and corporations that hire illegals, and illegal immigration is clearly hurting American workers, why aren't they a prominent part of the debate? Why aren't the Republicans screaming for criminal punishment for those that hire illegals? The reason is simple - the businesses and corporations that hire illegals are also political contributors.
Last month immigration officials raided Swift meat processing plants in a number of states. They found that the number of illegal workers at some plants constituted more than 80% of the workforce. Thousands of workers were detained and are currently being processed for deportation. Local workers in many of these areas had long alleged a clear corporate bias for illegal workers -and had complained to immigration officials and politicians with no result. Yet despite this consistent pattern of hiring large numbers of illegal immigrants visible at plants across a number of states - no corporate officer at Swift has reportedly been detained or threatened with prosecution. Does anyone really doubt that the hiring of illegal immigrants on this scale was done without corporate knowledge and complicity? It was clearly in the Swift company's interest to hire illegals over regular American workers, and they clearly profited by doing so. Yet the only ones who are likely to pay are the workers who got caught, and perhaps a few shift foremen. The corporate officers who benefited from the violations of the law will go off Scot free -and hire more illegals as soon as they feel they can safely do so.
If we want to solve the illegal immigration problem, the only way to do so is to focus our efforts on the businesses and corporations that hire illegal immigrants and create the demand for illegal workers. If the jobs aren't available, illegal immigrants won't come. To do this, we need for existing laws to be enforced, additional laws that make it a criminal offence to hire illegals, regulations that allow a pattern of paying excessively low wages to constitute evidence of an intent to hire illegal aliens and grounds for investigation, and an immigration service that takes its focus away from rounding up illegals at the border to rounding up corporate executives and business owners. When we see border patrol agents at golf courses leading construction company owners and meat processing company executives off in handcuffs, we will know that we are finally getting a handle on illegal immigration.
If the Democratic party wants to really help American workers and take this issue away from the Republicans, that is where their focus needs to be. The real criminals of the illegal immigration issue are the business owners and corporate managers that hire illegal immigrants -and that's where the focus of new legislation and new initiatives needs to be. Not on building fences, making it easier for businesses to use guest worker visas to keep wages artificially low, or punishing the victims. However, I bet that's exactly what we will wind up doing.
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