The American Contradiction 2
One of my favorite funk groups, Cameo, has a song called "Talking Out The Side Of Yo' Neck." And I thinkthat sums up what we do on immigration. I think we're ambivalent about it. Don't get me wrong. When we see video of people running across the border, I think it angers us. I think it's because we see people taking something that's not rightfully theirs. No other country puts up with this. Even Mexico has draconian laws about illegal immigration. But for some reason, we're not allowed to criticize it or we're labeled a racist. It shouldn't work that way.
I understand this issue. There are people who came here legally who are outraged by illegals cutting in line. I don't blame them. If it took you years to come here and work hard and assimilate and become an American citizen and someone runs across the border and has everything you have in a quarter of the time, that's not right. That's not fair.
It's not fair for the federal government to leave it to the states to clothe, feed, educate and provide medical care for illegals when it's the feds that control the border. They're crossing an international border, yet, in our instance, it's only California taxpayers who have to foot the bill. Or its Arizona taxpayers. Or Texans. Or New Mexicans.
And we can't deny the danger of having people enter willy nilly. It's too dangerous in this era. If someone can smuggle a hundred pounds of drugs through our borders, they can smuggle a suitcase nuke. They can smuggle a pound of anthrax or VX gas or sarin. Or they can enter this country infected with HIV, SARS, bird flu, TB or whatever. And we won't know until they infect others. That's one of the reason why we control immigration. We want to make sure people coming in are healthy.
Americans aren't racist for wanting that protection.
But we do enjoy their cheap labor. We enjoy their cheap labor on cruise ships, in maid service, food service, gardening and landscaping, construction, and agriculture. While their labor depresses wages, it also depresses prices. We benefit from that. We've been too focused on just agriculture. Illegal work touches a wide swath of American life. And we enjoy it.
Now, if illegal workers were deported, I'm not one who believes our country would collapse, but it would change. One of the changes would be an increase in wages because Americans will do those jobs but at a higher price. That also means an increase in prices. And if that's the way America wants to go to allow fairness, protect jobs, provide security etc... then I'm for that. But I don't think for a minute that we'll do that.
Some people are angry with me for talking about this contradiction but it's there.
I don't have all the answers. I don't pretend to. And I'm not going to satisfy everyone. But I do know that we enjoy exploiting that cheap labor. It's immoral but that's never stopped us before.
I understand this issue. There are people who came here legally who are outraged by illegals cutting in line. I don't blame them. If it took you years to come here and work hard and assimilate and become an American citizen and someone runs across the border and has everything you have in a quarter of the time, that's not right. That's not fair.
It's not fair for the federal government to leave it to the states to clothe, feed, educate and provide medical care for illegals when it's the feds that control the border. They're crossing an international border, yet, in our instance, it's only California taxpayers who have to foot the bill. Or its Arizona taxpayers. Or Texans. Or New Mexicans.
And we can't deny the danger of having people enter willy nilly. It's too dangerous in this era. If someone can smuggle a hundred pounds of drugs through our borders, they can smuggle a suitcase nuke. They can smuggle a pound of anthrax or VX gas or sarin. Or they can enter this country infected with HIV, SARS, bird flu, TB or whatever. And we won't know until they infect others. That's one of the reason why we control immigration. We want to make sure people coming in are healthy.
Americans aren't racist for wanting that protection.
But we do enjoy their cheap labor. We enjoy their cheap labor on cruise ships, in maid service, food service, gardening and landscaping, construction, and agriculture. While their labor depresses wages, it also depresses prices. We benefit from that. We've been too focused on just agriculture. Illegal work touches a wide swath of American life. And we enjoy it.
Now, if illegal workers were deported, I'm not one who believes our country would collapse, but it would change. One of the changes would be an increase in wages because Americans will do those jobs but at a higher price. That also means an increase in prices. And if that's the way America wants to go to allow fairness, protect jobs, provide security etc... then I'm for that. But I don't think for a minute that we'll do that.
Some people are angry with me for talking about this contradiction but it's there.
I don't have all the answers. I don't pretend to. And I'm not going to satisfy everyone. But I do know that we enjoy exploiting that cheap labor. It's immoral but that's never stopped us before.
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