Unfair, Unworkable and Unwise

More Reasons Why the Kennedy McCain Amnesty Bill Must Be Stopped

The dilemma of illegal immigration is multifaceted, complex and fundamental to our status as a sovereign nation. One relevant perspective is that of economic justice: the idea that the people who pay for something should be the ones to benefit from it. The USA is the most business friendly country that the world has ever known. Over the generations, US taxpayers have built up infrastructure that is the envy of the world: superhighways, bridges, schools, etc. Moreover, they have developed a culture that is remarkably free of graft and corruption. The culture is basically honest, believes in the rule of law and backs up that law with police and courts to enforce it. That infrastructure and culture are every bit as necessary to starting, or expanding, a business venture as is the capital investment. When a businessman creates a job opening and then awards that job to an illegal alien he excludes from that opportunity the very people who funded the infrastructure that made it possible. Generations of American taxpayers have built up their society for the benefit of themselves, their children and grandchildren; they certainly didn’t build it to provide opportunities for people from foreign countries or to educate the children of foreigners. Ancestors of today’s illegal aliens never paid a dime to finance public works in the United States and illegal immigrants themselves pay almost nothing either. Often paid in cash, the illegal alien workforce works in an unregulated typically untaxed shadow economy. Some illegal alien workers do file income taxes using ITIN’s but, due to the progressive nature of US income taxes (and the generous exemptions for children), even those who file often pay little or nothing. It is true that everyone who lives here pays sales taxes, but illegal aliens often send the bulk of their earnings back to families in their home countries. Much of their spending is for food and medicine, which is exempt from sales taxes in many states. Likewise, few illegal aliens own real estate and often don’t register their vehicles, so there is little property tax paid either. Illegal alien employment typically comes with few benefits and illegal aliens who get sick often use the hospital emergency room as a primary care facility and rarely, if ever, pay the bill. For this reason ER’s have closed in many US border states, leaving the local citizenry vulnerable. Yet some businessmen advocate the free flow of workers across the US border as if there existed some kind of free trade level playing field; in point of fact the only playing field that exists is the one that the US taxpayer pays for. That’s not to say that the American citizen receives no benefit from illegal immigration; he might save 5 cents on a head of lettuce or $2 on the cost of a night’s hotel stay, but that is small compensation for losing his national soverignty.

President Bush liked to talk about “jobs Americans won’t do” and later changed it to the equally nonsensical “jobs Americans aren’t doing”, as though the country would grind to a halt without illegal immigrant labor. Yet illegal immigration has only been prevalent in this country for about six years, which makes one wonder how we functioned before then. For the record, there is no job that an American won’t do; there are only jobs Americans won’t do for slave wages. Higher wages paid to Americans for unskilled work decreases income inequality and improves economic opportunity for poor people. In the short term, it also tends to decrease corporate profits slightly, which is why so many businesses prefer to hire illegal immigrants.

As compelling as the idea of economic justice is, the free trade justification for illegal border crossing really falls apart when one considers the human element. Workers are human beings and they all have language, culture and political interests. Illegal immigration poses risks that an orderly legal immigration process does not. There are the public health risks of disease and the influx of dangerous criminals. We don’t even know how many people are here illegally; guesses range from 10 million to 30 million. Even among nonviolent illegal immigrants there are the questions of culture, language and loyalty. Those who enter illegally typically don’t speak English and live in isolated ethnic groups. Recognizing this situation, amnesty advocates promise an “earned path to citizenship” rather than outright amnesty, but practically speaking it is a distinction without a difference. It is most likely that the US Citizenship and Immigration Service would be overwhelmed by the likely 10 million plus applications for citizenship. It would take a massive investment in manpower and training to make any serious effort at background checks of the millions of applicants. Even with the necessary staff these investigations would be a daunting task. Just how does one go about checking the documentation of undocumented workers? Receipts and employment records could be easily forged. Illegal workers often use more than one name, use made up (or stolen) social security numbers and are often paid in cash. One would hope that, at a minimum, criminal records would be checked, but multiple identities spread across fifty states, and two countries, would make such a task very difficult. Under pressure from immigrants rights groups and a congress trying to cut costs, the “background checks” would just degenerate into rubber stamps, just like it did with the 1986 amnesty. The people writing the Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill know that talk of background checks and making distinctions between applicants (based on how long they have lived here) are just rhetoric to get the bill passed. The Democrats want new poor people to vote for them and the Republicans want cheap labor; as for further consequences of an amnesty law, they really don’t care.

Immigrants traditionally have had a desire to join in the culture and the political discourse of their new country, but there is little evidence that most of today’s illegal immigrants really want the responsibilities of American citizenship. The surest example of this is the immigrants rights rallies last spring in American cities. Instead of marchers proclaiming their love for America and their desire to adopt American culture, there were millions of angry Mexicans, waving the Mexican flag, chanting in Spanish and demanding their “human rights.” March organizers saw how such a display would hurt their cause and asked later marchers to carry American flags, but the message had already been sent; it sounded a whole lot more like “Reconquista” than “God bless America.” Even after becoming citizens, it is likely that most of these immigrants would remain in isolated ethnic enclaves. They would vote along ethnic lines and they would not be champions of business friendly legislation; poor people usually aren’t. They will have little reason to learn to speak English, and most never will, despite what Senators Kennedy or McCain may promise otherwise. Most of this crop of immigrants didn’t come to this country yearning to breathe free; they’re just here for the money. The USA would be on its way to becoming a balkanized bilingual oligarchy, with a small ruling elite, masses of poor people and no middle class in between.

So why should the US taxpayer spend tens of billions of dollars to reward people for breaking US law, drive down wages and increase unemployment? Why hand US citizenship to people, some of whom believe that the southwestern US rightfully belongs to Mexico anyway? All of this to save five cents on a head of lettuce? That sounds like bad deal any way you slice it.

Stuart Jones is a writer and professional engineer. He lives with his wife and young son in Campbell County, Virginia.

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