Are you a Mexi-can or a Mexi-can’t?

The problem with illegal immigration is that it’s illegal

2006.04.04 — Business | Law | Jobs | by Derek Jensen

With Republicans getting the living hell beaten out of them on the Iraq War, the economy, Katrina, corruption, the national debt, warrantless surveillance, and shooting guys in the face with shotguns, they have retreated back to their base like hermit crabs into their shells. That base is simple: thinly-disguised racism.

Congressman Tom Tancredo wants to build a 700-mile wall between the US and Mexico. To be fair, he says it would be a fence, presumably a chain-link fence, so it would be made of iron and sort of flexible, like a curtain.

Tancredo's not alone. Arlen Spector and other, more moderate, Republicans in Congress are not far behind, along with pundits like Lou "I will burn your filthy barrios to the ground with my righteous anger!" Dobbs. These people want all the illegals deported if possible and stopped from entering the country to begin with.

But conservatives aren't all in agreement. Spector and George Will admit that it's ridiculous to imagine that we could deport eleven million illegal immigrants (it took a SWAT team to send Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba, remember?). But at least this is about the law, Will says. He says he's heartened by the fact that there are no strains of white supremacy in this debate, but maybe he's a little tone deaf. He also thinks black people don't like Hispanic immigration because it suppresses wages, but that sounds a little too much like the old debate.

They're takin' our jobs!

When we had this debate twenty years ago, it was about jobs. The anti-immigration crowd complained that Mexicans were taking our jobs. They can't claim that today, of course; it's ridiculous. Thinking people know that immigrants from Mexico and points south take jobs that no one else in America wants, especially for the money being offered. If anything, the Mexicans are only taking jobs away from Poles, Ukrainians, West Africans, and other immigrants who themselves may not be legal. NAFTA didn't help Mexicans as much as Ross Perot feared (and I hoped) it would, but with less than 5% unemployment in the US, it's clear they aren't really taking jobs from anyone in our own country.

Of course, the debate twenty years ago wasn't really about jobs. It was about culture. White Southwesterners were not comfortable with large populations of brown-skinned people who didn't speak English flooding their states. No one has ever complained about filthy Canadians taking all the good lumberjack jobs in the American Northwest.

But what is the debate today about? For Tancredo, it seems to be that immigrating illegally is illegal. These people are somehow cheating by not being born here and not jumping thru hoops to come here legally. But we all know that US Immigration Services could never process all the immigration—in both directions—that goes on between the US and Mexico and would block most of it if it could.

The law's the problem?

But laws can be changed, and it's Tancredo's job to change them. If the only problem with illegal immigration was that it is illegal—and it is—Tancredo could sponsor a bill to make it legal for Mexicans and South and Central Americans to pass freely in and out of this country with nothing more than a picture ID. Apply for a Social Security number (not that you'll ever be collecting American Social Security, amigo) and a "guest worker" driver's permit, and get yourself any job you're qualified for. Problem solved. Stay as long as you want, but if you want to vote, you'll have to become a citizen.

And we need them to stay. Without the millions of Hispanic immigrants cooking, cleaning, picking vegetables, and taking care of lawns, this country would grind to a halt. Not only is it stupid to imagine getting rid of them, it's stupid to even resent them. No American wants those low-paying jobs, not even unemployed black people, for whom cooking, cleaning, and field work stink of Susan, Tom, and King Cotton.

UPDATE 2006.04.06: Many conservatives make the claim that illegal aliens from south of the border are thieves, stealing the benefits of American citizenship without paying the price. But this is narrowminded jingoism. First, illegals don't have anything like the benefits of legal alien residents, who get green cards so they can good jobs, let alone full citizens, who can vote. They certainly benefit from social services, but their contribution to the economy overbalances that. They aren't stealing the American dream; they are participating in it. And that makes us all wealthier.

Some dubiously claim that terrorists could be crossing our porous borders along with hard-working Mexicans. Are you worried about terrorists sneaking into the country via Mexico? Make Mexican immigration legal and you'll eliminate the underground highway that could facilitate Arab terrorists from slipping in—not that Mexicans would ever knowingly aid al-Qaeda anyway; I mean, seriously, how would non-Spanish-speaking Arabs get into a panel van out of Juarez? Besides, the 9/11 terrorists simply applied for visas and were allowed into this country legally—and not much about that process has changed.

Some imagine a European-style guest worker program, but that just ghettoizes the immigrants and makes them second-class non-citizens. They must be given a means of becoming citizens if that's what they want. It's the only decent reward for coming to America and bussing tables for several years (or fighting our foreign wars).

The real reason for anti-immigration fervor remains the same as always: white people aren't comfortable with large populations of brown-skinned people who don't speak English flooding their states. There's a solution for that too: broad, inexpensive, adult English language classes. These would be taught largely by second-generation Hispanic Americans who simultaneously can help assimilate the new workers into American culture in other ways, like getting legal work and learning to love Mexican food.

f e e d b a c k

F Stobie writes:

nice logic. did you hear frank deford's comments this morning [2006.04.12] on npr? he spoke to the racism that exists in realation to the duke scandal and barry bonds. what mechanism do you recommend to make the illegals legal?

Derek Jensen replies:

Frank Deford is great. He makes sports seem interesting even to me.

On the immigration question, I like the McCain-Kennedy plan to let them earn citizenship after a few years (and a fat fine), but I would be even more lenient. I would basically say that if you're from Mexico or further south, then you can come to work in America. You get a card like a green card but more restrictive and with that you can apply for regular jobs and pay taxes. If you've had that card for at least 2 years and you can show you've been a resident more or less continuously for at least 5 years and can pass a citizenship test that my mom could pass, then you can be a citizen. The effect would basically be no different from what happens today except these people would:

A) have an incentive to learn English

B) pay taxes

C) not waste our resources chasing them down and returning them to Mexico

D) not create conduits for genuine bad guys to enter the country

E) eventually vote for me

Respond to this page by your e-mail client. Please be sure to mention the title of the article.

s i d e b a r