Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Crime & Punishment Illegal Immigration and Appropriate Penalties

Hmmm...interesting Toots Sure, interesting.

Gosh, well...seems like the human solution to territorial disputes always wind up being the same formula. If you can't achieve imperious success via diplomacy...kill'em.

I recently saw a program about how a large tribe of chimps guarded fig trees from outsider chimps coming in to feed. The large tribe would kinda hide in the thicket of the jungle, watching the outsider chimps ascend up the fig tree, grab a few sweet figs, then the large tribe of males would rush up the tree, beat the hell out of the outsiders...killing as many as possible, then they ate the dead chimps.

I thought to myself, "This seems all too familiar, somehow".

Maybe there is a workable solution with some history: We have had two additional paths for foreigners in the past, one for temporary workers and one for citizenship, and they both worked quite well.

I'm talking about California's Bracero Program for Mexican farm workers, and foreign recruitment for the Armed Forces. Maybe we could combine ideas from those two programs to create a Farm Corps (FC) that would give existing illegal immigrants and new applicants work assignments under humane conditions. The FC would contract with farmers, packing plants, etc. to offer them minimally trained workers at a slightly sub-minimum wage rate. The FC would also supply uniforms, barracks, mess halls, and sanitary facilities for the workers or require similar standard facilities for workers who live on or near the work sites. (I would really prefer my salad ingredients being picked by somebody who washed their hands after relieving themselves!)

FC workers would be free from fear of deportation (as long as they behaved reasonably well), could safely send money home to their families, would have humane working and living conditions, and after a number of years (3, 5, 20?) with a clean record could enter a citizenship program. That program could include English and US history and culture classes, so the resulting free citizens would be assimilated as well as any long-term resident immigrant can be. If we can make such a program much more attractive for the workers than the current situation, then we could get very high participation. That would also solve many of the security problems with the current mess because the FC would know exactly who they had, and where they were working and living.

But, the argument of the businesses making the 'indispensable to the economy' argument, as far as I can tell, is that the sub-minimum wages are *needed*, otherwise the(ir) economy will suffer. I don't think that's what Phil meant; but I am not familiar with the spectrum of 'economic necessity' arguments - can either you or Phil enlighten me?

I don't think I'm picking nits here, either... I think everyone agrees that laws against the *employer* are woefully under-enforced, and I suspect that the times they are enforced are either for political advantage or perhaps political punishment ('give to my campaign, you don't have to worry about an INS raid' - I have no evidence of that, just a suspicion). So, I wonder if the economic argument is mostly a red herring.


But how many are there? I've asked this question before (many months ago), and no one had an answer, that I can recall. However, I did some digging just now, and I found out that we actually *have no maximum* for immigration from Mexico, apparently! And legal immigration has varied anywhere from 90,000 to 900,000 over the last 20 years (highest in 1991, lowest in 1995), with legal immigration over the last 5 years (02 to 06) being 218k, 115k, 175k, 161k and 174k ( numbers from the Migration Policy Institute)... so apparently there is no waiting line, per se... can anyone verify this is true, or not true? Because that would eliminate the argument I thought I had (that granting amnesty to illegal immigrants hurts the ones waiting to immigrate legally..)



True to the first part, about enforcement. The second part, I still think is just a red herring. They have higher 'profitability' because the laws aren't enforced; the laws aren't enforced because they skew the political and legal system with bribes and lobbyists; they can pay bribes and lobbyists because they have higher profitability. Rather than guarantee them acceptable profitability if they obey the law, I think it would be just as (or more) effective to guarantee them non-profitability if they don't!


Understood. Also, it can't be argumentative, because I still don't understand the problem enough to even think of what position I might have!

I still haven't definitely verified that there is not really a 'waiting list'; and I still don't know how these workers are indispensable, and what would happen if we didn't have them, or if they were all legalized and were paid a legal wage. I have heard reasonable arguments both ways - in fact, I am somewhat more convinced that the U.S. economy would be better for those at the bottom, virtually the same for those in the middle, and worse for those at the top... one good summary of this aspect is in this article.

In the end, though, no matter what position I might take, I have to agree that:
1) It is simply not feasible to deport all 12 million illegal immigrants (I would add that in some cases, especially where children have been born and raised here, it would be immoral to do so.) At the same time, there should be some penalty for those that have broken the law.
2) Whatever laws we have, including the current ones, should be enforced *especially* against the employers - because they are the ones that are unfairly profiting from an illegal action, and without them providing an illegal incentive, there would not be illegal immigrants.

Beyond that, I have to learn more.

If, by waiting list, people are referring to the green card lottery, here's some info from Immigration -- bold added by me.

"The Congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually, drawn from random selection among all entries to persons who meet strict eligibility requirements from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States."

also

"For DV-2009, natives of the following countries1 are not eligible to apply because they sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. over the period of the previous five years:

BRAZIL, CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, ECUADOR, EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, PERU, POLAND, RUSSIA, SOUTH KOREA, UNITED KINGDOM (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and VIETNAM. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible."

Whether or not this is the waiting list you're referring to, I'm not sure.


What, in theory, we have now is a situation where it should be expensive for them to break the law. However, since the corporations seem to own a large number of the enforcers, this does not work. I believe the only way to make it work is to make it a good business decision to work within the law, and a poorer business decision to work outside it.

Again, only because enforcement agencies are either too small, or bought and paid for. ICE already knows who the major employers are -- good heavens, I can name several just off the top of my head. If they're not being busted now, it's because nobody wants them busted.

Reality Bytes, I don't have links available at the moment, but have read reports that quote growers here in California complain that jobs in the fields go begging even when above minimum wages are being paid and that only by expanding the migrant worker program to include more who arrive without permission can the crops get picked.

Obviously I don't know that from personal experience and they could be blowing smoke, but that is what they claim. Yes, I am sure there is some wage that would draw workers from other employment, but that is when they claim produce would no longer be available at the prices Americans are accustomed to.

That is the "economic necessity" argument I refer to.

damn illegal immigrants.

what will we do with them.

round em up and send em home i say.


"But as nine countries, including the Czech Republic, join the European Union's borderless Schengen zone Friday, Brussels is now ordering member states to get tough on visa policy.

That could spell trouble for an unlikely class of illegal immigrants: American expats. Attracted by English teaching jobs, the low cost of living, and societies just waking up to the possibilities of Western tourism, thousands are estimated to be living and working illegally in central and eastern Europe.

"

CSMonitor

Closing quote from the article--

and?

I will sleep tonight wondering about possible European reactions to 20,000 American English teachers marching through Prague, waving American flags and demanding their rights to full European citizenship

What I was referring to was the 'waiting list' (if there is any) to be one of the 173,753 legal immigrants in 2006... I don't know if these are 'permanent resident visas', or seasonal, or tourist - do you? Whatever the case, if there is a waiting list, I'd like to know how long is the typical waiting period, and how many people are on it... I have looked quite a bit and cannot find this information.


Indeed that does seem to be the case.
Incidentally, I just ran across this:
Illegal immigrants packing up and leaving Arizona

Apparently there's some new state law that appears to be the same as existing federal law, but now it's going to be enforced? The article says that a lot of immigrants are picking up and leaving, and suggesting that the economy will suffer even more than it is now. Others say not...

Do you think this is a Good Thing? I'm wondering, if there *is* a waiting list for legal immigrants, this would be the ideal time to speed up the process of getting more legal immigrants in, and working, and businesses will have less ability to take advantage of them. That's what I would hope would happen, anyway.

Your thoughts?