 |
|
|
 |
|
Illegal immigrants, we are told:
Do jobs (picking lettuce, washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning rooms in hotels) that U.S. citizens won't do at prevailing wages. This is good, because the work gets done and labor costs and retail prices don't increase. This is bad, because there are U.S. citizens who would do the work if paid a better wage. Who really knows?
Work as skilled laborers (carpenters, masons) for lower wages than similarly skilled U.S. citizens will. This is good, because it keeps costs and prices down. This is bad, because it undermines trade unions and because U.S. citizens must either work for less or go on the unemployment rolls. Who really knows?
Increase the violent crime rate and endanger the lives of federal agents and state and city police. This is true, because the media report many stories of violence at the U.S.-Mexico border and of violence on the part of smugglers who bring illegal immigrants to U.S. cities. This is false, according to statistics reported in the media. For example, violent crime rates in Nogales and Yuma, Arizona border cities, are flat. And in Arizona as a whole, the violent crime rate dropped from 512 per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 in 2008. Who really knows?
Use U.S. public services without paying for them. This is true (and bad), because they jam hospital emergency rooms and lack the insurance or cash to take care of their bills. They also crowd school classrooms and need special--and expensive--programs like bilingual education. They are getting a free pass because in most instances they do not pay income or property taxes. This is only partly true (and not bad), because they pay sales taxes, gas taxes, and excise taxes. Indirectly, they pay property taxes because landlords figure the cost of taxes into the rent that they charge. And--unlike U.S. citizens, most of whom get back more than they put in--they will never participate in draining the Treasury by drawing payments from Social Security or support from Medicare. Who really knows?
Lack the education to be good citizens and tend to band together, perpetuating their own culture, rather than assimilate. This is true (and bad), because it will lead to the formation of a permanent underclass and divide the country. This is false (and not bad), because it doesn't take a lot of education to be a good citizen and, in time, through such programs as bilingual education, many illegals will become assimilated and both cultures will intermingle and borrow from each other. Who really knows?
Regardless of the inadequate state of our knowledge, a majority of U.S. citizens perceive a problem with illegal immigration and want something done about it. Like what?
Seal the border? Easy to say, hard to do. There are already 6,000 federal agents in Arizona alone, most of them employed by the Border Patrol. This works out to 10 agents for every mile of the international border between Arizona and Sonora. Can the territory be covered any better? Given all of the fiscal problems that the country faces, do we really want to spend more money on additional agents? What about electronic surveillance, a "virtual" fence? This has been tried and did not work well. Sensors could not tell the difference between wildlife and humans. And when humans were detected, it was difficult to track them as they fled into a vast wilderness.
Drastically reduce the American demand for drugs which is luring drug smugglers into this country? We've had the War on Drugs for years now, and it has been largely ineffective.
Establish severe consequences for employers who hire illegals? Shut them down? Fine them heavily? Anything more than wrist slaps would have serious repercussions, given the political clout of American enterprise, and would also be unfair to the legal citizens who work for companies that hire illegals.
Grant amnesty and establish a path to citizenship for illegals already settled here? The rigamarole necessary to accomplish this would be a bureaucratic nightmare and would do nothing to deter other illegals from sneaking in to find work.
Strictly enforce Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which makes the failure of an alien to register and carry certain registration documents a state crime? Vigorously seek them out and turn them over to ICE for possible deportation? What's wrong with this, other than that deportation may break apart families who have established themselves in the U.S. and, save for being here illegally, are law-abiding and productive members of society? Racial profiling is what's wrong, say critics of the Bill. True, Section 2 of the Bill states that a police officer "may not consider race, color, or national origin in the enforcement" of the law. It requires the officer to first make a lawful stop in the enforcement of another law or ordinance. Only then, if he finds reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien, does he contact ICE to verify the alien's immigration status. This language fools no one. Everyone, both those for and against the Bill, knows that its language encourages an officer to be suspicious and to search for reasons to detain brown-skinned people on some minor charge--littering, excessive noise, broken taillight, lane change without a signal--so that he can then become officially "suspicious" of their immigration status and have it checked out.
Clearly, such an approach is racial profiling. Equally clearly, in Arizona at least, racial profiling is the only way to succeed at enforcing the law. Nearly all of the illegals in AZ are of Hispanic descent; it would be a waste of time and effort to detain and question white-skinned persons about their residential status. So it comes down to these options for law-enforcement officers:
Enforce the law aggressively and openly profile, which itself is against the law (and which a majority of U.S. citizens would probably feel is wrong).
Enforce the law aggressively and declare that you are against profiling, but then go ahead and profile (and which a majority of U.S. citizens would probably be willing to accept).
Continue with the current, unwritten, policy, which in Arizona means: stop as many illegals at the border as you can without adding agents or checkpoints; don't go out of your way to find illegals; ask for I.D. when the occasion seems to demand it (an accident, a crime, a large number of Hispanics employed by one business or found crowded into a smuggler's truck or drophouse); countenance Sheriff Joe Arpaio's conducting of sporadic and highly publicized raids to throw a scare into illegals and the businesses that hire them and to give the public the feeling that something is being done. In other words, muddle through the way we have been, with the economy, rather than the law, being the major factor in the controlling of illegals.
Of the three options, I prefer the last.
|
|
|