The Illegal Immigration Debate and Protest

Yesterday we saw an amazing display of American Civics with massive protests across the US in defense of immigrants coming to this country.

In thinking about illegal immigration there are a lot of misconceptions. The protests made me think about some of the claims being made.

Illegal Immigration does drive down the wages of American workers. People coming here to work for under the minimum wage which is way below a livable wage to begin with. That is why Business wants a guest worker program; it creates an indentured servitude where people would be dependent on the businesses to stay in America.

Its not that Americans do not want to do the jobs, its that they do not want to do them at those wages. Americans want silly things like living wages and health care.

Illegal Immigration unfortunately hurts Black Americans for this reason. Black Americans would do many of these jobs, given they paid a livable wage. Raising the wages of jobs now done below the legal wage will help poor White and Black Americans to compete for these jobs and raise them out of poverty.

Further many of these jobs cannot be outsourced, so making them livable jobs with healthcare will increase the standard of living for millions of Americans providing them and their families’ opportunities to prosper and raising their consumption and thus growth of the American economy.

This is why we need real legislation to tackle the issue. Sheila Jackson Lee discussed her plan which I think is great on Democracy Now. (Its not on her website because if you know her, you know she has no one working for her who has the time to do it.)

First and foremost we need a path citizenship. And not just for those here, but a larger number of green cards to deter the illegal crossing which is stressing the resources of South West states and dangerous to the immigrants themselves.

The Democratic Bill doesn’t seem to bad, except that it takes forever, but if you pay taxes, learn English, work, and are generally a good contributor to the fabric of the America, what more can we ask? What more was asked of most of our ancestors?

Lee ads this part which is good:

We eliminated or provided penalties for the utilization of fraudulent documents, for the abuse of women, for the abuse of workplace, which would take advantage of those who are undocumented. We insisted that employees provided a safe workplace and a workplace with dignity and equal rights. We also provided for the anti-smuggling provisions that would stop the coyotes from bringing individuals across the border and causing danger to their lives.

It is not like Illegal Immigrants get some sort of joy of being our indentured slaves cleaning all we don’t want to clean. They have come to give the best life for their children as possible.

If we don’t do something humane to bring these 11 million immigrants into the American fold, we should just take the sign down from the Statue of Liberty.