Re: They Just Want to Come Here and Be Americans and A Modest Proposal

Scott H weighs in with some points I thought were worth sharing:

Here's one of the problems with the laws that are being broken though. First I will admit that there are some jobs for which it is difficult to find American workers at any wage. Employers like immigrants because they will do the work. Otherwise they'd have to move their facitilies to Mexico to address the labor shortage - this would likely be cheaper than paying Americans what it would take to get them to do some of this stuff.

My main point though is that for many of these employers legal immigration is not going to solve the demand for illegal immigration. Many employers prefer illegal immigrants because they are not protected by the laws and have no rights. Employers prefer not to have to pay overtime, to be able to fire for organizing, to be able to blacklist and fire for objecting to work conditions (or other practices such as charging money for the water they provide and firing those who do not buy it). These employers seek to avoid laws regarding labor conditions and workplaces. This is an important issue that will need to be addressed if a real improvement is going to occur, and I do not think that allowing illegal immigrants to come in and work with minimal rights will truly solve it, for once they have legal status they will be better positioned to seek and gain rights and it will not be politically palatable to deny these rights to them. Then illegal immigrants will start taking the jobs of legal immigrants.

So what is the answer? I don't know. I guess either lowering U.S. labor standards and expectations across the board OR great increases in border security and expulsion of illegal immigrants WHILE reforming legal immigration.

There's a saying that's been posted far and wide across blogs recently about the perfect being the enemy of the good.

We can agree that something must be done about the borders, either to open them or to work toward reasonably securing them. We can agree what criteria is appropriate for citizenship, including whether there is any criteria. But we can't expect any criteria to be perfect.

This secondary problem - employer exploitation - can and should be dealt with. But it's no excuse to fail to act appropriately to solve other problems.

Lastly, Scott H. adds:

...I saw an interesting piece on PBS the other day about Texas, which reminded me that Texas separated from Mexico largely because it's population became overrun with white U.S. citizens and the Mexican government sought to take away the rights and land of the U.S. settlers (or at least that is what the whites believed).

Disclaimer: I'm not saying the situation is the same in reverse today. Just thought people would find it interesting.