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Economic realities of immigration trump political borders

By: MICHAEL J. WILLIAMS - Staff Writer

In his column appearing in The Californian on Aug. 26 ("Both parties fuel immigration rage"), Jay Bookman correctly asserts that solutions to illegal immigration aimed at the immigrants won't work because they do not address the "overpowering economic incentive creating that tide."

He maintains that only by removing the economic incentive can illegal immigration be controlled at an acceptable rate. That is also true.

Bookman concludes that "simple policy changes, such as requiring businesses to confirm a job applicant's name and Social Security number with a government agency" as well as enforcement and punishment of employers hiring illegal immigrants, would do much to remove the economic incentive. He ponders why legislators have failed to advocate such approaches.


The answer is simple: They don't work. The Simpson-Rodino bill of 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, took the carrot-and-stick approach. It allowed longtime illegal immigrant farmworkers to become legalized while requiring employers to guarantee that their workers were legal residents. The law provided sanctions for those caught employing undocumented workers.

The legalization aspect backfired because it unintentionally spurred more illegal immigration as family members emigrated from their home countries to join their newly legalized relative. The law also opened up new avenues for fraud and forgery.

Though early attempts to enforce employer requirements were well-publicized, the effort languished until there was little or no enforcement. The reason: Such a policy is by its nature impractical, unenforceable and unpopular within the context of a free-market economy.

Contrary to Bookman's reasoning, sanctioning employers does not address the economic incentive. Rather, it exacerbates the conditions that create the incentive in the first place ---- the need for a supply of labor to satisfy the demands of production.

If there were an easier, economically viable solution than reliance on immigrant workers, legal as well as illegal, employers would jump at the chance, as they would be able to avoid the legal complications and language issues with such a labor force.

However, to deny employers the right to freely hire workers is to undermine the fulcrum upon which the system rests ---- the well-oiled interaction between capital and labor.

When there is ripe fruit to be plucked, meat to be butchered and ditches to be dug, the employer needs sturdy bodies to do the work now and often simply doesn't have time to get bogged down in paperwork and legal technicalities. If work needs to be done and someone shows up eager and willing to work, the employer is inclined to hire them. That's how the system works. Many of the hiring practices, particularly in agriculture, are ingrained, decades-old arrangements. Undeniably, the workers are prone to exploitation, but their needs often exceed their sensitivity to their plight.

The blunt fact is very few nonimmigrant citizens, mostly raised in what is comparatively the lap of luxury, would take these jobs at anywhere close to the wages being offered, and few are psychologically or physically capable of doing them.

Given this scenario, imagine the dilemma the enforcement agent faces with the prospect of telling an Imperial Valley farmer who has put greens on American dining tables for 40 years that he is being shut down and going to jail. The law is overlooked because there is an overarching social and moral contract at play that transcends the artifice of law ---- in other words, an act of civil disobedience.

Opponents of illegal immigration emphasize the economic burden it places on government and the taxpayers, while defenders of the immigrants point to their economic contributions. Their labor allows Americans to enjoy much lower prices on produce as well as many other products and service and many contribute taxes, while often not reaping the benefits.

Whether one aspect outweighs the other can't accurately be measured. It's also irrelevant because they are directly proportional to each other: The more the economy relies on undocumented immigrants, the greater will be both the burden and the benefit. They are integral to the economy.

To remove the economic incentive for illegal immigration would require two things: A legalized labor force would have to become available within U.S. borders to replace the undocumented workers, and economic conditions would have to improve beyond the border from regions from which the tide of illegal immigrants flows. Given the huge disparity in wealth between the United States and these countries, the latter scenario is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

This country's plight is not unique. The European Union is grappling with the same issue as hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia take up residence in Western Europe without documents. Mexico has its own illegal immigration problem on its southern border. Even the small kingdom of Thailand copes with illegal immigrants who come from Burma, Cambodia and Laos looking for work.

The same economic law applies in each case. Socioeconomic realities supersede the imposition of a politically created border. On the United States' southern border, the sociological aspect is just as obvious as the economic: Southern Californians still live in places with names such as Los Angeles and San Diego and on streets whose names begin with Calle and Avenida. The roots and fruits of that culture remain in place.

If the reliance of employers on illegal immigration is as widespread as proponents of closing the border claim, taking such an action would be catastrophic. The result would be economic disaster ---- a severe depression induced by exorbitant inflation.

If the United States took the politically odious and incredibly costly step of erecting the equivalent of a Berlin Wall along the entire southern border and succeeded in throttling illegal immigration, the only conceivable way to avoid a collapse would be through the creation of a labor force to replace the evaporation of workers.

That could be accomplished through a massive social experiment of Maoist proportions in which people were forced to do these particular jobs for wages ---- an unlikely strategy in this country. More likely, the nation would have a depression on its hands, which would create a vast underclass that by necessity would have to work these jobs.

Realistically, the border can't be sealed. It behooves the country, as Bookman suggests in his piece, to come up with a realistic, humane approach that recognizes the economic realities and enables foreigners willing to do the jobs that most Americans loathe to come here legally.

As policies are now structured, the people who need the work most are purposefully prohibited even temporary entry into the United States, based on the philosophy that they are a threat to overstay their visas and remain here illegally, a strategy that winds up promoting more cross-border illegal entries.

Bush's proposed guest-worker program would grant an individual legal status for up to six years, after which the worker would have to return home. While critics have poked holes in it, the proposal at least acknowledges that the immigrant labor is needed and the immigrants aren't going to go away.

Determined reformists must forge ahead in plugging the holes and refining the strategy if the United States is ever going to address illegal immigration in an effective way.