Thread: Illegal Immigration - Disingenuos Social And Economic Commen

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Illegal Immigration - Disingenuos Social And Economic Commentary
By (Redacted)
Jul 22, 2006


I am a naturalized American, having originally come to this great country, in 1991, from India.

Words cannot even begin to describe the incredible sense of loss, helplessness, and anger I feel when I see the pernicious effects of uncontrolled, unbridled illegal immigration. Rapidly deteriorating neighborhoods in and around my home city Chicago, rising gang crimes, trash on the streets of Schaumburg where I live, and overcrowded apartment complexes in Hoffman Estates - these are but some of the visible signs of rapid degradation in our quality of lives. This apart, in this article, I will focus on the sheer hypocrisy of those in this country that are directly benefiting from illegal entry of aliens into this country. We shall also examine some of the "arguments" put forth freely and cynically by the elites to fool the American people into believing that illegal aliens are somehow good for this country.

Any reader of big city newspapers, or any viewer of the major network news programs should be familiar with the daily dose of threats from organizations such as the National Restaurants Association, all/sundry "hospitality associations", big-city mayors, threats that warn us of economic collapse if we even countenanced the thought of removing illegal aliens from the workforce. These disingenuous and deceitful economic Cassandras, New York's Mayor Bloomberg included, couldn't understand the irony of this position even if it hit them on the head. Guess what, restaurants did function and hotels did operate, far before the influx of illegal aliens. You go to any small town in country, and you will see American kids, White and Black, doing jobs that Mr. Bush and his corporate cronies harangue and shame us into believing Americans won't do. America has 8 million unemployed, using an 5% unemployment rate over a workforce of 160 million. According to a recent Pew Hispanic Institute survey of illegal workers, roughly 40% of illegal aliens, out of a total estimated population of 12 million, work in the restaurant and hotel industries. That represents 4.8 million workers, roughly half of the unemployed U.S. workforce. So, about half of the unemployed in the U.S. can potentially be absorbed into the workforce, if only the employers in these sectors tried. This workforce does not include teenagers and college students, who are also potential employees in this sector.

Then, there is the issue of compensation and benefits. A typical American worker with "papers" would be unwilling to put up with the wages an illegal would. One can argue back that McDonald's (and countless other retailers) pay the minimum wage to its illegal workers. That would be missing the point, which is that the minimum wage is no longer living wage in this country. Illegal aliens, due to economic desperation , are more likely to accept this wage, even treating it as a windfall. Thus, the minimum wage stays unchanged, corporate profits soar, and unskilled American workers, and those with less than marketable skills, continue to wage a losing battle in the workforce, all the while pretending that they are the inhabitants of a first-world economic system where workers have at least a modicum of bargaining power over employers. For the most part, they don't, and within a generation, if current trends continue, they certainly won't.

Meanwhile, network TVs and cable news channels feed us nonsense like, "Americans like their big cars", "Americans seem unaffected by high gas prices", "Americans love driving in the driving season (whatever that is)" - all true statements, in that they are remnants of fizzling trends from earlier, more prosperous times. But such pronouncements are strangely out of place and nothing more than insincere, feel-good observations, considering the economic assault underway on the working class American. To an American struggling to support a family of four on $6-7 an hour, without benefits in most cases, faced with no daycare for kids, the jazz about driving season, theme park attendance, and insouciant comments about propensity for gas-guzzling SUVs seem must seem cruel.

Economics 101 states that the more abundant a commodity gets, the cheaper it becomes. Replace "commodity" with workers, and you begin to see the game plan here. Companies make higher profits if their labor costs fall. Labor costs fall faster if corporate interests and lobbyists can ensure a constant flood of un-empowered and desperate workers. Now all this sounds rather robber barronish, and these dishonest, corporate Benedict Arnolds would never admit to being a party to this sort of cynical scheming. Instead, in true form, they stoop down even further. They issue the O-word threat - outsourcing! If you don't allow the illegals in, goes the logic, then the jobs will go where the illegals come from, or father afield! Again, my business school economics class taught me that the only sustainable competitive advantage is one that results from higher productivity. American companies used to invest in the American workforce, technology, and the American social landscape, indirectly and directly fostering a more productive workforce than, say, Mexico's.

But the current trend of lowering labor costs, a key component of "cost of goods sold" is a race to the bottom, and is not sustainable. The purchasing power of Americans in the bottom 50% of the economy is eroding - study after study has posited that real wages have stagnated since the 80s in over 15 low wage industries- , and so will the ability of companies, in the long run, to cater to the domestic market. So what, argue the robber barons and their hand-maidens in Washington, if wages continue to fall and jobs stay here, we will turn into an exporting "machine", like China or India today. But then, I say, that's great for the companies that are exporting, but what about the consumers here? What can they afford to buy? Certainly not gas guzzling SUVs, or the latest in gadgetry that is no longer made here. Ask a worker in China how many months of pay it takes to buy an iPod, and you will see where we are headed with all this.

Now, these corporate criminals are no fools. There appears to be a broad, unholy alliance forming, wherein multinational lobbyists, the Catholic church, and leftist, anti-American culture anarchists -surprise surprise - have found a common cause. Although each of these organizations has a different motive for supporting uncontrolled illegal entry of foreign nationals into America, they use the same sentimental language in an effort to by-pass the innate common sense of the average American. Here are some examples, and "arguments" peddled out as conventional wisdom.

"...Oh, we are a nation of immigrants, can we all not remember what the Statue of Liberty says about 'huddled masses'?..." A statue, or more precisely, its poetic caption, from a country whose founding fathers learnt democratic lessons from America's founding fathers, is now lecturing us on nationhood and identity politics. Pathetic, the mushiness, and low-brownness of all this.

These days various newspapers editorials are waxing not so eloquently that we are all descendants of immigrants and that we shouldn't worry about the social and economic consequences wrought upon us by an influx of illegal aliens. Go back in history, and you shall see that every nation is descended from immigrants. History tells us of the Norman conquest of England, and of the Greek solider-settlers from disenchanted battalions accompanying Alexander on his mission to invade India. Surely, some in England and India are descendants of foreigners.

In America today, the pace of such changes is far out of proportion to the relatively short duration during which immigration has taken place. Hence, the bold assertions/implications that the only culture worth preserving is the immigrant's, the unspoken touche being that the native culture itself a result of immigration. This reasoning is intellectually dishonest, and when spoken by illegal alien advocates, self serving. It denies the pace with which an American identity was formed, and how that identity helped shape the Western nations post WW II, into strong democracies, who if not militarily, at least socially and culturally, could stand up to Soviet-style autocratic ideologies. The American culture is larger than the sum of its parts, and as current commentators so often do, focusing too much on the parts will eventually weaken us as nation.

And so the beat goes on. From once haloed, now morally ambiguous, institutions such as the ACLU, the message to us Americans is this: don't you dare vilify the fence jumper who got here last month and now has the nerve to apply for a Medicare card by blithely presenting forged papers. You have Mr. Bush often saying, he's just a hard-working "folks", a family-loving Joe who shares the same dream as we do. Now, who among us does not love our families? Why is that a plus when judging illegal behavior? So next time, perhaps an American citizen on trial for burglary should use the following legal defence. Your honor, I love my family, so I broke into my neighbor's pantry so that I would be able to provide a better diet for my children. How would a judge respond? At least two-three years for home invasion with a long period of probation and restitution. Logical, and brutally efficient.

But when it comes to illegal immigration, sentimentality, broad & illogical conclusions based on individual points of data, and a hateful tendency to label people as racist for holding any view opposed to illegal immigration, are what seem to dominate the debate. Mr. Bush, our President, himself sets the tone. In typical Texas cowboy fashion (frankly, I think he gives the honorable cowboy a bad name by pretending to be one of them, swagger, pickup truck and expensive leather boots notwithstanding) declared the Minutemen Project as "vigilantes", and that too, in the company of Vicente Fox, the elitist and arrogant leader of Mexico. The label was then repeated by all manner of people, against a group that, till today, has not been involved in a single act of violence, and that has acted in a manner consistent with all state and federal laws.

As my dad used to say, when your opponent has exhausted all possible arguments, or has none to begin with, he will resort to name-calling. Calling people opposed to illegal immigration as racist is starting to backfire. The recent marches by illegal aliens and their advocates, held in large urban centers of America such as Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, consciously and cynically, invoked the civil right-era themes of rights and equality. The irony of this grandstanding was not missed by many in the African American community. Many a Black commentator has, since June of this year, come out against the illegal alien lobby usurping the memories and emotional power of the heart-breaking and noble struggles of a bygone era. As a community descended from legal Americans who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow in the South, Blacks today are the only non-native minority on this continent that has the moral right to claim racism as a systemic impediment.

And so, illegal alien advocates, having found that invoking race as a wedge has largely failed to sway the majority of Americans, have taken to labeling opponents as nativists, a somewhat color blind term designed to drive home the us and them wedge. Nativist, racist, I am not, but as an American, just watching this outrageous spectacle - foreign flags, flagrant displays of loyalties to foreign countries, and sloganeering - convinced me that the mob mentality afflicting third-world countries is now here in America, alive and well.

But all this notwithstanding, the debate on illegal immigration does appear to have turned the corner. No longer seen as just a conservative position, the issue seems to have transcended politics, and people from all walks of life and leanings, in poll after poll, seem to favor a crackdown. As I write this, the House of Representatives, to drive the point that Washington elites in the Senate are out of touch with real people, is holding public hearings on this topic all across the country. Kudos to the House of Representatives leadership for favoring transparency and taking the issue to the public, while eschewing the back-room maneuvering, deal-making, and outright sellouts that could have taken place in murky Congressional conference committees. The American people are finally waking up to this invasion, and I, a perennial pessimist when it comes, to illegal immigration, am starting to see some signs of hope.

God Bless this country, and may He save it from its own greedy and corrupt elites.
(Redacted) is an independent columnist

What a wonderful column and commentary by this author. (Redacted), someone who gets it.