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The Mexicans are Coming! The Mexicans are Coming!
By Dr. Andre Perry, Contributing Columnist
February 27, 2006


The economic and social entrenchment of this current wave of immigrants will certainly create intense policy debates around immigrant rights and privileges. The subsidizing of education and healthcare as well as the issuing of drivers' licenses will certainly be issues that our future mayoral, gubernatorial and city council candidates will face in the years ahead. Many of the current disputes around immigrant rights and immigration bubbled after September 11 and surfaced during the passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform Bill. However in New Orleans, the noticeable demographic shifts due to Katrina pose more cultural and linguistic threats to the longstanding racial and ethnic hierarchy.

Most of our angst is directed at suspected illegal immigrants or undocumented residents who are working on our roofs and cleaning our Mardi Gras spoiled hotel rooms. We quietly applaud their work, but feel chest pain when we have to communicate with them in a restaurants or stores. Most if not all of these strangers were quickly absorbed in the new labor market created by Katrina.

Generally, undocumented work is concentrated in five specific industries. Lindsay Lowell of the Pew Hispanic Center calculates that more than a million undocumented persons work in the manufacturing and service industries, more than 600,000 in construction, and more than 700,000 in restaurants. Philip Martin of the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 1 to 1.4 million undocumented residents are employed as agricultural laborers.

In general, it is illegal to hire undocumented immigrants. There is a fine and a penalty associated with the illegal activity. The presence of an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the country and the approximately $50 billion in annual tax revenues collected from bad social security numbers show how widely our immigrant labor laws are "enforced." Predicting that much of the labor for New Orleans reconstruction would be undocumented, the Department of Homeland Security temporarily allowed contractors to hire workers who cannot prove their citizenship.

Countries and in particular citizens should expect people to follow immigration and labor laws if immigrants want to become citizens or have access to certain rights. However, the law of the market invites workers and not necessarily citizens. Contractors and corporations hire people based on a combination of things such as skill set, cost, availability, and efficiency. All of which lead to a mixed status labor force comprised of both citizens and non-citizens.

Because of the longstanding employment needs of the city and state, the predominately male workforce will get lonely and eventually call for their wives and kids. Invariably a segment of the population will settle, buy homes, and have children on New Orleans' soil. The children will then have to go to school.

Since we work and live together, it is important that all people are afforded certain unalienable rights in order to protect a democracy from exploitation, discrimination, and segregation. Undocumented immigrants are especially vulnerable in this regard.

The 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision held in Plyler v. Doe prevents public elementary and secondary schools from considering immigration status when a student is seeking to enroll. The Court held in a five-to-four decision that a Texas law, which blocked state funds from being used to educate undocumented citizens, was unconstitutional. The ruling was based on the equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Of particular concern to the Court was the fact that children - rather than their parents - were involved. The Court believed that denying undocumented children access to education punished children for their parents' behavior. Such an action, the Court noted, did not square with basic ideas of justice. In addition, the Court acknowledged that residency, time spent in the country and the unlikelihood of deportation are factors to be considered in the allocation of education benefits. The court also mentioned that children of undocumented parents should be taken as future members of society and granted benefits befitting of such a status.

As a result of this act, thousands of undocumented school-aged children attend public primary and secondary institutions across the country. While graduation rates of the population are difficult to assess, The Urban Institute calculated that in 2001 there were probably about 60,000-80,000 undocumented high school graduates who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, and that there are an additional 65,000 who appear to be currently enrolled in college. New Orleans' labor market will almost certainly add to this number. However it is important to uphold the important points of the Plyler v. Doe decision.

First, all people carry certain rights in the U.S. Second, nations do have a right to determine who is or isn't a citizen. Third, nations also have the right to permit limited membership as well as the right to determine various privileges and responsibilities that are associated with the various statuses. However (fourth), states cannot generate membership criteria that prejudice specific groups. Fifth, states cannot entice workers to the country, benefit from their labor, ignore employment/immigration laws, facilitate a de facto naturalization process, and then deny certain benefits to those durable, undocumented residents. Moreover, the children of illegal immigrants had no part in their decision to come into the country illegally and thus should not be punished for their parents' behaviors.

Placing animosity on immigrants seems to be misplaced and unfruitful. Blacks and Latinos seem at odds for unwarranted reasons. Citizen Blacks and many Honduran residents claim the new faces are taking jobs and reducing wages. The fight for equal access for contracts and heightened pay should be waged at the federal level. In addition, immigrants are not doing the hiring. There is an overrepresentation of White male contractors. Immigrants simply seem to fill a labor need that most benefit from but few accept.

It is initially surprising that in a city in which gumbo serves as metaphor for its rich racial, ethnic, and cultural mixing that people would not want to throw in some Mexican chiles. However, it's often our cultural tastes that are often the most intolerant. There is an old hip-hop adage, "Don't hate the player. Hate the game." An analogy can be made here. Don't hate the immigrant, hate capitalism, contractors, or in the very least Katrina.