Thread: Solution found with guest workers

http://www.tracypress.com/voice/2006-01-14-mickey.php

Solution found with guest workers


Shirlington, Va., recently established a site in a parking lot where employers and day laborers can meet.

Many of these workers are illegal immigrants. In another town in the same state, a new group of Minutemen has been formed to take pictures of undocumented workers and employers to discourage their employment.

These different responses to the same problem illustrate our mixed feelings about illegal immigration.

Many proposed solutions seem a bit extreme. One remedy would be to offer amnesty to those who are already here. But this wouldn’t actually fix the long-term problem. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, suggests that all of the undocumented workers should return to their home country and apply to re-enter. Would 11 million illegal immigrants actually do this, and what would the economic consequences be for us? Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, says that we should build a fence along the entire border. But the Chinese learned that thousands of miles of wall don’t actually work unless you can afford to garrison that wall with troops.

Solutions always begin with an understanding of the problem. Economists would tell us that underlying the immigration issue is a problem of markets. There is a high demand for cheap labor on our side of the border and a high supply of those willing to work on the other.

The U.S. border is unique in one important way. If you examine your world atlas you won’t find any other border on the planet that separates such widely divergent levels of income and wealth. It is a classic market situation of supply wanting to meet demand.

Spending on the Border Patrol has grown tenfold during the past 20 years. The Law of Unintended Consequences tells us that we should always be careful of what we ask for. Increased enforcement has tended to push the illegal work force away from regions with tight security. Farmers in the Imperial Valley and other areas near the border have had to plow crops under because of a shortage of labor. Raisin producers in the southern San Joaquin Valley and grape growers in Lodi have expressed similar concerns.

Undocumented workers have also been moving to jobs in the North and in the Deep South. It used to be that two-thirds of illegal immigrants worked in California. Today, it is one-third.

Increased enforcement has had other effects, too. Today a higher proportion of undocumented workers are finding their way into non-agricultural, skilled trades. Unlike the agricultural jobs, these new opportunities pay much better but also displace U.S. citizens who would be happy to take them. There is also evidence that what used to be a seasonal work force is staying put because of the difficulties of returning. Finally, greater vigilance has channeled immigrants away from traditional crossing points to more remote and dangerous areas.

The immigration problem is largely one of labor market economics. We are witnessing the effects of an inefficient, haphazard and wasteful market system. Farming is risky under the best of circumstances. The disorganized labor market adds further risk and turns many employers into lawbreakers. Opposition to the employment of undocumented workers is a mile wide and an inch deep. Insofar as we all enjoy the cheapest and best-quality produce in the world, we are all complicit in the problem.

Our disorganized labor market also presents problems on the supply side of the equation. For immigrants, the situation turns out to be a kind of lottery scheme. They either encounter great expense (paying a “coyote�) or they take great risk (walking across the desert) to enter the labor market. Once here, they might find a steady construction job, the equivalent of striking it rich. Or they might find occasional low-paying jobs, or be caught and sent back. It is incredibly inefficient and wasteful to impose such high risks on the employees and their employers.

The problem cries out for a systematic, market-based solution. President Bush has proposed a guest-worker program that would provide worker visas for six years. A bill in the Senate co-authored by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Teddy Kennedy, D-Mass., and supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, would focus on border security and a work card system. Some combination of these proposals could finally replace our chaotic, inefficient labor market with a comprehensive systematic solution.

Such a system would have benefits and costs for farmers and other employers. Farmers could depend on a labor force in their fields and orchards when they were needed. On the other hand, it would be the responsibility of the employers, facing possible fines, to verify that workers were properly documented.

Employers would also have to manage income tax, Social Security and other withholding, but most do that anyway. A regulated guest-worker program would reduce risk for employers and employees alike.

If guest workers have a temporary work card, they can come to the country on a bus. If they don’t have a guest-worker card, there is no incentive to walk across the desert. A guest-worker program would allow us to know who is here and where they are. It would mean the guest-work force would be both taxed and protected by our laws. An orderly, managed labor market would replace chaos.

• Mickey McGuire, a retired high school social studies teacher, is among a select group of local residents rotating their columns in the Saturday Tracy Press.

He earns $8 an hour working for landscaping companies that pick up workers every morning starting at 5:30 a.m.

Cervantes says he doesn't deal in drugs, doesn't urinate on the street corner - he just wants a job.


I want him to have a job too, in HIS OWN COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!