Our view: Take action on immigration, because doing nothing costs too much
March 31, 2011 12:00 AM

Census 2010 shows that the Hispanic population in New Bedford increased by two-thirds over 10 years.

In a count no one suggests is too high, that population is pegged at about 1 in 6 in a city of just under 100,000.

Among some who think the number is too low, it's also believed that illegal immigrants may comprise more than half of that population.

And no matter how much some recoil at the reality, the Census results show there's no point in wishing the undocumented workers would just go home or in waiting for government policy to transform the situation overnight by granting amnesty.

Populations tend to move slowly and deliberately. New Bedford's Hispanic population has grown over generations, from Puerto Ricans who are American citizens by birth; to those who came to the U.S. but overstayed their work visas or vacations; from those who can afford to make the trips back and forth required to successfully navigate the legalization bureaucracy; to those who can afford only to make a perilous journey through Central America, across Mexico and over the border into the U.S. for a chance at a job with American wages.

The Michael Bianco raid taught us how successfully the undocumented were hiding in New Bedford, with no small thanks to corporate complicity in immigration fraud behind the manufacture of military gear to support the war on terror. As long as we have a demand for labor, as long as there is massive poverty in Central America, as long as U.S. citizens refuse to do the types of jobs illegal immigrants are willing to do at low wages, and as long as unscrupulous American employers are willing to break the law or look the other way, there will be illegal immigration.

The situation can hardly improve as long as federal immigration policy is unresolved. A plan that offers the opportunity of legal status to workers who are contributing to the economy, raising children, establishing vital communities and living otherwise law-abiding lives, while securing the borders to staunch the flow of illegal entry into the U.S. can't come soon enough.

Mitt Romney tried in 2007 to use state police to round up illegal immigrants and enforce federal immigration laws. This is no different than raiding a factory or processing plant, it just happens before the workers get to their jobs, and it creates the same disruption to families, businesses and communities.

Congress has the tools to develop a comprehensive policy, but the longer it languishes in the political process, the longer we expose ourselves to the risks inherent in unsecured borders and the wider the gap grows between undocumented and legal residents.

The longer the fault line between these two "tectonic " populations remains, the more a seismic event like the Bianco raid looms over them.

In Massachusetts today, the American citizen children of undocumented aliens will continue to be marginalized, since resident-guaranteed education ends at high school here. This turns out to be a very effective method for producing and maintaining a statewide underclass, as these U.S. citizens are discouraged from educational opportunity rather than trained to succeed and share the fruits of education with the community.

Without a successful bridging of the cultural and political divide, we cheat both populations; and our inability to narrow the gap cannot help but seem stingy on one side, and tragic on the other.

An August Latino festival is being planned in New Bedford that would welcome an array of other cultures to share talents, food, music and more. This will perhaps ease the non-Hispanic community into the richness there, exposing it to the talents that both possess and can share to mutual benefit.

And we should demand that our congressmen take up these issues with vigor and haste, and without prohibitive outlays of taxpayer money.

The cost of doing nothing is too high, but the reward for reaching out to one another is a confident, grounded community that can withstand the inevitable shocks and aftershocks of changing populations.

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