Illegal Immigration: Blame it on the immigrants?

This is not going to be a popular point of view. In fact, I think maybe I am the only person doesn’t blame the illegal immigrants for our problems. Or maybe, we’re all just afraid to say so? First, let me admit right now, that illegal aliens have broken our laws. Second, I will admit that they take some jobs that Americans would like to perform. Third, they come to our land and expect to be given special privileges and even our own tax dollars to sustain them. With all that being stipulated, Americans want the cheap labor provided by these immigrants and we are willing to pay for it.

1) Immigrants break our laws by coming here without following our legal immigration laws. As a law abiding citizen, this fact irritates me to no end, although, I imagine that my lead foot irritates the old woman driving 70 in the fast lane of a freeway (speed limit 70) too. I know she irritates me. I would not go to their country and deliberately break their laws. It is an insult for them to come to the USA and snub their noses at our government which ultimately means that they are snubbing their noses at you and me. There are legal channels for them to undergo that will bring them to the USA as welcomed guests and possibly if they so chose to become citizens themselves.

But why do they come here in the first place? They come because as any beginning economist (and that is all I am) will tell you the demand is here and where there is a demand, a willing supplier will be found. They come because the American Taxpayer welcomes them with open arms and open wallets. If the American taxpayer, and by that I am including businesses that hire illegal immigrants, did not demand their services they would not come here.

2) American jobs are lost to illegal immigrants. It has been said that illegal aliens are “stealing” the jobs of American taxpayers. Yet, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat1.txt, the 2006 Unemployment rate was 4.6 and December 2007 was 5%. These figures are within the range that many economists consider full employment, “Some Economists estimate a “range” of possible unemployment rates. For example, in 1999, in the United States, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) gives an estimate of the “full-employment unemployment rate” of 4 to 6.4%. This is the estimated “structural” unemployment rate, (the unemployment when there is full employment), plus & minus, the standard error of the estimate.” This means that for all intents and purposes, the USA is currently running at what the government and economists consider to be “full employment”. In other words, Americans are not hurting for jobs dispite what the rhetoric of the crowds are saying.

Of course, it can be said that there are Americans who would take work that is currently being taken by illegal aliens. I am sure people can point to individual situations and state that jobs they would have taken are being filled with illegal aliens. Some jobs such as construction or janitorial services are being filled by illegal workers. However, especially in the construction industry these people tend to work for low costs and typically shabby “contractors”. The quality of the work performed is not up to our standards, but, then as the old saying goes, “let the buyer beware”. If the buyer is willing to pay for lower quality work then, I suppose that is their perogative. It is, however, the job of our paid officials to make sure that all construction is up to code. If I were to hire illegals to do work for me and they did shoddy work, then that is my fault and I, having accepted the risk, should suffer the consequences. Make those consequences high enough, and I am not going to accept that risk. Is it the fault of the Mexican immigrant who has come to the US looking to better his/her life or is it the fault of the greedy Americans who look for the cheapest labor they can find that these families are coming here? It is the fault of the employers both corporate and indivdual who hire these immigrants in order to save money. As an individual, I might hire an undocumented alien to perform a contracting job and pay him $1,000, but would have to pay an American contractor maybe three times that amount to get the job done. In other words, it is my greed, not the greed of the illegal immigrant that dictates who I hire. Corporate employers are no different. They will hire janitorial staff at below minnimum wage to save a few bucks and boost their profits. Sure, there are Americans that would be willing to work these jobs, some even below minnimum wage, but the employer can’t hire them because of legal constraints so they hire the illegals. Whose fault it this? The blame lays squarely at the feet of the greedy employer and the government, not the person trying to make a living.

Once again, with America being at statistically full employment, it is difficult to claim that illegals are “stealing” our jobs.

3) Illegal immigrants come to our land knowing and expecting us to provide them with benefits. There seems to even be rumblings among certain politicians that these people should be allowed to vote… now that I have a problem with! Evidently, we provide these illegal immigrants American tax dollars such as welfare and food stamps to help them survive or is all that just political rhetoric? Under no circumstances are illegal immigrants entitled to expect such generosity on our part. It is not our responsibility to support them. That being said though, am I willing to let the baby of an illegal immigrant starve or go without medical assistance because the parents have broken our laws? No, I am not!

Once again, it is not the immigrants fault if Americans pander to them. Do we give them privileges reserved for our own citizens? Most likely there are some illegal immigrants that take advantage of our laws and illegally receive or take support from American citizens. It is a fact, that our own citizens do, why should we not expect a few unscrupulous immigrants to enter our land?

Whether we will admit it or not, America wants the services of illegal immigrants. We encourage them to come here illegally. We kick and scream about the evils of these people for having the gall to enter our lands and take our jobs, tax money and for wanting our benefits, yet, we continue to open our wallets to them. Where there is demand there will be a supplier willing to perform the service and as long as there is that demand the price will go up until the demand is met. As long as Americans demand low cost, under-the-table labor there will be illegal immigration problems.

The challenge is for we the people of the United States of America to modify our immigration laws to allow enough immigrants to enter the country to fill our demand and to prevent abuse of our legal system and our generosity. We must also protect American citizens from the shoddy work that comes from people, whether they are illegal immigrants or not, who attempt to cut corners for savings. The challenge is to ignore the rhetoric of those government officials and the new “grassroots” organizations that are attempting to start race wars against the Mexican people who come here solely for the betterment of their own lives.

Americans, citizens of the US, are putting (more like pushing off) the blame onto the shoulders of those dreaded culprits, mostly Mexican, the illegal aliens when it seems to me that the blame lies with us. We are at fault because, whether we admit it or not, we demand the services provided by illegal immigrants who will willingly work for wages lower that we set for ourselves so that we can save a few bucks. If we want to curb illegal immigration then we must work on our laws in order to slow down the flow. This means increasing the risk to employers of hiring illegal immigrants, increasing the number of legal immigrants and modifying our laws to prevent people who come to this country outside of our laws from obtaining government assistance. In effect, we must reduce the demand for illegal immigrants and increase the cost to those who employ them and the cost to entering our country as an illegal immigrant. Failing to do so, will mean this problem will not go away.

Does that sound like the bogus justification for how to fight the drug wars? Well, the difference is that employers are rational people who when the risk goes up, will not hire illegal immigrants while drug addicts (the demand for the drug trade) for the most part are not rational.

Some here will claim that I have totally ignored the issue of terrorists coming into this country illegally. After all they too are illegal immigrants. No, I have not, but then again that form of illegal immigration is different than what has been discussed here and yes, we must also modify our laws to STOP terrorists from getting through our extremely porous borders… but that discussion is for another day.

God Bless,

Immie