I recently read an article that claimed that one way the Obama administration could address unemployment in the U.S. would be to deport illegal immigrants who, the article claimed, represent 5% of the workforce. I have mixed feelings about this.
Whenever I drive by my local building goods store I see dozens of men near the entrance under municipal signs that declare this a "Day Labor Zone". Overwhelmingly, these are Spanish speaking men from Latin America.
Obama's Easy Pickings for Jobs
Frankly, this makes me angry. They take jobs and lower the wage rates on those jobs that my 22 year-old son and many of his friends could be performing as they work and go to school part time to get started in life. I just shake my head when I hear the claim that these immigrants "do the work that Americans won’t do." It was exactly these kinds of construction jobs that I did when starting out. I also worked as a janitor, roofer, logger, short-order cook, landscaper, longshoreman, boilermaker and so on. I was no "Senator’s son" or, except for being white, "a privileged one" and, like my son, I had not much taste for academics. Eventually, developing a variety of skills as I moved from one occupation to another, I achieved a modest degree of upward mobility.
My stepdaughter, Maria, is an HB-1 worker. I use the term "stepdaughter", which she is emotionally, although not legally. In 1993, at the age of sixteen, she came to our family from Russia as a participant in a student exchange program. The Russian economy was in collapse. Her parents, even with their advanced degrees in chemistry and information technology, lost their jobs and could barely feed themselves. They had two daughters and after much discussion we agreed that we would sponsor, that is, take financial responsibility, for Maria’s staying in the U.S. We put her through college and for the last twelve years she has had a very good job at a very good company. She is family. I am infuriated at the endless delays she has suffered as—following all the rules—she attempts in vain to obtain permanent resident status, while undocumented migrant workers pour across our borders.
Then, there is the other Maria, a middle-aged Mexican woman whom we hired to help us in 1985 when our son was born. She was with us for four years. Her contribution to our son’s well being is inestimable. A more warmhearted soul I have never met. She had raised ten of her own children down in Mexico, many of whom came north and some of whom I hired for my home renovation and remodeling business. They were hard workers and decent people. Maria came into the country without proper documentationand became a beneficiary of the amnesty program of the mid-eighties. Evidently, the employment agency through whom we found her had provided us with phony documentation. As to the status of her children, I never bothered to check and I don’t know.
Then, there is the family of my son’s mother. My ex-wife’s grandfather was a Mexican national. He was a farm worker in the U.S. and owned his own small farm in Mexico. He was also a bit of a rogue. He had two wives and children by both. He was married to a Mexican woman and to my ex-wife’s grandmother, an American woman, with whom he had a dozen children. A number of them have done very well during the transformation of the Santa Clara valley from some of the most productive farmland in the world to four hundred square miles of pavement we now call Silicon Valley. As to the legal status of the grandfather as he crisscrossed the border some six decades ago, I have no idea.
So, where does this leave me?
As to future immigration: it seems reasonable but I don’t know how practicable it is to secure our national border so as to significantly reduce undocumented crossings. If it is not possible to secure the border then deterrence can only be achieved through severely punitive measures—not an appealing prospect.
Like most, I support legal immigration—but with the proviso that it should not be used to undermine worker’s bargaining power for good wages and working conditions nor should it overburden our hopefully soon to be improved social safety net.
If it is true that Americans won’t do the jobs the immigrants will, then I hope those Americans will revisit their decision. I hope they get themselves organized, into the streets and demand those jobs. I cleaned a lot of other people’s toilets before I could hire someone to clean mine. Now, in somewhat reduced circumstances, I am in the position of having only to clean my own.
As for the undocumented migrant workers already here, this is the great difficulty. I must study the problem and think on it much more than I have in order to begin offering solutions. I would appreciate ideas and references to articles and studies on the subject.