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Another American Caught Up In Immigration Hell

July 24, 2019 by Leave a Comment

I have made it well known that the basic premise of my book, “The Dishwasher’s Son” is about an American teenager being deported from the US under our extraordinarily lax and dysfunctional Immigration system. In the dedication to that book, I also mentioned this has happened Approximately 20,000 times since 2003. Just today, I read a report from GQ magazine that the

Border Patrol Has Kept a Teenage U.S. Citizen Locked Up for Nearly a Month.

“Customs and Border Protection (CPB) stopped two brothers at a checkpoint in Texas on June 27. The younger one, Marlon Galicia, was born in Mexico and entered the U.S. illegally; the older one, 18-year-old Francisco Erwin Galicia, was born in Dallas. CBP took both brothers into custody.”

Erwin Galicia had a wallet-sized copy of his birth certificate, his Social Security card, and a Texas ID that’s only available to citizens with Social Security numbers, on his person at the time of the arrest.

Now, whenever a specific portion of our society finds it necessary to carry around all of this identification on their person wherever they go, just to keep from being arrested, that should be a red flag for everyone to see. This is America, not a Nazi-occupied country.

No community of Americans should feel the need to carry around this much ID just to prove they are here legally. As many of us already know, if you carry this much identification around with you at all times, there is a good chance you will become the victim of identity theft. If Erwin were to be robbed, someone could not only steal his money, watch, cell phone, car, whatever– they could also open credit cards, buy items online, and many commit many other crimes in his name. This is the whole reason none of us carry around our Social Security numbers, birth certificates around with us. It is just too easy for someone to steal our identity, and then we would be in a form of hell that can take years to clean up. The fact that this American citizen felt the need to do this just to protect his American identification is just too sad to witness if it weren’t for the fact that even carrying all this ID didn’t help him. He still is in custody for something he isn’t capable of committing. a

The Republican party has already shown its true anti-immigration colors after years of rebuffing any and all attempts to repair our broken immigration system, and, most recently, by making asylum claims practically illegal and after yesterdays announcement of making stipulated removal a nationwide procedure, instead of just along a 100 miles of the US/Mexico border. This change also enables low-level officials to decide if someone should be deported and give them the ability to proceed with deportation immediately.

When I think about reading the news about several CBP facebook groups, from the very people our nation has entrusted to carry out our immigration policies, that was full of anti-immigrant messages and photos, and then hearing about the stipulated removal changes and then reading about this incident of an American citizen getting caught up in the anti-immigration hysteria, I had to ask myself,

“is this improving our immigration system, or making it worse?”

One thing is for certain: when the bottom of this garbage can full of ideas comes off, we will be left with a huge mess and Donald Trump will be blaming the Democrats for the problem as well as the lives that will be broken and lost.

 

Filed Under: immigrants, Immigration News, Immigration's effects on citizens, Laws, The Dishwasher's Son, The US Immigration Debacle

The Invisible Wall

May 17, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Recently Trump claimed to have begun building his big beautiful wall and even had a plaque dedicating this section to himself as the first section of his border wall.

Now, as a point of fact, this section of the wall was built in place of an older barrier that was dilapidated and in need of replacement and was ordered to be rebuilt by then President Obama, who also authorized the funds.

This is not a new wall.

This was not his victory.

Since we cannot trust what Trump says, let’s look at what he’s actually done.

Trump has taken money from the military budget, against the objections of the Pentagon, and is trying to repurpose those funds to build the border wall. My mother taught me that when you take something that doesn’t belong to you, without being asked, It’s called “stealing.” It also makes you wonder how much of the new and highly expanded military budget, money the Pentagon didn’t even ask for, might also be “taken” to build his wall in the future.  I thought the whole big idea of building the wall was that Mexico was going to pay for it. That’s where he got his big applause. Apparently, that line was just a ruse. We are going to pay for this wall, and we aren’t going to have a say about it.

I guess we’ll just send Mexico an invoice or something.

Without a doubt, the Trump administration cannot be trusted.

Trump has put up some pretty impressive invisible barriers, though, while at the same time built a big beautiful door to which he invites conflicts on the world stage, including the possibility of wars on various fronts.

He has reduced funding to the United Nations, tried to leverage our allies, you know the ones we worked with to keep fascism from taking over the free world for 70 years or so, into contributing more toward the UN based on his vast and highly unsuccessful Real Estate experience. The United Nations is what you would call an invisible barrier, stopping would-be dictators and fascists from invading and taking over other nations. Russia, obviously, isn’t a member.

Trump also withdrew the US from the Human Rights Council, an organization that America used to pride themselves as being a part of to make the world a better place to live. This actually paved the way for America to befriend dictators and despots who live outside the law.

Which brings us to the fact that Trump has insulted and infuriated our allies, while at the same time tried to build relationships with the world’s most notorious dictators.

Talk about a destabilizing influence.

Another invisible wall Trump has recently torn down is his threat to withdraw Hundreds of Millions of dollars of aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, with the expressed purpose of trying to get them to stop the asylum caravans coming to our southern border.

Trump, if there was a fire in your kitchen, would you turn up the heat to the stove? Grab a can of gasoline, perhaps?

People are fleeing these countries because of poverty and crime. Taking money away from these governments will NOT make this problem go away–it will make it WORSE!

What we should be doing is giving more money or support to these countries. If we could help train their police departments and help them reduce crime, while also increasing investment in these countries to fight poverty and promote a happy and thriving middle class, then fewer citizens of these countries will want to walk for months to get here. Let’s face it, walking for thousands of miles is not anyone’s Plan A–it’s a last-ditch effort to stay alive.

The money we send to these countries is an invisible wall, keeping other nations out of our back yard. Right now, without our support, these countries are open for business to any other country that wishes to help support them in their effort to create a better economy.

Now that this invisible wall is collapsing, we are going to have Chinese and Russian influences and whoever else wants to encroach upon our sovereignty at our southern border, and our former allies are going to watch from the sidelines because you told them our “Patriotism” was all we needed and they could just go jump off a bridge.

Nice Trump. What are you going to do for an encore, play the fiddle as our nation burns to the ground?

AS you can see, international relations, or a lack thereof, form an invisible barrier to threats from foreign nations. We had some pretty good ones, but Trump doesn’t like those. He likes the ones he can touch and put his name on. The problem is, those kinds of walls don’t work like you think they will. Just ask Rome, China, or Germany, and all the other countries that tried to build physical barriers to keep threats out. Invisible barriers work better than physical ones. They also make more friends, and that’s one thing we could sure use more of these days.

 

Filed Under: America-Mexico Border, Economy, Immigration Debate, Immigration reform, Laws, Plan A, Politicians, Politics, Republicans, The US Immigration Debacle

The Real National Border Emergency: Brought to you by Trump & GOP

February 28, 2019 by Leave a Comment

There is a real national emergency at our southern border with Mexico, but it’s not the one Trump is promoting—it’s the one he is creating himself. The fact that the GOP is backing him up on his wild lies makes them complicit.

Many news reporting agencies have documented that in 2018 the Trump administration introduced a “zero-tolerance” policy calling for the prosecution of all individuals who illegally enter the United States. The devastating effect has been the following:

  • Parents have been separated from their children.
  • There was no plan to reunite children with their parents until after a major backlash from the public.
  • Minor children were locked up far longer than legally allowed.
  • More than 4,500 incidents of child abuse against minors in immigration custody have been reported.
  • Twenty-two immigrant deaths in US immigration custody in the past two years has also been documented.
  • The emotional effects of this separation and abuse on these children will be revealing itself for decades to come. Traumatized children tend to exhibit mental and emotional problems as adults. This horrific abuse will likely affect their entire lives.

As if these tragedies weren’t bad enough, the Trump administration continues to persecute immigrants and asylum seekers by:

  • Reducing the number of courts and judges that hear asylum cases which increased incarceration periods and reduced asylum approvals to hereto unheard of numbers.
  • Denying an overwhelming majority of asylum seekers cases making it almost impossible for asylum seekers to achieve protection against threats back home.
  • Sending asylum seekers to a foreign country that we have no control over housing, feeding, medical care or even communications to await their status hearings.

The thinking of the Trump administration with this policy shift was that by destroying families, the will of people to come here would be reduced. Breaking this logic down, it reads—if you are afraid for life as well as that of your children, don’t come here.

The big question is; since when did women & children become a threat to national security? 

Well, they aren’t, which is why Trump makes up lies about MS13, drugs and human trafficking adding into the mix. To gain more support for his border wall, he tries to frighten us with the bogeyman. 

No one cannot trust a pathological liar for a President. But he is much more than that. He is also a Hypocrite, just like all the other sons of immigrants who call for an end to “Chain Migration.” 

If Chain migration is so bad for America, as Donald Trump states, then as our elected leader he should be willing to send his wife Melania’s parents back to their home country. That is what great leaders do; lead by example. The fact that he won’t ever do this proves that either he is not the great leader he thinks he is, or Trump does believe in uniting and protecting families. Instead of promoting an immigration policy that is in conflict with his personal history and making him look untrustworthy, Trump should embrace family-based immigration policies. 

Trump also employed many undocumented workers at his golf courses, and probably in his construction crews as well, so his stand against illegal immigration falls flat. If it’s okay for him to do it, why should it be illegal for others? The fact that he fired these immigrants recently is only for damage control. He has never even apologized to the American people for the “oversight”. Let’s forget it ever happened, right Donald?

Donald Trump has stated on many occasions that our immigration laws are highly broken. Focusing on a wall instead of immigration reform is just a political ruse. 

Walls don’t work. Ask China or the Romans, two famous examples of militarizing borders. Walls didn’t stop the Huns from invading China or the Barbarians from invading Rome. We could also ask the Germans why they tore down their wall, the most fortified and guarded wall in recent history. Thousands of people escaped East Germany in spite of those efforts. All walls are breach-able. Building a wall won’t stop immigration by itself. Walls are tools, not solutions.

In truth; a set of fair and just immigration laws in conjunction with support for our neighbors to combat gangs and crime would go a lot further to slowing down immigration from our neighbors into our country. 

Improved investment in jobs and a stable economy would further reduce strain at our southern border. Families and a rich history with the geography that gave them birth are a huge reason most people love the countries they already live in. Why would anyone want to make a long and treacherous journey to live somewhere else if they could live free and happy lives at home?

America has spent Billions of dollars and thousands of American lives defending citizens of foreign nations from oppression and death around the world. We should be able to do better for our neighbors here at home for less money and with far less human casualty. 

We are the great United States of America. Shouldn’t we expect more from ourselves than just a simple wall?  

Even US military Generals agree there is no military threat at our southern border. On the insistence of Trump and with the full support of the GOP, the only military at the border is ours—we are literally at war with ourselves. 

Trump and the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves. Real people are dying, families are being destroyed, and young lives are being permanently damaged while Trump tells us that fictional bad guys are storming our borders and a wall will fix everything. Only an idiot would think that solving all of our immigration problems were really as simple as building a wall.

The national emergency at the border is real; Trump created it, the Republicans support it—only we can end it. 

Filed Under: America-Mexico Border, Children, Immigration News, Immigration reform, Laws, Military, Politics, Republicans, The US Immigration Debacle

America: the Mother of all Glass Houses

January 19, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Proving, once again, that America is the mother of all glass houses when it comes to immigration and our national identity.

Filed Under: Equality, Ethics, Immigration Debate, Immigration News, Immigration's effects on citizens, The US Immigration Debacle, US Immigration HERO

3 easy steps for a better immigration system

November 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Alex Nowrasteh   wrote a piece for USnews.com outlining 3 easy steps for a better immigration system that the next president could do to help with our highly problematic  system. It is a wonderful article, but I wonder about the third suggestion of having states create their own visa programs. He makes several wonderful points about states having differing needs for guest workers, and therefore would be in position to create the most beneficial types of visas for the industries that need guest workers most and that are not currently offered by the federal immigration visa system, but you have to wonder about competing visa programs and how difficult it would make  it for guest workers to change jobs, move to another state, or transfer when a company moves and the new state does not offer the same kind of visa program. This could be fodder for new problems and a more difficult situation for companies and immigrant families.

Still, it is a wonderful article and well thought out, and at least somebody is looking at positive ways to mend our broken immigration system. Please take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-11-01/three-steps-to-immigration-reform

Filed Under: Immigration reform, Laws, The US Immigration Debacle, Uncategorized

Jon Stewart- Immigration Reform Hero: sums up our immigration problem

February 12, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Jon Stewart sums up our immigration problem in seven minutes.

Perhaps this is what it takes to get people to see the truth about the Republican platform and how disingenuous it really is:

keep it short and to the point.

Filed Under: Ethics, Immigration Debate, Immigration reform, Politics, The US Immigration Debacle, US Immigration HERO

Obama: GOP scapegoat of the year

February 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment

 Obama has just been voted “Scapegoat of the Year.”

Or at least he should be.

What would you do if you gave a speech at your company, and then people started calling for your termination?

  • Reverse your statements? Too late; that would make you look like a liar.
  • Blame someone else in the room? That would also remove possible supporters from your side as well, and if you’re about to lose your job, you need all the friends you can get.
  • Take the heat and defend your position, enlightening your detractors with all the reason and forethought you put into your speech? Pretty risky, what if it didn’t work?
  • Distract everyone by focusing on something bigger?
  1.      The war on Terror, that always worked for Bush(s). Nope, Obama has that one under control; it’s always best not give your adversary cudos.
  2.      Obamacare? Nope, the nation has had it with us complaining about that, not to mention it probably wouldn’t be prudent to bring up the reason we closed the government down and took a beating in our approval ratings.
  3.      Abortion? No, that will just further anger women.
  4.      Social Security? Ditto, for the elderly.
  5.      Foodstamps? Nope, we just took some money away from that for our budget deal. Best to keep a low profile on that one.
  6.      Taxes? Again, best not bring up the current resentment towards our wealthy constituents.
  7.      Blame the immigrants? That usually works. . .
  8.      Blame the competition? Even better! It insults no one in the room and reinforces allegiances against a common adversary.

Sound familiar?

That is the strategy Rep. Boehner used after he announced the GOP principles on immigration reform, and got a lot of flack. After their retreat in Maryland last week, many Republicans rejected the House leadership’s one-page “standards for immigration reform.” 

Others within the GOP said that, with trends going their way as midterm elections approach, it was a bad time to take on a number of contentious issues.

The conservative activist L. Brent Bozell called for the entire House Republican leadership to be replaced. His group, ForAmerica, blitzed the speaker’s office with thousands of phone calls to jam the lines and protest his stance on immigration this past wednesday.

Representative Raúl Labrador of Idaho, an early negotiator on the issue and now a fierce opponent, told the newspaper, The Hill, that an immigration push by Mr. Boehner this year “should cost him his speakership.”

So Boehner, thinking his goose is cooked, comes out a week after outlining the Republican principles for immigration reform and says:

“There’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws,”

and he further stated,

“ it’s going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes.”

Good one!

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, commented further about the whole Republican organization:

“That caucus he has is really unusual,”

Mr. Reid said of House Republicans.

“They went down and did this salute to how good they were last week at their retreat. They outlined principles of immigration. I guess today they decided they have no principles as it relates to immigration.”

That’s what happens when the opposition doesn’t appreciate getting blamed for your B.S.

Filed Under: Ethics, Immigration Debate, Immigration News, Immigration reform, Politicians, The US Immigration Debacle

The United States Immigration Debacle, Part 5: The Conclusion

May 10, 2012 by 1 Comment

Part 5 of 5

 

There is plenty more to be said about the role that immigrants who entered our country without inspection have played in our society, but the main points I hope I established in this series are:

 

Immigrants have been here forever.

We asked the immigrants to come.

The immigration system does not meet our labor needs.

Waiting 25 years to come here is not realistic.

 

We never boycotted a company that gave us a good price and used immigrant labor.

Sending them all home now would make our broken visa system worse.

None of this is their fault.

They are not going to take over our country.

 

 

Once you stand back and take a look at the larger picture, it becomes clear that the immigration debacle is our own creation and the players in this game are only reacting in logical free market ways to work with the dysfunctional system that has not kept up with our growing labor needs.

 

Undocumented Immigrants are here, they have always been here, and they are very much a part of the intricate fabric that is the United States of America. Immigrants are not going to take over America and make it some other country as the most paranoid of us would like you to believe. Right wing extremists have been saying this since the 1700’s. and it still hasn’t happened. We are what we are because of who we are, and it is for this very reason that we have been so successful.

 

Immigrants have been coming here from every country on the planet in search of their American Dream. Whenever we have fallen and gone back on our promise of a better life to any particular immigrant population, we seem to eventually get over it and accept them into our society, but invariably at the cost of a new group of immigrant, who then become the new focus of our phobias and problems.

 

We are a nation of people who are always looking for a better price for a product or service. Brand loyalty comes in a distant second to our loyalty of the dollar, and whenever times get tough and the dollars get thin, our aggression to any perceived threat to our economic sustenance gets bolder. Immigrants, have always shouldered the brunt of our misguided anger through our well meaning, but highly ineffective immigration policies. What we tend to forget is that immigration is a function of our economy, not the cause of it.

 

We need to focus our energies on with the process of rebuilding our economy and stop vilifying on the people who came here to help. To send them all home now would add to inflation, shrink our economy and hamstring the very engines we need running smoothly to get us out of this recession.

So what do you think America?

 

 

Filed Under: Economy, Employment, Immigration's effects on citizens, Laws, The US Immigration Debacle

The United States Immigration Debacle, Part 4: The Immigrants

May 10, 2012 by 2 Comments

 

In keeping with the idea of looking frankly at the United States Immigration debacle we would be remiss if we were to leave out the immigrant’s role in this whole immigration problem.

 

The United States receives a majority of it’s immigrants from south of our border with Mexico. Most of us tend to lump all latinos within the same “Mexican” label because it’s less work. We don’t have to ask where they came from, we just assume it’s Mexico. Most of the news, statistics, hate and overall attention is focused on the immigrants from Mexico, but just to set the record straight I found some information on the DHS website.

 

Estimated Illegal Immigrant Population for Top Twenty Countries of Origin

and Top Twenty States of Residence in 2009:

 

2009 %

All countries …….. 10,750,000    100

Mexico …………….   6,650,000      62

El Salvador ……….     530,000       5

Guatemala ……….     480,000        4

Honduras. . . . . . .     320,000        3

Philippines ………..    270,000        2

India ………….. ..        200,000        2

Korea ………….  ..      200,000        2

Ecuador ……………    170,000        2

Brazil …………..  …    150,000         1

China …………………..120,000         1

Other ………. …..     1,650,000       15

 

 

 

Irregardless  which country they come from, they all of them come here to make a better life for themselves and their families, in much the same way we in the United States go to college to do the same.

 

Many would-be immigrants have been told by relatives and friends that there are jobs waiting for them in the United States. Our businesses are hungry for affordable labor to produce an affordable product for the cost-conscious American consumer. Business owners and managers ask the people who work for them if they know of anyone else who wants a job. It’s always nice when someone comes with a referral, otherwise there are plenty of applications that come through the back door every week.

 

Just like all the other segments of our society, if an illegal immigrant has a job now they are fortunate. If they don’t, the chances are slim they will get one any time soon. After a month or two of looking for work and not finding it, they usually go home. Immigration is a function of supply and demand. The economy is at work at all times– good and bad.

 

Many of the immigrants from Mexico used to come and go back and forth with the crop seasons, or if they worked in industries other than agricultural, they would go back to be with family for the holidays. Because going back and forth between our two countries not as easy as just hopping on a plane, they usually stay for a few weeks or months and return to the U.S. when they need the money.

 

Our enhanced border enforcement since 9/11 with our added fences, ground sensors, drones and more, has been more problematic for this type of job migration and we are now seeing a community of undocumented immigrants that are trapped here, separated from their families and fearful that if they go home, they will not be able to return. If they also know that if they are fortunate enough to come back, the job they had will not be waiting for them and finding a new one will take a long time, maybe longer than they can wait.  Fences and security enhancements work both ways; they keep things out, and they keep things in.

 

So why do immigrants come here illegally if it is so difficult and dangerous? Lets look at what is involved in coming here, both legally and illegally.

 

There are two ways you can enter this country:

legally with a visa and passing through any U.S. inspection point.

 

Illegally, without a visa by circumnavigating official entry points.

 

Since there are a myriad of visa types & recipient classifications,

as well as different applicant ceilings for different countries, etc. I will compare the most basic and popular application: a work visa for permanent legal status. (green card)

All information provided here will be as of 2/9/12, and is for information purposes only. If you are looking for information regarding yourself or someone you know I recommend you speak to an attorney who specializes in immigration law.

 

Legally would require:

filling out the paperwork for an immigrant visa and submitting it to a U.S. Consulate in Mexico and pay your $400 fee.  Then you wait for an appointment for an interview in Cuidad Juarez where the data is checked and your status determined. As of this writing the applications submitted through July 15 1987 are being processed for interviews. (1987. That’s not a typo.)  Click Here to see the wait list today. When you receive your interview date you need to have a biomedical scan to check for communicable diseases and assist in identification $226 Dollars covering the medical examination ($178 for minors under age 15) Then you go to your appointment in Cuidad Juarez on your appointed interview date. If your application is approved you can pick up your immigrant visa at a DHL office, and you may enter the U.S. Your non-resident immigration visa will be mailed to your U.S. address usually within 3 months and you will have six months after entering to apply for your status to be changed to permanent legal resident. (green card) There is a lottery where 50,000 people are drawn at random and given the opportunity to apply for a green card. It is random. It may take several years.

 

Illegally would require you to: try to evade border security, which since September 11, has been beefed up quite a bit. There are fences, ground sensors, mobile immigration officers, drones, and more. Often you will pay a Coyote @$3000 or more to help you get across the border, and your success is by no means guaranteed. You may have to jump fences, swim rivers, use a tunnel, travel some pretty deadly country.

 

You may even have to brave the elements as this trip could take you many days and people have been known to die of exposure from extreme heat or cold.

 

You would have to bring enough supplies with you to survive the ordeal, but not so much that it would hamper your progress or make the journey impossible.

 

After you get here you must purchase counterfeit documents to get employment. Most business owners/managers ask for this and many of them check to see if they are valid. Expect to pay $150 – $300 or more depending on who is making them, if they know you or a relative, if they are busy, and who knows what else.

 

Then you have to find a place to live until you can save up enough money until you are able to share the rent.

 

Don’t forget about clothes, deodorant, etc. You wouldn’t have brought very much with you.

 

Finding a job for anyone is not easy right now, and this goes for immigrants as well. Many employers have had to cut back their employees as the demand for their products or services has shrunk. Add that to many employers who have always feared the repercussions of not following Federal hiring guidelines only hired people who are legally authorized to work here. Your fake documents may work for a few weeks, but when your employer receives a letter from the government stating that your documentation doesn’t match what they have on record, you are on the road again and looking for work. You will do this until you find an employer who doesn’t check or who doesn’t even ask, and that is if they are hiring at all. It used to be that agricultural industries would hire anyone willing to work, but with the added efforts by several anti-immigrant states, you won’t dare show up for work their because it could mean a quick trip home.

 

We should not have had to compare the two different methods in the first place, but as you see when you do look closely at the realities of life for an undocumented immigrant, with a twenty-five year waiting period just for an interview to get into the country, and who knows how many years longer to be a green card application lottery winner, it is understandable many people choose the illegal way. With our immigration system set up the way it is, we are actually making the the choice to enter the United States legally an impossible luxury they can not afford.  A sensible, intelligent person can be expected to stand in line and wait your turn for a few weeks, or months, and perhaps even a few years, but at some point the wait gets a past little inconvenient, then past really inconvenient, and for the past twenty years it has been beyond laughable.  From their perspective, this is what they are up against.

 

So now the legal way is not a real way, and the illegal way becomes the necessary way.

And if you would add into all this the eleven million people who are here illegally already, if they were to go home today and apply for a visa and get in line, like the other poor souls, taking our quota system in place right now the wait gets 18 years longer. 43 years is a long time to ask someone to wait to come here to earn a better life for yourself and your family. A 15 year old waiting 43 years will be 58 years old by the time he gets here legally. Five more years and he may have become a Green Card lottery winner, just in time for retirement. Do we really want that?

 

To wrap up the experience for an undocumented immigrant it would be safe to say it’s not something you would take lightly, or want to bring your family along either. This explains why the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are single males between the ages of 15 – 34. It is best to start your family when you are already in the U.S.

Once here you can start your new life. but the risk is still not over; it never will be. You will be looking over your shoulder for flashing red lights and have nightmares of being separated from your family, which is a distinct possibility at any time, every day.

 

That really is the whole agreement in a nutshell. They have to get here any way they can, be fortunate to land a low paying entry level job, then If they got caught, they will get sent back to their home country. If they are lucky, they could get back quickly enough to keep their job, which would allow them to keep their apartment, and if they had a family, to keep their family from being homeless, hungry and unsure of their future. If they can’t get back across, they would either be separated from their family indefinitely, or be forced to move the whole family back home where the kids might not even know the language, or anyone there. That’s a pretty high price to pay for trying to make a better life, but this was implied before they ever reach our border. This is the compact we made, each of us understanding the role we play.

 

This agreement has worked in lieu of a legal fix to the situation, which year after year after year, has become more difficult to repair. They were happy they had a better life. We were happy we had a better life. Everyone was happy, until they get caught, and then they were very unhappy. We are completely oblivious to their problems because there was always someone waiting in the wings for their job and we were never really inconvenienced all that much. That part of the agreement never affected us consumers. We just complain about how lazy they are, or how much free medical and free social services and free education they are taking advantage of while they are here illegally. I can’t really blame them myself. If I were to have the short end of the stick on this arrangement, I’d be trying to make it a little more even myself. While I’m not condoning fraud, I’m just saying you work with the hand you’re dealt in the best way you can. We all do.

 

Next week we’ll wrap this whole mess up into a nice and tidy little package so we will have a fair and balanced look at our situation, and hopefully we’ll be able to come up with some solutions that will give us the security we need, the lifestyle we desire, and an economy that will grow stronger, supply more jobs, and maybe even give the poor people from south of the border a little more to look forward to, and less to be afraid of, like not having to live under the radar and outside the law.

Filed Under: Economy, immigrants, Laws, The US Immigration Debacle

The United States Immigration Debacle, Part 3: The Politicians

May 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Now there has been a rumbling of discontent around the issue of our United States immigration debacle. Some talk has been made by a few vocal minorities about sending all the undocumented immigrants home so they can stand in line like the rest and do things right. I don’t know who or when or how some of us Americans decided that the arrangement we had going all these years wasn’t quite working out for them any more, but this is where we are today.

 

New State laws and political stumping are ample evidence that the government is pretending to get involved again. This kind of elevated rhetoric usually only happens at election time. What is painfully obvious is the amount of effort that government has put into avoiding this issue. Why? Don’t the politicians want to be hero’s and have the respect and admiration (and votes) of a grateful nation?

 

Of course they do. And I think they are getting it. Here’s what I mean:

 

If the politicians really wanted to fix this situation, they could have done so at any time along the last fifty years or more years. They are the ones that have been chosen to make the laws after all are they not?

 

And what motivates politicians to take action? Money and public opinion. Let’s take a look at each of these and explore what would happen, beginning with public opinion.

 

There are three possible scenarios that public opinion can be categorized in our situation: A majority anti-immigrant sentiment; a majority pro-immigrant sentiment; or an equally distributed public sentiment.

 

Scenario #1 If the majority of the people are anti-immigrant:

All the politicians would have to do is write up a bill condemning undocumented workers, punish the employers, expel the immigrants and let them know if they are caught in our borders again, they will go to prison for a long time. The specifics can vary, but anything along these lines would satisfy the majority of the public, and their approval rating and chances for re-election are greatly improved.

 

Scenario #2  The majority of the people are pro-immigrant:

All they would have to do is pass a bill and give them amnesty, open up the borders and the majority will have been satisfied. Again, the specifics can vary, but the outcome will be the same. Improved public opinion and an increased chance for re-election.

 

Scenario #3  The nation is equally split among the two different opinions:

No problem here either once you stand back and look at this objectively and keep your eyes on a positive outcome. Propose a bill giving those that can prove employment and residency for the past five years can stay, keeping the productive people here, and everyone else, must leave or face deportation and banishment for ten years. You can argue other possibilities as well, but no matter the specifics, if you give both sides something, then everyone is equally pacified and perturbed, but having half of something is better than nothing.

 

Any of these scenarios could have taken place and the outcomes would have been appreciated by the country. Scenario 3 granted is the most difficult, but give them both something to be happy about, and get on with it. If our country is heavily in one camp or the other, (just look at the data from one of the thousands of opinion polls they take each year) it is that much easier. Give the people what they want and be the hero. Done. Public opinion can be addressed, and should be, by the politicians wanting to keep their jobs another year. Do nothing and now you have a lot of work come election time trying to persuade the voters you did a great job last term and will continue to do a great job next term. So why have we just ignored this situation all these years?

 

If you believe government understands those two basic things, Money and opinion (They take more opinion polls than any company in the world.) then any time you want to understand the government, just follow public opinion or money. Since we just looked at the three possible public opinion scenarios and we can’t explain their inaction, we should therefore follow the money.

 

I think politicians know that businesses really don’t want to elevate the undocumented workers to a legal status because it would cost many businesses more. Lots more. If businesses can pay much less to undocumented workers and get away with it because they are undocumented and unlikely to stand up for their rights, they will. If immigrants become legal, they will get minimum wage, regular breaks and benefits like vacation days, personal time off and overtime, medical and dental insurance, and maybe even 401k retirement plans, as well as understand their rights as workers much more and are more liable to file employment grievances with the EEOC. Prices are going to go up to compensate for the rising costs and their ability to compete with companies from other countries will diminish considerably, threatening their very existence.

 

And us? Some of us think we pay way too much for social and health services for the undocumented now, but wait until they become legal and the products we buy steadily rise in price until acceptable profit margins are made to sustain the companies livelihood. This will put them at risk for being undersold by outside companies whose labor prices are much much cheaper, and I believe the demand for undocumented workers will be on the rise once again.

 

Politicians really are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. They may act like clowns during election years, and some of them have been known to be full-time comics the rest of the year too, but they all know that as much as we like to blow off steam and beat our chests about how much more moral we are than the criminal undocumented worker, we really don’t want anything to change. Neither does business.

 

But we still have one more group of people involved in this situation to be discussed: the immigrant. Having a national debate about what to do about undocumented immigrants without even bringing them into discussion would be quite impossible. Even today we discuss their needs, desires, customs and personal habits to a great extent. Next week we’ll take a look at the immigrant, and where they fit into all of this.

 

Do you have an opinion about this article? Your feedback is welcome, but please let’s be civil. When we lose our composure, we lose the ability to influence others as well.

 

Filed Under: Immigration's effects on citizens, Laws, Politicians, Politics, Republicans, The US Immigration Debacle
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