I must look at immigration in the US, and its problems, from the lens of an historian (MA, history, Western Illinois University,
1994). A lot of what I hear and read
about “solving” our “illegal immigration crisis”
is simple crap.
Anybody that suggests to you that we can solve the
immigration problem by 1) closing the
borders, and 2) deporting existing
illegal immigrants, is LYING TO YOU. Or they’re idiots.
Or both.
I drove to Chicago last
week-end and, as I was between the FM stations I normally listen to and those I
have set for Chicago,
I was poking around the dial. I hit upon
the Moody Bible station (I listened to Christian stations once in a while just
to see what the lunatic fringe is up to). The moderator was discussing the impending Secret Evil Plan (apologies
to Glenn Greenwald, who uses strategic capitalization to emphasize the traits of those he
wishes to excoriate—to great effect) to form the North American Union (good
grief). This moderator opposed that Evil
Plan, of course, and said “it should be a simple matter to (all together now)
close the borders and deport illegals.”
But let’s look at some facts: 1) NO
COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD has been able to control its borders. Except, maybe, North Korea for people who want to
get in (since there are none).
Rome spent a large part of its fortune trying to keep Germanic tribes out,
eventually paying them to guard Roman
borders for the Romans. That worked out nicely.
And didn’t the Chinese try that wall thing? Didn’t the French before World War II? Weren’t castles made obsolete, no later than
the 14th century, by the introduction of gun powder used in siege
cannon? By the way: it’s estimated that a Chinese laborer died
for every yard of the Wall, during
its construction—and it didn’t work.
Then, let’s look at US borders. No, not just our border with Mexico, but our
entire border—water as well as
land. I’m going to say it’s 10,000
miles, which is way less than it
actually is. We could certainly end the
unemployment problem if we hired guards. But, alas, in the era of Grover Norquist (fools don’t get links) and
opposition to any and all new taxes, there wouldn’t be any way to pay those
guards. No wait: we could
borrow more money and let our grandchildren pay it off. I’m sure the Chinese and Japanese central
banks would love to loan it to us.
Didn’t Boeing Aircraft design and build a test “virtual border fence?” What about that? $28 million later it doesn't work it seems. $28 million
for 28 miles. Hmmmm. For 10,000 miles, that’d be 10,000 million
dollars, just to build it--$10
billion. Oh wait again: I guess we could, since that’s less than a month’s expenditure in Iraq. And, I suppose, there’d be economies of scale
as Boeing built more and more miles. But
remember: the test virtual fence didn’t work. And, if we did built it, we’d have to service
it. We could contract that job out to
the private sector, of course, because they’d be more efficient.
NOTE: I was going to
turn the “Boeing Aircraft,” above, into a link to the part of their website
devoted to the virtual fence, but there was no
information about it on the Boeing site.
The simple fact is that no nation can control who enters and
leaves it. A nation can try, and maybe
should, but it will never be entirely successful. For instance: I happen to know two illegals: one who entered illegally and is now legal (via marriage) and another
who is still illegal. In both cases they
came to America on tourist visas and simply overstayed
their visas. Even if we could, somehow, seal off our border I
doubt, in time, it would slow immigration one bit.
All right: let’s
assume the impossible—we have Sealed Our Borders. Now it’s time for step two: deporting illegals. I’ve seen lots of estimates of the number of
illegals in the US. The number I'll use, a conservative number, is 10-11 million. How are we, as a nation, going to physically remove them, and at what
cost? What about hiring enough
authorities to line up every one currently residing in this country and asking
him/her to verify his/her citizenship? No Bill of Rights problems there.
Then how are you going to detain them (which means feeding, clothing, housing, schooling, medical
care), and arrange and pay for flights/buses/trains/ships out of the
country? It simply cannot be done,
especially not in a society that is purportedly free. I could take some time and do the math, but I
think it is unnecessary. Just calculate
the number of children that will be born during detention and compare it to the
number we can actually deport in the same period. And for some
that detention will be long term.
I also hear a lot of myths. “Illegals consume scarce public services.” “They’re all on welfare.” “They won’t assimilate into our
culture.” “They cause lots of crime.”
- Most all illegals, who are by and large
Hispanic, work fiercely hard. They have
acquired a well-deserved reputation as tough, dependable workers.
- To go on welfare means giving government
a lot of information. Would an illegal really do that, and risk being found-out
and deported? Yes, I’m sure there are a
lot of children of illegals who go to school, but most of them aren’t illegal—they were born here. Also: should we really
make sure illegals receive no education? Or, to put it another way: make sure they are the most ignorant and
dependent people in our society?
- True, there are large Hispanic
neighborhoods in many cities. Just like Jews,
Irish, Italians, Eastern-Europeans (Polish in Chicago), and every other “minority” group
that has entered this country in the past, including all of our ancestors.
- Crime? Who says? Again: being an illegal means making yourself as
invisible as possible. Is committing
crime the best way to do that?
For all of these
myths, where are the numbers? Of course,
bloviators don’t need numbers: don’t confuse me with no stinking numbers. They just need a place to screech.
What we need is a logical, fact-based immigration policy. Immigrants are here, legally or illegally. They will continue to arrive until our
society becomes poor enough that it is undesirable for them to come (and we’re
heading that way, it seems—is that
how we solve our immigrant “problem?”). We have to account for and deal with immigrants somehow.
I don’t have such a policy handy, but that doesn’t mean it
can’t exist. It will be a combination of
a guest worker policy, some sort of amnesty for those already living here
(because there’s no alternative), and assimilation through generations, as have
most all earlier immigrant groups. And
those that haven’t been assimilated are in their situation because the majority
population won’t let them, not (at least originally) because the immigrants
didn’t want to.
I'll let people comment some day soon. For now, though, I want to get a few posts up and not have to worry about checking those who comment, etc.
