Immigration

The Art of Unpolicy



April 7, 2008


To grasp American immigration policy, to the extent that it can be grasped, one need only remember that the United States forbids smoking while subsidizing tobacco growers.

We say to impoverished Mexicans, “See this river? Don’t cross it. If you do, we’ll give you good jobs, a drivers license, citizenship for your kids born here and eventually for you, school for said kids, public assistance, governmental documents in Spanish for your convenience, and a much better future. There is no penalty for getting caught. Now, don’t cross this river, hear?”

How smart is that? We’re baiting them. It’s like putting out a salt lick and then complaining when deer come. As parents, the immigrants would be irresponsible not to cross.

The problem of immigration, note, is entirely self-inflicted. The US chose to let them in. It didn’t have to. They came to work. If Americans hadn’t hired them, they would have gone back.

We have immigration because we want immigration. Liberals favor immigration because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy and international and all, and from a genuine streak of decency. Conservative Republican businessman favor immigration, frequently sotto voce, because they want cheap labor that actually shows up and works.

It’s a story I’ve heard many times—from a landscaper, a construction firm, a junkyard owner, a group of plant nurserymen, and so on. “We need Mexicans.” You could yell “Migra!” in a lot of restaurants in Washington, and the entire staff would disappear out the back door. Do we expect businessmen to vote themselves out of business? That’s why we don’t take the obvious steps to control immigration (a thousand-dollar-a-day fine for hiring illegals, half to go anonymously to whoever informed on the employer).

In Jalisco, Mexico, where I live, crossing illegally is regarded as casually as pirating music or smoking a joint, and the coyotes who smuggle people across as a public utility, like light rail. The smuggling is frequently done by bribing the American border guards, who are notoriously corrupt.

Why corrupt? Money. In the book De Los Maras a Los Zetas, by a Mexican journalist, I find an account of a transborder tunnel he knew of that could put 150 illegals a day across the border. (I can’t confirm this.) The price is about $2000 a person. That’s $300,000 a day, tax-free. What does a border guard make? (And where can I find a shovel?) The author estimated that perhaps forty tunnels were active at any give time. Certainly some are. A woman I know says she came up in a restaurant and just walked out the door. Let’s hear it for Homeland Security: All together now….

The amusing thing is the extent to which American policy is not to have a policy. The open floodgates to the south are changing—have changed, will continue to change—the nature of the country forever. You may think this a good thing or a bad thing. It is certainly an important thing—the most important for us in at least a century. Surely (one might think) it deserves careful thought, national debate, prudence, things like that.

But no. In the clownishness that we regard as presidential campaigning, none of the contenders has much to say on the matter. In a dance of evasion that has become customary, the candidates carefully ignore those matters of most import for the nation, since considering hard questions might be divisive. War, peace, race, immigration, affirmative action, the militarization of the economy, the desirability of empire—these play no part in the electoral discussion. We seem to regard large issues as we might the weather: interesting, but beyond control. It’s linger, loiter, dawdle and fumble and see what happens.

And so, while various conservative groups (not including businessmen) rush out to guard the borders, nice liberal professors in the Northeast hurried learn Spanish to help local illegals settle in. Many people, alienated from the United States by policies and trends they find odious, no longer care. There is no national consensus. The country fractures into a congeries of warring agglomerations and the resulting paralysis manifests itself in drift.

The problem with muddling through is that one may not like what lies on the other side of the muddle. Some day we may look back on the question of immigration and see that it all worked out well in the end and wonder what the fuss was about. Or we may not. No one will be able to charge us with having thought things through.

There is much billingsgate about whether to grant amnesty. The question strikes me as cosmetic. We are not going to round up millions of people and physically throw them across the border. Whether we should doesn’t matter. It’s fantasy. Too many people want them here, or don’t care that they are here, or don’t want to uproot families who have established new lives here. Ethnic cleansing is ugly. Further, the legal Latino population votes. It’s just starting to vote. A bumper crop of Mexican-American kids, possessed of citizenship, are growing headlong toward voting age. These are not throwable-out, even in principle.

People complain that Mexico doesn’t seal the borders. Huh? Mexico is a country, not a prison. It has no obligation to enforce American laws that America declines to enforce. Then there was the uproar when some fast-food restaurant in the US began accepting pesos. Why? Mexican border towns accept dollars. Next came outrage against Mexico because its consulates were issuing ID cards to illegals, which they then used to get drivers licenses. Why outrage? A country has every right to issue ID to its citizens. America doesn’t have to accept them. If it does, whose problem is that?

If you want to see a reasonable immigration policy, look to Mexico. You automatically get a ninety-day tourist visa when you land. No border Nazis. To get residency papers, you need two things (apart from photographs, passport, etc.) First, a valid tourist visa to show that you entered the country legally. Mexico doesn’t do illegal aliens. Second, a demonstrable income of $1000 a month. You are welcome to live in Mexico, but you are going to pay your own way. Sounds reasonable to me.

You want a Mexican passport? Mexico allows dual citizenship. You (usually) have to be a resident for five years before applying. You also have to speak Spanish. It’s the national language. What sense does it make to have citizens who can’t talk to anybody?

It looks to me as though America thoughtlessly adopted an unwise policy, continued it until reversal became approximately impossible, and now doesn’t like the results. It must be Mexico’s fault.


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Very true and a lot of good points

I'm fairly sick of illegals myself. Living in Cali and working in LA I have so many dealings I'd prefer left to my excursions into TJ. The police can't even question immigration status. An illegal just got out of an LA jail after serving FOUR MONTHS on a gun charge and within a day he went out and killed a star football player in cold blood. They never once did an immigration check. The Mayor in LA has frequent meetings with the Mexican President. The system is so fucked it's beyond belief. My buddy can't get decent wages in construction because our company prefers Mexicans. Nothing like disposable labor huh? They hit you on the freeways and run. It's endless here in the Southland, absolutely endless.

It must be shitty.

I'm glad I live in the NE

They must all move to LA, because for how close San Diego is to the border, I rarely see mexicans.

But personally, having lived in California all my life, I have no problems with Mexicans per say. I only have problems with certain groups of people (gang members, trashy people, etc.) regardless of their ethnicity (and every ethnicity has their share of these creeps). I think its a bad idea to stereotype based on race.

On the topic of the article, I pretty much agree with all of it and think it makes some great points.

The last thing this country needs is a population base of ignorant, non-English speaking, work horses that are willing and fully able to lower working wages for the rest of us. They live the Mexican dream and send all that money back home. They pretty much live a lawless life, have no insurance and steal identities. My good friend is manager at a local restaurant and every year come tax season she gets calls from people asking why they are getting tax returns from Tortillas Flats. The list never ends. We have so many problems in this country, the invasion is simply one more to add to the platter of shit we will all be eating in the coming years.

I agree, but that hardly characterizes all Mexicans, I would wager it roughly characterizes less than 50% (possibly much less, but exact numbers will vary based inductions from your own experience).

Our politicians have allowed this to occur not on the basis of incompetence, but rather a purposeful attempt to put this country on the fast track to full blown socialism (as if it weren't there already). Import millions and millions of an uneducated underclass, gee.... I wonder what they will vote for? But of course - more government programs, more freebies, and so on!


"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism". - Nikita Khrushchev

I see it differently. I highly doubt anyone in a position to win power in the states is actually going to implement socialist policies. They may espouse socialist themes and promises, but once they win over the working class with that rhetoric, they rarely, if ever, act on those promises. It is merely a way to get into power.

Interesting. This is a point where liberal ideals clash with the capitalistic philosophies. The former ensures they'll have at least an opportunity, the latter dictates they'll likely fail, but what is to be done with those that fail and thus choose the unsavory enterprises listed above? As the problem intensifies the ideal will collapse upon itself and the conservative-capitalist philosophies will be able to further exploit the working poor. The US needs to identify the tipping point for the inevitable saturation of this cheap labour, of which the unemployed (or otherwise) spill over and create a burden exceeding appropriate limitations (too much crime/poverty/social dependency/overpopulation).

In any case, social security, immigration, population demographics (age) and national debt are pretty serious issues that mind-blowingly get glossed over in the news in favor of burning Clinton about lying about sniper fire.

Maybe im just a redneck, but I say build a wall, and shoot anyone who tries to cross it. Keep the ones that are here (I just hired a Nicrauagan, best painter ive ever seen, and at $10/hr and a fish sammich for lunch) and legalize them. The wall will pay for itself with the money saved from the drain on the economy. Start a Green Card lottery like they have for people from any other country.

If they think that camel jockeys with destructive intents arent crossing that same border, they are dreaming.

Why should it be any more complicated then that?

it's got nothing to do with socialism. it's about the government not enforcing the law. mostly, it benefits some business owners. and not just corporate, i'm talking grassroots smalltime people in your towns. these are also the people more likely to be involved in politics, not the people doing the 8-to-5 grind. if it benefits people higher on the food chain, then those laws get ignored. this is going on with immigration, and it is also going on in the housing markets. and this failure of the rule of law is what will eventually kill this nation. in my opinion, rule of law is more important to economic success than even democracy.

I think stellar got it right. We already have a lot of socialism, communism is just a little farther down the road. The english are farther along than we are which is why they are a second class power already. China which is communist only in name and is mostly capitalist under a dictatorship is rising and will take our place in short order.

Do you know what Mexico does with illegals? They are very rough, you don't want to be one. But they cry the blues when we crack down on their illegals.

yes, the Discovery Times Channel did a piece a while back called "Chasing El Norte". the mexicans do their best to keep neighbors below the south border out. non-mexicans risking the passage through mexico to america risk losing all their money paying bribes to police, being robbed, being raped, beaten, deported, or worse.

i honestly couldn't give a shit what the mexicans think. they can just fuck off. despite being a major oil exporter along with canada and venezuela, they can't seem to prosper. despite exporting a lot of US jobs to mexican factories, they still keep coming.