What exactly should we take from the massive demonstrations over the weekend, the largest in LA? Something close to a million latinos marching through the streets of Los Angeles waving Mexican flags to protest the move in Congress to crack down on illegal immigration was supposed to make the rest of legal citizens in the US more sensitive to the plight of illegals?
I don't think so.
I've been to LA. I worked with a company in the LA area that was 99% latino, with a majority of those in the country illegally. Did the managers of the company worry about that fact? No. In fact, I received this bit of unsolicited information from a senior manager at the company:
"You watch, we (Mexican immigrants) are taking over. Soon we will run this country."
And it was no joke.
If you think I'm overly harsh or insensitive or even racist, let me give you my answer to all the arguments for maintaining the status quo:
1. "Illegal immigrants are only trying to find a better life for themselves and their families." For many, I'm sure that's true. But does that justify our looking the other way while those immigrants are scammed and robbed and even killed by the "Coyotes" who prey on them? Does it mean we let drug dealers and gangs and terrorists walk across the border with them? And most importantly, it is outrageously unfair to those legal immigrants who fight to meet all of the requirements for entry into the country while illegals are let through with a wink and a nod.
2. "It's impossible to stop them." Thoroughly untrue. Border enforcement is completely possible, and the cost of fences, guards, and technology to secure the border is a drop in the bucket compared to the social services and healcare costs we are bearing right now taking care of illegals and trying to protect ourselves against the gangs and drug runners. We are failing to stop them because too many politicians want it that way: Some Republicans are catering to business owners who hire illegals because they will work for $5.15 and hour or less. Democrats just expect to grant them all citizenship so they can vote for Democrats every election cycle (see the Clinton administration).
3. "We are unfairly singling out Latinos for enforcement, and that's racist." Not true. The first and most obvious refutation is the sheer numbers of illegals from Mexico and Central America. If we were discriminating against them, you couldn't tell it from the sheer numbers. But there are also untold thousands of illegals entering the country from all over the world; they don't have to just sneak across the border, but arrive on tourist or education visas and just disappear. Like the 9/11 terrorists, for example.
4. "They do work nobody else will do." That's a myth perpetuated by the corporate farm owners and big business people. The reality is that it's just an incomplete sentence, which would be more correct if it read, "The do work nobody else will do for $5.15 or less per hour." Whether or not we need low-skilled workers from poor countries to take these sorts of jobs is a separate issue from illegal immigration. If we successfully stop the influx of illegals, then we could put a logical immigration policy in effect that meets the needs of employers legally while protecting citizens' rights to be the first in line for employment.
5. "We can't just deport 30 million people." Maybe not, but that's not really what we're trying to do. There's a lot of discussion remaining on this part of the policy, but the basic idea is this: If local law enforcement is empowered to arrest illegals and turn them over to INS for processing and deportation, that can happen over time. If employers are forced to stop employing illegals, many of their illegal employees will return to their home country on their own when they no longer have a job here. The bottom line is that we will find a way to deal with those already here, but the fact that so many are here does not mean we should give up the goal of gaining control over our country's borders.
The Congress is finally dealing with the issue, which is a positive. However, in today's polarized political climate, I fear we won't get a meaningful program out of Washington. We'll see.
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