Open Writing

Candidates for the next presidential election, to be held in November 2008, have been busy criss-crossing the country for the past twelve months, making their pitch to the electorate. This past week I was amazed to read that the contenders have been taken aback by the very strong feelings people have expressed on immigration issues. They said those issues have surpassed concerns about the economy and social security. This makes me wonder which planet these aspiring presidents have been living on.

Whatever anyone’s feelings are about immigration per se, the fact remains that it is a problem that affects everyone in the US, and needs to be fixed. America is a country of immigrants, and needs the influx to continue, but at a rate that allows for assimilation, and in a fashion that is based on legitimacy. An estimate of the illegal immigrant population in the USA in 2006 was 20 million. Of that number, 57% were from Mexico, 24% from Central America, 9% from Asia, and 10% from Europe, Canada and the rest of the world.

In order to remain in the US and work, this undocumented population needs to have driver’s licenses, birth certificates and green cards, especially now that the US Department of Homeland Security has begun to prosecute employers who hire such people. The need for proof of legal residency has spawned an industry of forgers whose raw materials are derived from identity theft, stolen passports and the particulars of deceased individuals.

Yet another bone of contention is the education of the illegal aliens’ children. The laws on this issue are a patchwork of variance from state to state. Nationally, legislation is still pending. Some states have passed laws allowing illegals residency tuition benefits, others have not.

Aside from the legislative aspects, the cost of education is born by US citizens, not the parents of the children, since they pay no taxes. One estimate concludes that taxpayers are spending $7.4 billion a year to educate illegal alien children, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. At the same time, adult undocumented aliens cannot avail themselves of educational opportunities, even to learn to speak and write English.

So here is a situation where the adults cannot find adequately paid jobs without forged documents, and many of their children will grow up without a formal education. The result of all this is the creation of an illiterate, ignorant underclass whose only contribution to society is to perform unskilled work for exploitation level wages.

True, many of the unskilled jobs these people perform are those that citizens are unwilling to do, but how many pea pickers and swimming pool cleaners do we need? The ability to have our houses cleaned, our crops harvested and our gardens cared for at a fraction of the realistic cost, skews and ultimately damages the national economy, because the employers and homeowner who hire these workers do not pay payroll taxes or provide disability insurance.

The US is still dealing with the aftermath of slavery, and will be for generations to come it seems, so where is the sense in fostering another slave-based society, even though these slaves are not indentured or living here unwillingly? In a rare act of sane governance, the Bush Administration in 2007 proposed legislation that would have addressed broad aspects of immigration reform. The 26-point proposal included such measures as strengthened border controls, and changes in the law that would have allowed illegal immigrants to start down the path of legitimacy.

Quite rightly, the Bush proposal was not an offer of a free lunch, and there was a price to be paid for coming out of the shadows. Some undocumented immigrants would risk deportation, albeit with the opportunity of returning legally, and all would have to pay a fine of $1000. The proposal became a Bill with bi-partisan support, and for a while it looked like a new day dawning, but it wasn’t to be. Congress and the Senate played semantics with the wording and argued over such things as whether the aspects affecting illegal aliens wasn’t in fact an amnesty.

Massive street demonstrations by immigrants further reduced the chances of the Bill’s passage, and in August it was abandoned, even though a very large proportion of US citizens apparently supported it. No small surprise then that US citizens are concerned, but a very big surprise that the presidential candidates didn’t know. This doesn’t bode well for better government in the next term.

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