Immigration:
Jobs Americans Won’t Do, Or Cannot Afford to Do?

The United States has a long and storied tradition of welcoming, from all corners of the globe, immigrants seeking economic opportunity and the many freedoms this country offers. The resulting cultural and ethnic diversity gives richness, depth and balance to the social landscape. The U.S. issues citizenship documents to approximately 1 million immigrants each year (number not updated to include Angelina Jolie’s adoptees). In addition, an estimated 700,000 manage to cross the border illegally. That people by the hundreds of thousands risk their lives to get here each year is a testament to the powerful lure of liberty and the possibility of prosperity. Troublingly, those hundreds of thousands of new illegal residents pose many difficult questions, both economic and moral, that our society is only now seriously considering. Wage depression, government resource consumption, border security, and failure to assimilate are just a few of the issues, raised by the existence of a large population of mostly off-the-books residents, which we must address in the very near future.

Since 9/11, the issue of illegal immigration has garnered much attention because of the ease with which a potential Middle-Eastern terrorist could sneak across the southern border, hidden among the thousands of other dark-complexioned runners, jumpers and swimmers. So far, dedicated intelligence officials are batting .1000 when it comes to domestic terror prevention since 9/11. Let’s hope that streak continues despite Liberal’s attempts to weaken national security by attacking the very practices, such as the NSA wiretapping program, that are responsible for that prevention.

Setting aside the national security issue for now: in addition to the usual assimilation and taxation issues that are raised by the influx of illegals, George Bush’s, and the Republican’s, favorite mantra is that illegals are doing jobs Americans don’t want. This reasoning is more tortured than a prisoner at Abu-Ghraib. It is what President Bush would refer to as a bit of political “trickeration”. This argument, used by Democrats as well, just not as loudly, intentionally misleads the average voter to assume that Americans will not pick lettuce, clean hotel rooms, or work construction under any circumstances, and so why not make it legitimate for the aliens do it? To make this argument is saying that Americans think they are too good to perform certain jobs. That point may be true for some, but for the majority of job seeking Americans, it is patently false and intellectually dishonest, and the ones who advance the point know it is. The problem is not that Americans don’t want these jobs; it’s that illegals are doing these jobs at wages Americans don’t want. For Bush, admitting that this is really an artificial-wage-depression issue rather than a snooty-American career choice issue, would be admitting that illegal immigration, in terms of jobs and wages, directly hurts Americans: something he has been reluctant to do. Disingenuous politicians from both parties are lobbied heavily by businesses that employ cheap, illegal workers. Employers of illegals love the status quo since they don’t have to fund health insurance, social security taxes, nor adhere to minimum wage guidelines. (Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a proponent of the minimum wage. As a political tool, it is a class-warfare, vote-buying scheme hatched in the fever swamps of Liberalism and is bad for America, but that’s for another essay) For better or worse, American employees have successfully negotiated over the years, a plethora of benefits that most employers offer as a matter of routine. Employers of aliens are not bound by this routine. For better or worse, American citizens also enjoy access to a broad range of entitlement programs and safety nets. Many Americans in communities with large alien populations have rightly calculated that it is more profitable to not work at all, than it is to work at low pay with few or no benefits. [It’s hard to blame them initially but over time, it’s easy to become lazy, feel entitled, and abdicate personal responsibility for one’s own life. There’s nothing shameful about accepting temporary assistance, but it comes with the expectation of effort toward self-improvement.]

It may be profitable for businesses to employ illegals, but doing so circumvents the free market. All things being equal, the free labor market, if allowed to work, would dictate a wage at which Americans would be willing to do literally any job. It is Economics 101. In a fair labor market, all the potential laborers are legal U.S. citizens. Businesses have to compete for the best employees by raising wages and offering benefits. Generally, workers will accept positions with the company that offers the most pay (assuming that pay is higher than what they could “earn” collecting government handouts. That’s another reason to limit taxpayer funded charity to the able bodied…it forces them to find work). It doesn’t matter if the job is filter-cleaner at the treatment plant, laundry-collector at the Home for the Frequently Incontinent, or fish-squeezer at Vladimir’s House of Caviar, there is a wage at which Americans will compete for that position. It may be higher than what the employer wants to pay, but that’s too bad.

Now, let’s throw into the fair market, countless illegal aliens who are willing to work for peanuts, don’t demand benefits, and on whose behalf employers don’t have to pay social security taxes. Suddenly, the going wage for fish-squeezer is one third of what it used to be and there are no benefits. The American can make more money, sitting on his couch and eating chip crumbs off his shirt while he collects various government checks in the mail. That’s a broken system no matter how you look at it.
When you have relatively few job candidates choosing from many positions, employers must bid the wages up, offering to pay more than the competition to entice the candidate to work for him. When there are many prospective employees and relatively few jobs, the candidates bid the wages down, each one offering to work for less than the previous one in order to get the job. That’s how the market works, and it’s fine as long as everything is legitimate and legal. The problem comes in when the competitive work force is composed mostly of people who are in the country illegally. Not only are they law-breakers in a nation of laws and should be deported, they help force Americans into unemployment by artificially lowering the wages for various otherwise higher paying, and thus coveted, jobs.

What is the answer? These people are already here and like it or not, are becoming enmeshed in the fabric of our society. Is it even possible to round up 12 million people and deport them? We don’t know who they are so how can we find them? We can’t just start rounding up Mexicans willy nilly and sorting them out; Liberals tell us that racial profiling is wrong.

Whatever the solution, the first thing, obviously, is close the southern border. Maybe an Israeli-style wall or impenetrable fence would do the trick. We must control our borders or everything else is just foolish, political, election-year posturing.