Here’s a quick guide to the current debate on illegal immigration, and a practical solution that transcends all the major points.
There are four basic camps to the current Illegal Immigration debate:
1. The Geraldo Rivera/La Raza/Democrat Party Position.
Borders? We don’t need no stinkin’ borders. America is the land of opportunity. We owe it [insert reason here] to the people of the world to let them come to this blessed land and make a decent living for themselves and their extended families, as well as vote for the Democrats in the next election. How they get here — legally or not — is just a detail.
2. The Wall Street Journal/U.S. Chamber of Commerce/George Bush Position.
9/11? What does controlling the borders have to do with national security? There are jobs in this country that American workers simply will not do . . . for the wages we want to pay them. So bring on the cheap labor, and don’t hold American businesses accountable for hiring illegal aliens and/or paying under-the-table wages. We need these people to pick our crops, cut our lawns, and build our homes at a price we are comfortable paying them.
3. The Uber-Conservative Position.
Immigration? Legal or Illegal, there are too many people in this country already with a vowel at the end of their name, who pray at the wrong church (or no church at all) or don’t need SPF 50 sun block to keep from looking like a fresh boiled lobster on a sunny July afternoon. Close everything down and return this country to its original state. Er, I mean the original state after we got rid of the Indians.
4. The Build a Fence, Deport ‘em and Re-admit ‘em legally Position.
Logistics? You say we can’t find 12 million illegal aliens, and even if we did, we don’t have enough prisons to lock them all up? So, we give it a try anyway, and see how many we can catch and deport. And as we’re doing this, we see how many will leave voluntarily once we start putting a few dozen CEOS in jail for hiring illegal aliens in the first place. Whatever number is left over becomes “the problem.” We keep hunting them down while we secure our borders, and re-introduce some sanity into the legal immigration process.
These, I believe, represent the four main positions from which other subsets flow (the McCain codicils, the Rudy exceptions, the Hillary position-of-the-moment, and so on, and so forth.)
All four are destined to fail, because none of their core positions address the three main fundamental issues of (a) security, (b) the need for a sufficient pool of reasonably priced labor, and (c) addressing immigration not as a legal issue but a matter of personal conscience. Those that highlight security make it impossible to keep paying subsistence wages, or under the table wages without the corresponding state-mandated obligations and benefits. Those that continue the free flow of cheap labor make it impossible to adequately control the borders and/or keep track of the immigrants and their extended families flooding into the country. And those that address both security and labor fail to consider matters of personal conscience that supersede the law, whatever it says.
But I have a solution to the problem that addresses all three needs. The answer is found in the distant past of American history, and is in fact an acceptable practice today in many parts of the developing world. We can have cheap labor, protect our security, as well as pick and choose the laws we want to obey if we simply repeal the 14th Amendment, and bring back slavery.
For those who focus on cheap labor as the most important issue, there’s nothing cheaper than free labor. Four walls and a ceiling, some ratty old bedding to sleep on, and a communal outhouse is all one needs to provide for the basic necessities for this new labor force. As far as feeding them, there’s enough government surplus cheese and other subsidized programs to sustain these new workers without cutting into the all-important profit margin. Health care isn’t needed, because when they succumb to the ravages of nature there’s a never-ending supply of new recruits to replace them.
As for security, a few strands of concertina wire around the ole compound is all the security we need. If that fails, there’s always the “Toby” solution as the mini-series Roots illustrated. Ten toes are not strictly necessary unless you plan on running away, and there are plenty of jobs where walking and sitting will do just fine. Moreover, the absence of a few toes will have the additional salutary benefit of reducing the individual’s foot size, which saves on shoe leather and thus helps the environment. Al Gore should be pleased.
For those who resent the fact that the U.S. government might in fact want to control its own borders, and thus control immigration, slavery returns this decision to the individual. Government no longer tells us what we can or can’t do; we’re now free to follow our own hearts. Allow as many people to cross the Rio Grande as you want, then round ‘em up and take them to their new home. There may still be some laws on the books that require schooling for young children or minimum sanitary conditions for the new American workforce, but these can be ignored just as easily as the old immigration laws were.
Now, I know this all may sound a little draconian, but I’m sure if you think about it for a while you’ll see that re-instituting slavery is the only way to touch on all the elements everyone insists are important. The alternative approach, which is to actually treat this subject seriously instead of as a political football, clearly hasn’t worked. Since Position #4 doesn’t seem to have any real support on Capitol Hill, it’s time to propose a new solution that will capture the imagination of our elected officials. Upholding current immigration laws, deporting illegal aliens, penalizing employers and sanctuary workers who hire or harbor illegal aliens — all these are clearly unacceptable positions to our lawmakers in Washington. Since these antiquated notions are no longer valid in today’s world, it’s time to get creative. Re-instituting slavery may not be the best solution, but it’s certainly one that is in keeping with the needs and requirements as defined by the current debate.
So, I’m hoping you all can get behind my proposal. It makes about as much sense as anything being discussed seriously today.
Jackson-ic@hotmail.com
http://www.scifi-jackson.com/
Read more articles by Phillip Ellis Jackson
Because of the all-you-can-eat sarcasm towards all camps on the issue, it's hard to say what you feel a "real" solution would be? If it's blatantly racist to want to reduce immigration, naive to want to deport illegal aliens, savagely capitalistic to bring illegal aliens into the country, and unreasonable to leave the borders open, you've pretty much pooh-pooh'd every position on the matter. I understand the tone of this article is intended to be humorous, but you're disparaging good and reasonable ideas along with silly and unreasonable ideas. For example: it's silly to leave the borders completely porous to anyone who wants to cross, with no accountability whatsoever. It's not silly to expect immigration laws, including deportation, to be enforced as they were written. Or, to put it another way, if it's silly to expect that, then it's silly to expect any laws to be enforced. How will find all the murderers and rapists in the country? How could we possibly track them all down? And what will we do with them? Throw them in prison? Do you have any idea how much that would cost? It's absurd! What we need is COMPREHENSIVE law enforcement reform, so that these people can pay a fine, come out of the shadows, stay with their close, loving families, and become regular citizens again. Good grief, are you some kind of bigot or something?!
If you think that the "compromise" bill was a logical, reasonable solution to the competing "radical" opinions on the matter, then you must not have been paying much attention when the IRCA was passed in 1986, and hopefully you'll be around 20 years from now when we have the debate all over again. Of course it'll be a much easier debate next time around: The 120 million (if history is any guide) new Mexican immigrants will largely decide the issue. Who knew that a country with a GDP the same as England was so full of so many poor, desperate, hard-working, Catholic, family-oriented people. With a population willing to do any job for any amount of money, it's hard to imagine how Mexico got the way it is.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | May 29, 2007
There is no honest debate on this issue, which is the point of the article.
If you’re from camp #1, you want to throw the borders open for so-called humanitarian reasons (and to attract new Democrat party voters), without any concern for what it does to the country. If you’re from camp #2, as long as the labor is cheap and free-flowing, you’ll worry about security on another occasion. If you’re from camp #3, you solve today’s problems by pointing to what we should have done 200 years ago, and tell us all how much better off we’d be if we followed that route — but you offer absolutely no concrete proposals to deal with today’s problems.
Position #4 is at least an attempt to return some sense to the system. But again, it’s been completely dismissed by out leaders in Washington because we “can’t deport 12 million people” (as if everyone needs to go on day 1, and there’s no simultaneous effort to penalize employers and those offering sanctuary.)
So if #4 won’t even be put on the table, we’re left with 1-3 — or come up with something new. I think I’ve done a reasonable job of capturing the three elements that motivate the present national debate (cheap labor, national security, and picking and choosing the laws we obey), and weaving them into a new approach that encompasses all three elements; a return to slavery.
OF COURSE it’s satire! Which makes the essay a sad commentary on what actually motivates the national conversation. You can’t build an intelligent policy that assigns equal weight to national security, cheap labor, and selective enforcement of national laws unless you do something as incredibly stupid as return the country to slavery! If the national immigration debate was a real debate, we’d be prioritizing our national needs, setting limits on employer and potential employee actions, and enforcing existing as well as new laws. But if I wrote a dry, straightforward piece saying this, it would be just another ho-hum addition to the background noise. So instead, I decided to let the current debate actually drive the policy choices, and show everyone how ridiculous it is to think that anything good will emerge from this process until the country gets its head screwed on right.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | May 29, 2007
The satire and absurdity are obvious in this piece, but satire and absurdity are the only appropriate ways to describe our political process in these latter days of the Republic. Underlying all the various logical arguments on amnesty legislation, I think conservatives have finally reached the “Mongo point” – that is seeing themselves as Mongo in a Mel Brooks’ farce. Mongo was the fictional character self-described as “only a pawn in the game of life” – a guy perpetually bewildered by his inability to grasp how the smarter people constantly manipulated and out-maneuvered him. He’s become a cultural icon representing the perpetual loser – too dumb to play in the big leagues.
Conservatives constantly harp on how illegal immigrants have broken the law and then look hopefully toward the liberals for an approving nod – or at least a small thumbs-up. But to their vast and somewhat bewildered surprise, the liberals choose instead to focus on morality and compassion. We can’t break up families we are told, these illegal immigrants are basically good people just looking for a better life, etc. etc.. Unlike abortion or gay marriage or a half dozen other issues, liberals have switched gears on conservatives and are now arguing morality over legalities.
Where traditional references to God or natural law proved futile, conservatives found themselves constantly out-maneuvered when liberals played the legal card. Morality has no business in the law we were told; it’s about equal rights and adherence to the law as defined under modern constitutional interpretations. No one, conservative or liberal, seriously believes legalized abortion will be overturned any time soon through appeals to morality and everyone suspects it’s only a matter of time before gay marriage is legalized. Conservative appeals to morality can’t work in an arena where the ghost of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. claims the law is all about consequences and not about morality.
Holmes claimed in his famous “bad man” speech over a hundred years ago that good men will obey the law voluntarily, but the “bad man” obeys out of fear of consequences. So, a properly engineered law addresses the consequences of breaking the law and social engineers using science, not morality, push society in the appropriate direction using a carrot and stick approach of rational social goals enforced by appropriate legal consequences for those who disobey. Generations of legal scholars developed Holmesian concepts to the point where conservatives were forced to accept the simple fact that morality can’t trump law. If you interfere with an abortion clinic’s operations, the full weight of the law will fall on your head and rightly so.
Now the conservative Mongo is told by his beloved Republican party that compassion and morality must override harsh considerations of strict adherence to the letter of the law. It’s kind of like dear, old Mom confessing she always loved your brother more than you. It’s what you suspected all along, but it still hurts to hear her say it. There can’t be a rational debate when Mongo is furious over being manipulated once again. Why does this keep happening? Mongo doesn’t know, he’s only a pawn in the game of life.
Comment by Pat Skurka | May 29, 2007
Let's start with the selective choice of laws to follow. Seems to me that we should be offering the same amnesty to others in the shadows that fear their families will be torn apart when they are taken away (let's hear it for those uncaptured felons and capital crime comitters that have families…they chose what law to violate).
Alternative 4 is still the best path if we do not want to have our discussion, in Spanish, 20 years from now. Like it or not anything less causes a rush to sneak in, and lax enforcement allows employers to use under the table payments to force law following competitors out of business.
Sorry, I don't feel sorry for any of the illegals but I am considering bringing my relatives from Ireland and Wales over so they can share in the amnesty that is sure to come. Besides they are part of my extended family and should be able to come in without regard to quotas.
We really do not need millions more high school drop outs to drag on the welfare state. Of course only the "rich" will pay and business (I've offered a cash prize to anyone in my accounting, finance, marketing, and economics classes that could prove that profitable businesses paid taxes instead of just collecting then in a nice hidden way that our uneducated consumers equate to a business tax increase because they are too dim to realize their prices just went up). But the schools are thankful that illegals have generated more jobs than ever before and require very small classes because they don't speak English.
So where do we go when alternative 4 is not considered? I'm not sure what country can other readers recommend because this one will sink into the despair of third world living at a geometrically increased rate as the next rush comes to suck at the public tit.
Comment by Mickey G | May 29, 2007
There really are lots of people pusing for positions 1 and 2. Not only are there lots of them, but they are in important and influential positions. They make up the majority of the US Senate for example.
Position 4 is what Bush says he is doing, but is not. He's actually a combination of camps 1 & 2.
I'm not aware of anyone in government of any other position of influence arguing for your position number 3, which makes the whole thing absurd. You are doing what Bush and other open borders people do all the time - conjuring up some non-existent group of extemists to make your own position seem more reasonable.
Maybe what we need is for some group of Congressmen to say "Yeah, lets just execute all the illegals!" The "compromise" position at present is being skewed way to the left because of its absence. No matter how reasonable the conservative position it will always be treated as out of bounds.
Comment by PatrickW | May 29, 2007
"I’m not aware of anyone in government of any other position of influence arguing for your position number 3".
One of the Republican candidates running for president — Tom Tancredo — has proposed reducing LEGAL immigration by 75%, (to no more than 250,000/year) in addition to dealing with illegal immigration. I’d add to this the logic we’ve seen expressed repeatedly by some uber-conservatives in the pages of this website about the need to return the US to its “European tribal roots”, so that a “common historical consensus” can be achieved. I will concede the point that these people are extremists and their positions are nonsensical, but they are part of the national debate.
As far as executing illegal immigrants goes, the hallmark of a good satire is to know when to make a point through ridicule, and when to stop yourself from expressing that thought.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | May 29, 2007
Pat Skurka:
Your Mongo point is brilliant. Wish I had thought of that myself!
Take care, Phil
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | May 29, 2007
Greetings and salutations Dr. Jackson,
You seem to have overlooked an important group.
5. The Rationalist position.
Why do we need to do anything about the current illegal aliens when we don't know yet whether or not the proposed security measures will accomplish anything? Sure, we'd love to just round up all the illegals now and send them home, but it's impractical and may have unexpected consequences. So let's try securing the border and see what the effect on illegal immigration is. If it's insufficient, then try stronger security measures. Still insufficient? Keep going with still stronger measures. Finally got the borders under control? Ok, now let's debate what to do with the illegal immigrants who are here. By this time we should have a reasonably good idea how many of these illegals are needed for the labor market and can take this into consideration while making that decision. If all (or the vast majority) are really needed to keep the economy rolling, then let them stay. If new or none are needed, start finding them and sending them home. If somewhere in the middle, then we'll have to debate what sort of criteria are appropriate in deciding who stays and who goes (although in all likelihood, this will likely come down to a simple matter of picking a number and deporting those we find until we reach that number). During the process of securing the border, deport as appropriate when problem cases are found, but for the most part allow those who stay below the radar to live in peace.
This is the position taken most of the people who I know (myself included). As I recently stated in a post elsewhere, "If you come home and discover that your home has been broken into, it's generally advisable to fix the broken front door to prevent the same from happening again tomorrow before you start pondering the question of whether or not to forgive the person who broke in.
Take care and keep up the great writing.
Comment by norm1320 | May 30, 2007