Illegal Immigration and Other Intractable Social Problems

On March 31, 1596, a child, named Rene, was born in the French village of La Haye en Touraine. In 1684, a work of his titled Rules for the Direction of the Mind was posthumously published. Today he is known as the French philosopher, Rene Descartes, and on the 2nd of October, 1802, the village of La Haye en Touraine was renamed Descartes in his honor. Together with his Discourse on Method which was written in 1637, Rules for the Direction of the Mind lays out a method for solving problems that has never been surpassed. If the American educational system were not mediocre, Americans would be familiar with this method and applying it would have given them an efficient way of attacking social problems. In the absence of this knowledge, however, Americans have instead developed ways of obfuscating problems to such an extent that solving them has become impossible.

To illustrate this method of obfuscation, consider the controversy over illegal immigration. People, on one level, see the problem as so simple that the controversy defies explanation. People who break laws, when caught, are punished in one way or another, presumably in hopes of getting them to conform, and no good reason exists for excluding illegal immigrants from this practice. When a government is blind to one form of illegality, all legality becomes suspect.

But then the obfuscation begins.

Illegal immigrants, we are told, alleviate a labor shortage. Yet no signs of a labor shortage exist. Jobs are not going unfilled and wages are not rising.

Illegal immigrants fill jobs that Americans refuse. But since the wages for these jobs are not rising, no evidence exists that Americans won’t take them. If market forces were allowed to work, wages would rise and then and only then could we determine that Americans won’t work those jobs. But the business community that talks the talk of free-market economic theory won’t walk its walk.

Illegal immigrants are merely decent, hard-working people only trying to make a better life for themselves. Well, some are and some aren’t. When a person illegally crosses the border into the United States, there is no way of knowing if he/she is coming for a low-paying job or for the promise of highly rewarding crime.

When illegal immigrants, many of whom have sired children in the United States, are deported, families are broken up and children, who are here because of no fault of their own, are left without a parent or parents. Since Americans, so they say, don’t punish children for the crimes of their parents, deporting illegal immigrants is unfair, since it punishes their children. But it is untrue, of course, that the children of criminals are not punished for the crimes of their parents. Although not legally punished, they suffer in countless ways. If we don’t protect the children of ordinary criminals from such hardship, how can we justify protecting the children of illegal immigrants?

Illegal immigrants contribute more to the economy than they extract. Although the accuracy of this claim is dubious, suppose it’s true. Everyone who acquires money, whether legally or illegally, contributes to the economy when the money is spent. How could one determine, for instance, if Al Capone contributed less to the economy that he acquired? How many people did his criminal syndicate employ? How large was the magnifier effect of the wages they were paid? And if we had determined that he, in fact, contributed more to the economy that he took from it, would that have justified overlooking his criminal behavior?

Finally we are told that we must surely feel sorry for these people. Having endured the hardships of coming to America illegally, having endured the low wages and horrible working conditions of the jobs they take, and having endured the discrimination they have been subjected to, must we not feel sorry for them? We must surly feel doubly sorry for their children. Well, yes, of course, we should feel sorry for them, but we have reason to feel sorry for many groups of people. Shouldn’t we feel sorry for the many that endure illnesses but have no access to medical care? Shouldn’t we feel sorry for the families that are losing their homes because of the actions of unscrupulous lenders and inattentive government regulatory agencies? Shouldn’t we feel sorry for the homeless? Shouldn’t we feels sorry for maimed veterans? Shouldn’t we feel sorry for those who work for minimum wage? Shouldn’t we feel sorry for the elderly who must live on social security, or the impoverished who must live on welfare, or the unemployed who must live on unemployment compensation? In truth, if we are to invoke sorrow, we can find good reason to feel sorry for a huge number of Americans, and many of us do, but there is little that we can do about it. Why should it be different for illegal immigrants?

We are told that we can’t deport millions of people. Why do we have to? They came here without our assistance; if they discover that jobs are unavailable, why does anyone suppose they won’t leave without our assistance?

And finally, we are told that rounding up illegal immigrants is a form of racial discrimination or profiling. But is it? When I was a boy, I lived in a part of Pennsylvania that was, at the time, environmentally unspoiled. The hills and woodlands that surrounded our town were replete with wild berries every summer, and we all picked them. There were blackberries, raspberries, and especially blueberries which were the most numerous. So when we went berry picking, although we picked all kinds, we usually come home with greater numbers of blueberries. Were we engaged in berry profiling? When people go out searching, they find the most of what is most prevalent.

I am not anti-immigrant. I am a first generation American son of immigrant parents. I have a son-in-law of Mexican heritage and three darling grandchildren who are officially classified as members of a minority, although you’d never know it by watching the way they act or listening to the way they talk. They know no Spanish, although I, not being Hispanic, do; they know nothing of Latin culture, although I not only do, I admire it; they have no understanding of how the Southwest became part of the United States, although I do and believe it to have been unjustified. My two best friends are of Mexican decent, and my favorite ballroom dance teacher is too. I prefer Latin music, especially Cuban to American, and I read the works of Latin writers. Yet I do not believe the illegality of immigrants should be overlooked. Not because I don’t have sympathy for them but because I fear both for them and for the rest of us if we don’t put an end to it.

Immigrants are always happily welcomed in prosperous times. But when economies slump, immigrants, especially illegal ones, become targets. And it is not a coincidence that the current furor over illegal immigration is simultaneous with our declining economy. If this economy should go under, as many believe it will, discrimination will sprout like Jack’s beanstalk. Race relations could get very ugly.

The America known as a melting pot was never a real place. Many other nations have carried out racial melding far better than America has. One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, our black population was legally discriminated against and still is, albeit illegally, in many ways, today. In every period of mass foreign immigration, immigrants faced discrimination, and there is no reason to believe that they won’t again. That all larger nations are merely pseudo-communities invented and imposed by nation-building elites has often been pointed out. Such nations are entities unable to command the public's loyalty and support or display a willingness to endure sacrifices. In The Social Conscience, Michel Glautier asks: can a caring society exist in a market economy? His analysis suggests that recent and continuing changes to our market economy are putting a caring society beyond reach. If he is right, and if the American economy is in decline, this “caring society beyond reach” will not act kindly to immigrants, especially illegal ones. For that reason alone, our problem with illegal immigration must be resolved or both our illegal immigrants and the rest of us will have hell to pay. Obfuscating the issue does not help.
©2007 John Kozy