http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689...s.Face-3158304.shtmlImmigration is not the biggest problem that Americans faceMichael Brandon Harris-Peyton
Issue date: 1/18/08 Section: Ed-Op
It is a sad day in United States history when some politician thinks that we can solve illegal immigration with a fence. Fences will not solve the problem. It might, however, cut through American towns, as the most recent plans for a border fence in Texas, along the Rio Grande would. The no-man's land between the fences and the border would contain the U.S.-side banks of the river, including a number of back yards and houses. Illegal immigration prevention, right in your living room. Literally.
The proposed solution to illegal immigrants simply cutting through or hopping the fence would be cameras. But you have to pay people to watch cameras, and extra government employees lead to bigger bureaucracies, and larger budgets. The whole plan is a colossal waste of taxpayer funds-funds that Congress could be wasting on its myriad of other insanely foolish ideas, like buying both evolution-based and creationism-based "science" books for our schools, in the interests of acknowledging all perspectives, regardless of how mindlessly ridiculous they are.
Another poorly thought out idea that was proposed as a solution to illegal immigration was so elegantly beautiful in its simplicity that you knew there had to be a catch-the "let's just deport all them pesky illegal immigrants" plan.
Problem No. 1: there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the continental U.S.
Problem No. 2: The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency stated in September that the approximate cost of deporting all these people would exceed $94 billion. And in that figure, they did not completely cover the costs of hunting down and catching all those undocumented immigrants who didn't want to go back. A spokesman for the agency laid out how they arrived at that figure for CNN, and said the following:
"He said the amount was calculated by multiplying the estimated 12 million people by the average cost of detaining people for a day: $97. That was multiplied by the average length of detention: 32 days. ICE officials also considered transportation costs, which average $1,000 per person. But that amount can vary widely, the spokesman said. Some deportees are simply driven by bus across the border, while others must take charter planes to distant countries, he said. Finally, the department looked at personnel costs, bringing the total to roughly $94 billion."
On top of all this, one has to take into account the effect on the economy if 12 million people suddenly stopped working. The undocumented worker and their production make up a significant part of the economy, which would disappear if, as in the dreams of many politicians in both parties, illegal immigrants just fell off the face of the earth.
The economy is certainly not at its best right now, and any magical loss of illegal immigrants could, in a hypothetical scenario, crash the economy.
But what is to be done about illegal immigration? It is certainly not fair that undocumented immigrant workers do not pay taxes, and it is certainly unfair that they use public services without contributing to it in the same way as citizens do. In order to even suggest a solution to the problem, the sources of the problem must be addressed.
Legal immigration into the United States is difficult, time consuming, and often expensive. There are complications with citizenship requirements, temporary residency, and working inside the country as a non-citizen. The citizenship examinations also, perhaps unfairly, contain technical questions about U.S. law that many American citizens cannot answer-for example, the line of presidential succession. There are few citizens who can recite the line of succession off the top of their heads beyond the President, Vice President, and Speaker of the House. In short, it is difficult to become a legal resident, much less a citizen, of the United States.
In the case of the most prominent source of illegal immigrants to this country, Mexico, it is particularly complicated. Public opinion is often very anti-Mexican-immigrant, and both governments are somewhat awkward in their dealings with one another on the subject of immigration itself. Mexicans are not defined as refugees by international law, even though it has become apparent in many cases that illegal immigrants are either politically or economically motivated to flee their home country.
The language doesn't help public opinion very much. The word "illegal" brings a negative response out in people, while the word "refugee" tends to bring out more empathetic feelings.
There is something deeply hypocritical about the hardliner position against illegal immigration. There seems to be contextual amnesia going on-an American citizen of the anti-immigrant persuasion can go from openly discussing the foreign origin of their ancestors to talking about how the country shouldn't immigrants "come over here and steal our jobs and not speak English."
News flash - your ancestors were probably poor, illiterate immigrants who most of the time didn't speak English either. And they had the advantage of arriving, most likely, in an older America with much looser border controls. If you're that severely anti-immigration, you're not "conservative," and you're definitely not a "real American"-you're xenophobic. You're also a hypocrite. The only people who can even claim to not be descended from immigrants are Native Americans. And from what the history books say, your ancestors weren't very nice to them. The anti-immigration argument is often so flawed that it approaches the irrational.
The fact of the matter is that we should not be looking at these people with hatred and intolerance-we should be making it easier for them to become legitimate citizens, and to contribute wholly to society.
America needs all the people it can get-we certainly have the space, and with the declining birthrate, we'll need more immigrants in order to stay on-par with the rising power of countries like India and China. If this country is truly ready to say no to immigrants, even the illegal kind, and go to such insane lengths as to build walls and deport every undocumented person, then it might as well resign itself to becoming the next collapsed superpower. America was built by immigrants, and that singular fact should be the first thought when it comes to dealing with the country's immigration issues.
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