Loyal readers at Naked Villainy will recall that your humble Smallholder is sympathetic to illegal immigrants. If I was in Mexico and the legal process effetively barred me from leaving my dysfunctional country and making a better life for Emilie, Jack, and Ben, there is no wall that could keep me out.
You will recall that I don’t buy the argument that they are taking jobs from hard-working Americans. If you are a new reader, I’ll explain in a nutshell: Hard-working Americans are working. Unemployment (with a few statistically insignificant exceptions) is the result of personal choices. If an American born and bred in this country did not take advantage of the free educational system AND lacks the personal discipline to keep a low-skill job wants to cry about the fact that he got out-competed by someone who didn’t have a chance to get an education AND doesn’t speak English, I’m not the one to dry his tears.
In the Shenandoah Valley, jobs paying $13 an hour with benefits (poultry processing plants) or $12 an hour with housing (farm work) go unfilled because local American-born people aren’t willing to do that work. Without illegal immigration, a big portion of the local economy would be destroyed. Businesses all over the country make the same argument.
We live in a capitalist society. Businesses hire the best workers they can find - because that is in the business owner’s interest. They make a judgment about hiring not because they are biased against native-born Americans but because they want the best workers. If the immigrant is the better worker her or she will get hired. We actually have NEGATIVE unemployment in this country - our economy demands more (effective) workers then we have.
Immigrants do have some direct social costs - education for their children and medical care when they go to the emergency room without medical insurance. However, those social costs are more than recouped by productivity gains and lower-priced goods and services.
Immigrants do (slightly and not in all areas) bring down average wages. But even lower-class Americans benefit from what economists are calling the Wal-Mart effect: Lowered wages do not mean a lower standard of living because immigrants (and Wal-Mart) reduce the cost of living.
Some folks scream about assimilation issues. This is the only reasonable argument I can see to close the borders and deport ten million people (if this was even possible). Previous waves of immigration have assimilated by the second generation, but there is a legitimate concern that the pressure to assimilate has been attenuated in our 21st Century diversity-celebrating pluralistic society. I have some thoughts on this but they will have to wait for a longer post. One thing is for certain: Anti-Hispanic chuckleheads aren’t encouraging Hispanics to assimilate.
Most of the other issues of the “down with the illegals” crowd are silly.
The law and order crowd who claim that society will break down if we don’t prosecute every little crime aren’t calling for draconian enforcement of laws against oral sex. Folks who claim that breaking any law leads to committing armed robbery can’t explain why speeders or fellaters (is that a word?) aren’t knocking over 7-Elevens. Hell, our our FBI says that illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
There are some bad folks coming across the border from Mexico. The existence of a few drug smugglers doesn’t tar the vast majority of immigrants any more than Al Capone tares all Italians, O.J. tars all African-Americans or Tanya Harding tars all blondes. Folks who conflate the drug runners and people who come here to make better lives are either stupid or willfully dishonest in their demogoguery.
The recent attack on Fort Dix has opened the door to an even higher level of assclownery.
Okay, I swear to you. I’m not making the following up. It might seem like I’m creating a phony straw man. But honestly, I have actually seen this:
The Islamic jihadists planning to attack fort Dix included illegal aliens, so… (wait for it…) that proves that illegal aliens aren’t just after jobs and the American dream - they want to kill us!
Jesus wept.
If there are any readers out there who are susceptible to this coflationary canard, I have a picture for you:
Extra Credit: How many members of Al Queda are Catholic?
Anyone? Anyone?
