Some of the policy jargon driving 2010 immigration reform efforts
I have a piece out at New America Media’s website today about some of the ideas driving immigration reform legislation recently introduced on Capitol Hill.
President Obama promised Latino voters a push on immigration during his first year in office, then pleaded for more time on Spanish-language television as other pressing issues– the economy, Afghanistan, health care especially– piled up. But there’s a bill in the House now, as of Dec. 15, and 2010 promises to be a big year in the immigration debate. Here’s a portion of my story:
“Complementarity” refers to an immigrant workforce that fills niches and roles that complements rather than competes with what U.S.-born workers are offering. For immigration advocates, it’s a fancy way of saying that, even in economic hard times, immigrant workers perform jobs that Americans prefer not to do.
Another piece of specialist vocabulary, “circularity,” refers to the ability of immigrants to travel back and forth between nations. Former Mexican foreign minister and New York University professor Jorge Castañeda has centered his prominent critiques of U.S. immigration enforcement on how border crackdowns and raids have severely curtailed circular migration in the last two decades. The counterintuitive result, he maintains, is more Mexicans settling illegally north of the border.
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I am a citizen of the United States and I have a friend that is from Paris, France here on a student visa to finish his degree. Noureddine Feddane has been here since 2005. His visa is valid until March of 2010, his passport is valid until 2014, and his I-20 is current. He is not what people call an ‘illegal immigrant.’ In 2008, he fell in love and married a U.S. citizen that just happens to be addicted to prescription medications. Noureddine knew nothing about this. But he was arrested due to her mistakes.
He was placed in detention and scheduled for deportation. My friend has been in detention center in Pompano Beach Florida for 5 months now. This couple has lost all there savings on lawyers, she lost her job, and they are in the process of losing their home. All this was caused because ICE has the wrong person in jail.
I have written many letters to Janet Napolitano, Senator Bill Nelson, Representative Ginny Brown-Waite and even President Obama. But no one will listen. What is illegal in this case is the way DHS is treating this guy, who is 51 and has never had a traffic violation. While in detention center, they have abused him, denied him food and proper medical treatment. Noureddine is diabetic and they will not give him the proper food or medical attention. The phone system is very poor and hardly works. I suspect that they plan it that way so the detainees cannot contact their lawyers and family. I fear he will be next on the long list of persons that have died while in detention.
Until you go to one of these detention centers and see with your own eyes, you will not believe what America is doing. I was shocked, on my first visit and after almost 6 months of seeing what happens and how they have to live, I am still in shock. It is all about the money. My friend has never cost America anything until they locked him up. He is in a private prison owned by a company called GEO based near Miami, Florida. They are paid very well by our tax dollars, but the treatment is unbelievable. I wonder how many politicians have stock in this company. They are doing quite well even in a bad economy.
Six months ago I had no idea that we treated immigrants in this way, especially when they are here legally and have done nothing wrong. I knew nothing about ICE and how they operate illegally. I was under the impression that DHS was here only to protect us from terrorists. And I had no idea of the millions of our tax dollars were being wasted to imprison people that could be out of detention and have their family support them until a decision is made in immigration court. I do not understand why we have to pay our hard earned tax dollars to house and feed persons that are not dangerous.
When they have to lock up a man who has done nothing wrong, make him spend thousands in fees, ICE is giving way too much importance to themselves. How can we turn such educated people away simply to boost the ego of ICE officers and add another number to the Janet Napolitano deportation list, so that the Obama Administration can look like it is doing its job of ‘cracking down on criminals?’
Something has to change soon. I feel it is my duty as an American to let as many people as possible know the truth. I visit the detention center every Saturday and spend the rest of the week writing letters. This Christmas, lets do something worthwhile. Lets go back to protecting the country rather than making up stories to justify the expansion of a national security complex. Lets end businesses profiting from immigrant detention and restore our image as a nation of immigrants.
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Marcelo, Why do you not see through the canard, “jobs USAmericans prefer not to (or won’t) do”? Of course, they prefer not to do them as long as there is a system by which the wages for these jobs are kept at Third World levels! And that system is our high levels of legal and illegal immigration. Economics 101: A high supply of a good or service creates a lower price for it.
American businesses demand slave-wage labor, both sending capital to cheap labor in the form of globalization, but also bringing cheap labor (service, manufacturing, ag jobs) to capital in the case of our ridiculous levels of immigration–some FIVE TIMES HIGHER than European levels.
It’s not so much that you can’t understand this, Marcelo, it’s that you refuse to understand this. Could it be that you are biased?
You desperately need to read Harvard economist George (Jorge) Borjas’ work on the impacts of immigration on American wages, especially Heaven’s Gate. He’s says we are undergoing the greatest transfer of wealth in American history–from wage-earners to the wealthiest Americans.
Where is Che Guevara now that we really need him?
Hi Bob– I did cite Borjas in the article I wrote that this post is based on– follow the link to New America Media to read the whole article. Obviously you’ve read in the field … it’s good to hear from you.
I agree with you– the exploitation of an immigrant underclass depresses wages and transfers dollars to big business in certain industries (especially food processing and construction, I think).
That’s why advocates of immigration reform say that putting undocumented immigrants on a path to citizenship and giving them legal status would help raise wages for everyone, and eliminate distortions in the system that create a “trap-door” for wages.
If illegal immigration can be reduced considerably via reform, then perhaps we could see what jobs Americans would and wouldn’t do at the wages offered without the effect of illegal immigration.
In response to another comment. See in context »I tried the link twice but it wouldn’t load. Now, after reading your response, yes, I see you’ve included a good quote by Borjas. I can see that you’re trying to give more balanced reports than you formerly have.
No, Marcelo, amnesty will not raise wages for everyone. That’s ridiculous on the very face of it. But nice try, whoever came up with that whopper. Why did you feel compelled to include such a ridiculous comment in your article?
There was a good article some years back on how an immigration raid at a Georgia chicken processing plant sent the 90% illegal work force fleeing and forced the owner to raise the wages from minimum wage of $7/hr to $9/hr. Guess what happened. People working for $7/hr at the local Walmart quit their jobs and went to work processing chickens, you know, doing a job that “Americans prefer not to/won’t do.”
I don’t think you can find a single bonafide economist who would argue that sending the 12 million immigrants home would not have the following effects:
1) Raise wages substantially in the low-wage industries in which they mostly work: hotel, restaurant, food processing, construction, domestic, landscape, etc. Also, raise wages overall as business competes for labor.
2) Raise prices slightly for such goods/services such as food, meals, hotel rooms, homes, housecleaning, etc.
3) Reduce demand slightly for those goods/services. I, for one, will be happy to see American workers better paid and to see our economy become slightly smaller at the same time. Ethical USAmericans should choke when they eat chicken at $.69/pound.
Well, keep going, Marcelo. I can see you’re trying your best to overcome your bias. I think we can agree that we’d like to see Mexico’s (the main sending country) 40 million poor doing better, but not at the expense of USAmerica’s 40 million poor, a disproportionate number of whom are Afro- or Latino-. 100 million people in America live in households with incomes of $30,000 or less.