[Vision2020] Illegal Immigration: Was Re: Vision2020 Digest, Vol 19, Issue 97

[Paul Rumelhart]

--- Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
wrote:

>   Second, illegal immigration set this country back
> 100 years in worker conditions and rights. We have
> workers now in conditions that make the Triangle
> Shirt Factory look like the Luxor. Because they work
> here illegally, they are subjecting themselves and
> others to working for wages workers were making 20
> years ago, and in far less safe and sanitary
> conditions. One would think, if slavery stayed and
> evolved from 1865 to 2008, it would look like many
> of the factories today. 
>    

That's the thing that gets to me about this debate. 
It's all about the evil, illegal immigrants.  In the
paragraph quoted above, you appear to be blaming the
illegal immigrants themselves for working in horrible
conditions for little money.  As if they reject the
better conditions their Multimillionaire factory owner
keeps trying to force upon them, because they would
rather live in abject poverty.

They are subjecting themselves to these wages because
it's a step up from what their life was like before,
and because the money coming in (small as it may seem
to us) is a substantial pay increase.  Mr.
Multimillionaire knows this, and rapaciously takes
advantage of that so that he can make a few extra
bucks he's just going to throw at some stupid wall rug
or something.

We're going about this the wrong way.  Think of a
target, a circle with a black dot in the center. 
Illegal immigrants come from the outside of the circle
so that they can get to the dot in the center.  That
dot is Mr. Multimillionaire's business.  Is it more
efficient to put up a fence around the circumference
of the circle, or to remove the dot in the center that
is drawing all these people?

If we come down hard on Mr. Multimillionaire everytime
he does this and make it not cost effective to
continue, then the stream of immigrants will at least
falter.  Some may come over anyway, because we treat
our homeless better in some places.  Anyway, this
doesn't solve the problem of the person living in
abject poverty on the other side of the fence. 
Arguably, that's not our problem - but if we wanted to
do something about it we could look at increasing the
flow of legal immigrants over the border.

Paul