The Benefits of Immigration
House Budget, Building A More Dynamic Economy: The Benefits of Immigration, June 26, 2019
Our history as a nation is full of instances where immigrants and the conquered, both among the First Nations and the Mexican people, have been treated as second class citizens.
In many quarters, they still are. It was only in 1955 when Mexican Americans were recognized as deserving protected status in Hernandez v. Texas, with undocumented children recognized as deserving a free public education in Plyler v. Doe in 1982. As a matter of course, the returns on both grazing fees and extraction are still slow in coming to First Nation bank accounts and often at less value than they could get on their own.
We have a long way to go in dealing with the rights of minority Americans in our society. These same efforts need to be applied in dealing with migrants of all national and ethnic backgrounds. Recent pronouncements from the White House, sometimes encouraged by one of the President’s closest aides, are leading us in the wrong direction. It is hoped that the representatives in these cases will seek both civil and criminal contempt citations to end the journey backwards, so that we may finally begin to move forward. If our detention facilities are harmless, let Mr. Miller spend some time enjoying public hospitality within them for however long it takes for legal asylees to have their cases processed.
But enough grandstanding on my part; the question before this Subcommittee is not only that the Administration is wrong, but why and how it can be remedied. The option is not and never has been whether immigration occurs, but how it does. Our current regimen rewards the trafficking of migrants for the personal gain of what can only be called private slaveholders (although I suspect that some undocumented migrants are made to work while in detention, albeit under the table, making such servitude public.
While trafficking victims are entitled to legal status as a remedy for their abuse, it seems to be the exception, rather than the rule. This is especially true for those trafficked into the sex trade. In many jurisdictions, sex workers are treated as criminals rather than victims themselves with their owners developing symbiotic relationships with law enforcement, rather than workers at all levels receiving intervention for addiction and atavistic behavior. Health people simply do not pimp.
In some industries, particularly food production, harvesting and processing labor that would only be sustainable through a collective bargaining agreement is performed at the threat of deportation and sanctions from law enforcement for those who leave prior the payment of their indentures. Union membership and open migration (or at least NAFTA visa status equivalent to that extended to our Canadian neighbors) will assure fair pay and worker safety.
The conditions cited in what is supposed to be a modern society are allowed to occur because individually and collectively, we life cheap food and cheapened relationships. I ask, did you enjoy your morning orange juice, sausage and eggs this morning? Maybe you should not. I am sure that is not the benefit of migration the Subcommittee wanted to hear, but it must do so.
Remedies to such situations would increase the cost of living for some, but would provide both economic and social benefit for all workers and strata of society. Worker solidarity would ease social resentment for all those of all ethnicities, increase economic wellbeing and remove a stain that should have been cleaned long ago.
Our public debate has been cheapened by resistance to the changes we all know are necessary. In this day and age, that we must even mention ending human bondage as a benefit of legal migration is sickening. That an immigration deal in 2010 that would have improved the situation, albeit with more punitive measures than necessary, was scuttled because the question of birth-right citizenship was raised from out of nowhere shows corrupted our polity as become. That a second-rate real estate mogul gained the presidency by fanning related racial animus is a national tragedy.
The internal politics of the Republican Party is likely permanently damaged by this tragedy. Nativists, industries that benefit from human bondage and those who would end it fight for the soul of the party. That the opposing, now majority, party has used this partisan fratricide for cynical political gains, as evidenced by the debate in this House on daring a vote to adopt a highly punitive immigration bill that should never have passed the other body shows that there is plenty of blame to go around.
Now that I have vented my spleen about how both sides and the American people have benefited from dysfunction, let us talk solutions.
Renegotiate the proposed U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement to give Mexican citizens the same visa rights as Canadians.
End federal sanction to enact right-to-work laws.
End the requirement for current undocumented workers to possess current legal status, allowing them to apply for whatever status they would otherwise be entitled to given their circumstances. Note that the requirements to attain citizenship will still require considerable effort, even with what is admittedly amnesty.
Grant equal amnesty to those who, upon a well-funded comprehensive investigation, would likely face criminal prosecution, if not extradition for human rights violations (I am only shading this a bit). Until we admit that we, as a society, have benefited from the evils of human bondage, no progress can be made in righting the wrongs mentioned above.
I apologize to those who were seeking the usual saccharin tales of foreign students and H-1B holders making creating the next big App or providing nursing care to an aging Baby Boom. We simply have bigger fish to fry.
Our history as a nation is full of instances where immigrants and the conquered, both among the First Nations and the Mexican people, have been treated as second class citizens.
In many quarters, they still are. It was only in 1955 when Mexican Americans were recognized as deserving protected status in Hernandez v. Texas, with undocumented children recognized as deserving a free public education in Plyler v. Doe in 1982. As a matter of course, the returns on both grazing fees and extraction are still slow in coming to First Nation bank accounts and often at less value than they could get on their own.
We have a long way to go in dealing with the rights of minority Americans in our society. These same efforts need to be applied in dealing with migrants of all national and ethnic backgrounds. Recent pronouncements from the White House, sometimes encouraged by one of the President’s closest aides, are leading us in the wrong direction. It is hoped that the representatives in these cases will seek both civil and criminal contempt citations to end the journey backwards, so that we may finally begin to move forward. If our detention facilities are harmless, let Mr. Miller spend some time enjoying public hospitality within them for however long it takes for legal asylees to have their cases processed.
But enough grandstanding on my part; the question before this Subcommittee is not only that the Administration is wrong, but why and how it can be remedied. The option is not and never has been whether immigration occurs, but how it does. Our current regimen rewards the trafficking of migrants for the personal gain of what can only be called private slaveholders (although I suspect that some undocumented migrants are made to work while in detention, albeit under the table, making such servitude public.
While trafficking victims are entitled to legal status as a remedy for their abuse, it seems to be the exception, rather than the rule. This is especially true for those trafficked into the sex trade. In many jurisdictions, sex workers are treated as criminals rather than victims themselves with their owners developing symbiotic relationships with law enforcement, rather than workers at all levels receiving intervention for addiction and atavistic behavior. Health people simply do not pimp.
In some industries, particularly food production, harvesting and processing labor that would only be sustainable through a collective bargaining agreement is performed at the threat of deportation and sanctions from law enforcement for those who leave prior the payment of their indentures. Union membership and open migration (or at least NAFTA visa status equivalent to that extended to our Canadian neighbors) will assure fair pay and worker safety.
The conditions cited in what is supposed to be a modern society are allowed to occur because individually and collectively, we life cheap food and cheapened relationships. I ask, did you enjoy your morning orange juice, sausage and eggs this morning? Maybe you should not. I am sure that is not the benefit of migration the Subcommittee wanted to hear, but it must do so.
Remedies to such situations would increase the cost of living for some, but would provide both economic and social benefit for all workers and strata of society. Worker solidarity would ease social resentment for all those of all ethnicities, increase economic wellbeing and remove a stain that should have been cleaned long ago.
Our public debate has been cheapened by resistance to the changes we all know are necessary. In this day and age, that we must even mention ending human bondage as a benefit of legal migration is sickening. That an immigration deal in 2010 that would have improved the situation, albeit with more punitive measures than necessary, was scuttled because the question of birth-right citizenship was raised from out of nowhere shows corrupted our polity as become. That a second-rate real estate mogul gained the presidency by fanning related racial animus is a national tragedy.
The internal politics of the Republican Party is likely permanently damaged by this tragedy. Nativists, industries that benefit from human bondage and those who would end it fight for the soul of the party. That the opposing, now majority, party has used this partisan fratricide for cynical political gains, as evidenced by the debate in this House on daring a vote to adopt a highly punitive immigration bill that should never have passed the other body shows that there is plenty of blame to go around.
Now that I have vented my spleen about how both sides and the American people have benefited from dysfunction, let us talk solutions.
Renegotiate the proposed U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement to give Mexican citizens the same visa rights as Canadians.
End federal sanction to enact right-to-work laws.
End the requirement for current undocumented workers to possess current legal status, allowing them to apply for whatever status they would otherwise be entitled to given their circumstances. Note that the requirements to attain citizenship will still require considerable effort, even with what is admittedly amnesty.
Grant equal amnesty to those who, upon a well-funded comprehensive investigation, would likely face criminal prosecution, if not extradition for human rights violations (I am only shading this a bit). Until we admit that we, as a society, have benefited from the evils of human bondage, no progress can be made in righting the wrongs mentioned above.
I apologize to those who were seeking the usual saccharin tales of foreign students and H-1B holders making creating the next big App or providing nursing care to an aging Baby Boom. We simply have bigger fish to fry.
posted by Michael Bindner at 10:00 AM
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