Bipolar Immigration – We have met the enemy and he is us.

This is a picture of me heading South of the border to get away from all of the idiotic rhetoric about immigration that has taken over the media recently.

I do not care much for the shouting of catch phrases from one group toward another, done with the aim of getting a five second hit on the broadcast news media. These “events” do not offer solutions, nor do they really generate discourse between divergent interests toward solving the problems of human beings. It is essentially illiterate babbling. The current pounding of chests over the immigration of people into the U.S. through our Southern border is a sad testament to the new lows in the debate over a serious issue. I can not think of any serious issues that have been solved by the application of one line slogans. There are subtleties and a thick, rich texture of perspectives to the emotional issue of immigration from Latin American countries – too complex to be dealt with in the whole here. But we need solutions and we need serious people to study the issue and offer some realistic guidance.

Whenever we have needed the labor from Mexico to cover our shortfall we have liberalized our view of immigration and when jobs have been scarce, we have tightened the border down, within some budget limit. Compare the pre and post Depression and WW II immigration policies. We needed jobs for existing legal citizens during the depression and then we needed help during WW II to feed our country. Policies and laws changed accordingly.

The number of meaningful jobs and the amount of pay are both better North of the border. If Mexico does not improve the employment prospects of its workers and improve its educational system for its future workers, nothing will change. You cannot blame a person for trying to better themselves through any means that does not produce visible harm to other human beings. The creep of joblessness in the U.S. is too slow to be visible to an immigrant, legal or illegal, so it is not seen as a harmful endeavor by the immigrant or by most U.S. citizens unless jobs become tight or costs to educate and provide services too high. Each of us live in our own little bubble and it is difficult to see outside of it.

My great grandfather came into the United States in the 1880’s from Scotland and was allowed to join the Army. At that time the United States was allowing passengers from that part of the world to disembark and be processed through immigration. You just had to show up. The military service gave him a faster path toward citizenship after discharge. He was not “given” citizenship when he got off the boat; he had to “earn” the right to apply after five years of taking orders.

I have friends on both sides of the U.S. Mexican border and all of us find the immigration issue perplexing. We cannot go to each others country and work legally without the permission of the respective governments. Just because Mexico has failed to provide the stability, laws and policies that create a vibrant growing economy on a par with its northern neighbor does not mean that we are obliged to make up for their deficit by allowing a porous border to continue to exist. But we should find a way to change the status quo because the status quo is not working. If I was an underemployed Mexican I would like to think that I would have been one of the first to go Norte for the opportunities. So how do we make it smart to continue to live in Mexico – through punishment? Or do we find a way to create incentives to stay in Mexico? From the Mexican legislator’s perspective, the U.S. is probably a place to export their unemployed, a relief valve that makes it less of an urgent national priority to deal with their own systemic economic chaos.

When our border was more porous than it is now, a Mexican in need of a pay check could sneak into the U.S. earn some money and return home, knowing that he could make the trip again if needed. Now if he makes it without being caught, he is more likely to just stay because it has become much more difficult to make the passage north.

I know a man, a friend really, that has made his way north to the Pacific Northwest where I now live, three times. The last crossing was very difficult and, with his oldest son in tow, they barely survived the walk through Arizona. He works in the U.S. to send money to a relative who is caring for his other two sons and making sure they can stay in school. (In Mexico there is theoretically compulsory education for nine years, but in practice the law is mostly ignored and, by one information source, only 54 percent of students complete six years of instruction.) Because of his long absences his wife left him several years ago and he is the breadwinner for the extended family in Mexico. He has desperately wanted to visit his sons for the past two years, but has agonized over the decision of driving home because he does not think he can make it back into the U.S. to make the money he needs to give his sons the education that he never received. That is a gut wrenching decision that in an ideal world human beings should not have to face.

In the year that I was born at Tucson Medical Center, there were about 100,000 people living in Tucson and around 200,000 in Phoenix. The border was simpler in many ways and the primary focus of our immigration policy had to do with the fears of growers not having enough labor to harvest their crops. The post WW II boom in the economy had made it harder to find people willing to go back to the farm for the tough form of labor and hours it demanded.

Somewhere there is a solution to these issues and I am fairly certain that it will involve tough decisions and cool heads on both sides of the border if it may someday be counted as a success. Unfortunately, the drivers of the wagon train are political beings, potentially with agendas that have nothing to do with actually solving anything at all. Nada.

I will continue reading about the various solutions and positions of the stakeholders just to educate myself. I wonder if some sort of path to citizenship may not be part of a plan, along with heightened border security and a financial strengthening of the Mexican economy. If an illegal immigrant could apply for citizenship while agreeing to join a military service (if age appropriate), or a public service organization, they would become a stakeholder in the system, with the right to traverse the border legally while paying into the tax base. It theoretically would increase the comprehension of English, lessen the chances of having an illegal elderly population who have no prospect for health care under our Medicare system, and make it more likely that they will participate in solutions for issues within their communities. If they just remain illegal, they have no incentive to participate in anything except maybe a protest on the Capital Mall about the prospect of legislation that would have them deported.

I heard a Latino advocate on television yesterday espousing the belief that ALL businesses should be required to have a staff interpreter available during business hours so that non-English speaking customers could avoid errors or confusion. As soon as Mexico provides this service we should jump right in too. The speaker only targeted Spanish speakers as being eligible to have their translators available, and I can only assume that she was racially profiling in the extreme. What an idiotic idea.

If an immigrant of the illegal variety suddenly became a citizen and had to start paying taxes to support other people that were not on the tax rolls, pay more to tighten border security, and then took a reduction in pay because the “other” newcomers desperately wanted their job, I believe that their attitude would change. Conversely, I think that everyone in the U.S. should spend a bit of time South of the border trying to make a living on say $3 per day mixing concrete by hand, six days a week, and then just take a wild guess at whether or not they would be saving up to pay a coyote guide to get them to the Promised Land.

Lee E.

A Native Son, third generation, of Arizona