Mary Anastasia O’Grady has thoughts about the “chaos on the border” and what the Biden Administration should do in her latest Wall Street Journal column:
Mr. Biden wants a more humane approach to immigration than either of his predecessors. Yet he avoided border bedlam this month only because Mexico and Guatemala did the dirty work. Unless he plans to rely on those tactics in the long term, he needs a plan to deal, in an orderly fashion, with the large numbers of Central Americans who are fleeing violence and poverty in search of a better life.
The only answer to this quandary is to open more legal pathways. Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration analyst at the Cato Institute, recommends an increase in the number of H-2 guest-worker visas for Central Americans since many asylum claimants are really migrants looking for work. When this was done for Mexico, Mr. Nowrasteh noted in July 2019, there was a corresponding drop in illegal immigration.
Greater opportunity to work legally would break the vicious circle behind the chaos, and calm the fears that arise from what looks like a threat to U.S. national security. As Mr. Nowrasteh told me last week, “You can only open if there is public confidence that things are under control. But you can only get things under control by opening.â€
It is Mexico’s and Guatemala’s obligation as Westphalian states to control their own borders. We should expect them to do so but experience has taught us that we cannot rely on them to do so. We need to assume our own obligations at our borders.
I agree with Ms. O’Grady that we are in desperate need of an enhanced and enforced guest worker program covering Mexican and Central American people, one that would both make it easier for them to enter the country legally as well as leaving easily. Our present system probably does a better job of locking them in than locking them out.
I’m not nearly as convinced that we need a lot more workers with limited English and skills. If the demand for them were high, wouldn’t we expect their pay to be increasing? Without an increase in the national minimum wage I mean?
” If the demand for them were high, wouldn’t we expect their pay to be increasing?”
Its a pretty distorted market so not sure your price signals are so accurate. Do we really know what illegals are being paid off the books? If that was in fact increasing rapidly, how would we know? Are all workers from different countries the same? Maybe workers from Mexico are worth more than from Guatemala so they just import more illegals from Guatemala rather than increase wages. (The Saudis had a pay scale for medical staff based upon nationality. They clearly thought that a nurse from the US was worth more than one from the Philippines.)
Steve
And they’re not entirely unskilled.
Roofers and concrete workers seem to be where they land here. We are in an apartment building boom.
A question I can’t answer is, given a legal route that costs them money, (taxes), with no workplace enforcement, would anything really change?
I think, many come with the intention of going back, then stay maybe because the coyotes charge so much.
I’d rather have a border that lets them go home, then come back to work, and so on. Let Biden propose meaningful workplace enforcement with it.
If you get caught going back you get locked up. An unintended consequence of stricter enforcement is that illegals who get here have an incentive to stay.
Steve
“If you get caught going back you get locked up. “
That doesn’t sound sensible.
Do you know that?
Actually, it kind of does. If you were sneaking in and got caught you could always claim you were leaving.
Steve
I can visualize that, if the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement services were run by Sergeant Schultz.
As noted a few times here, my family has been in the construction business since the early 1950’s. My brother, who now runs the company, is closing the business down and retiring this summer.
At least where my brother’s business is concerned, immigrant labor does keep wages in construction down. My brother doesn’t employ illegals, but he’s pretty certain his subs do. And most people in the business like the primarily Mexican workforce because they also work hard, rarely take time off, etc. The cultural differences are a big factor.
I’m not saying it’s a factor in your brother’s case but it has been my experience that “work hard” and “cultural differences” are all too frequently code words for racism. Somewhat like “good schools” in that regard.
But you do raise an interesting point. IMO black Americans and white Americans frequently overestimate how well they understand each other. It’s not just a matter of dialect. There are many other differences in the paralinguistic features of communication that result in misunderstandings.
I wonder how much less the illegal workers get paid? Dont think I have seen that quantified very often.
Steve
“I’m not saying it’s a factor in your brother’s case but it has been my experience that “work hard†and “cultural differences†are all too frequently code words for racism. Somewhat like “good schools†in that regard.”
Based on conversations with my brother and knowing a couple of his long-term employees pretty well. Some of it comes down to sexism and machismo. Men are expected to work and earn income. They don’t call in sick when their kid gets ill, for example – that’s the woman’s job. They don’t complain and don’t have a sense of entitlement that many “white” workers do. My brother used to have a few black workers, but they’ve all retired or moved on – as he puts it, they were from a different generation. He doesn’t get any black people applying for jobs at all anymore.
“I wonder how much less the illegal workers get paid? Dont think I have seen that quantified very often.”
My brother doesn’t know. He doesn’t ask his subs about their employee compensation, and the subs don’t tell.
I think that’s a serious problem and one that isn’t called out anymore. IMO one of the factors behind that is decades of propaganda about college educations. Working in construction is now beneath them.
One road crew here out of Omaha is all Black. But you never see Blacks mixed in with the beanrs crews, they don’t speak Spanish anyway.
“other differences in the paralinguistic features of communication that result in misunderstandings.â€
Thank you. That’s damned obvious down here at the surface, but the learned tend to attribute that to Racism.