As the debate over illegal immigration rages on, it's important to keep in mind that the issue is economic at its base. The United States is a rich country that shares a long border with Mexico, a nation in a much different economic position. While not all illegal aliens enter the United States across the U.S.-Mexico border, that line in the sand appears to be the hot point of national debate.
The people who come here are not evil. Technically speaking, they are criminals because they entered our country illegally, but I certainly would not put them in the same category with the hardened criminals you might find at a federal penitentiary. They're simply people who want a better life but can't be bothered to play by the rules in order to obtain it. They are only pursuing their best interests when they come to the United States.
We as Americans have a right to stand up for our best interests as well, and that includes halting the flow of illegal immigrants into our country. Ours is a great nation, but that doesn't mean that we can take in every single person who wants to come here. As usual, American liberals find it vaguely chauvinistic to even suggest that we should do what's right for our people first. As Robert Frost once quipped, "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."
To tell the truth, I like immigrants, especially Latino immigrants. I work with a number of immigrants at my job, and I taught quite a few of them at a language school in Northampton over the summer. I much prefer their company to the company of silly white liberals. Latino immigrants are generally family-oriented, cheerful, God-fearing and hard-working. Liberals, on the other hand, are none of the above. They're just downright miserable.
With this in mind, I propose that the thrust of our efforts should not be limited to deportations or building a border fence. Although these tactics are necessary, they are not enough. The focus needs to be on punishing the employers who hire illegal immigrants in the first place. Illegal immigrants come here because they know they can find work for wages far higher than they would ever be able to find in their own country. If they could not find those jobs, they wouldn't even bother coming.
Unfortunately, hiring illegal aliens has become so legally tolerated that employers are now blatantly violating the law in plain sight. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has some shady employment practices at her California vineyards that probably include employing illegal aliens. A landscaping company hired to take care of Mitt Romney's Belmont home used illegal Guatemalan immigrants almost exclusively. That's right, employing illegal immigrants has become so acceptable that there's almost nothing scandalous about illegal immigrants picking grapes for the speaker of the House or tending to the lawn of the governor of Massachusetts.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) needs to turn up the heat on law-breaking employers. Enforcing some laws can be difficult, but immigration laws don't have to be. Just let employers know that ICE is watching them and that there will be stiff fines for hiring employees without valid papers.
The employer's incentive to hire illegal immigrants is that illegal labor is far cheaper than American labor. Let them know that the money they are saving by shortchanging American workers can disappear in the blink of an eye if they are caught breaking the law. After a second infraction, ICE should shut the business down indefinitely. I guarantee this approach will get the attention of employers in a hurry.
American liberals are far too quick to throw up their hands and declare the problem so daunting that we shouldn't even bother enforcing the law. When I think about enforcing immigration law, I think about all the many years I have spent working in restaurants, and how scared the owners were of the dreaded Board of Health. The BOH might show up every six months or so, but you never knew when they were coming, so the owners wanted to keep the kitchen respectable at all times. That's how ICE should operate: they should make unannounced inspections every month or two, and always when it's least expected.
I also think of the summer I worked at an amusement park and how seriously the management took child labor laws. If a minor worked one minute past the hour she was legally allowed to work, some supervisor's head would be on the chopping block.
Why is it that employers are scared of the Board of Health, and afraid to violate child labor laws, but hire illegal aliens without fear of legal consequences? It's because legal consequences are so seldom brought to bear on them. This problem is not difficult to solve, and we certainly don't need to grant amnesty to every illegal alien to do it. We simply need to enforce the laws we have now. Without that, we will never have true immigration "reform."
Ben Duffy writes on Wednesdays. He can be reached at baduffy@student.umass.edu.
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