The problem of illegal immigration is the elephant in the American living room. It’s of such mind-boggling dimensions that it’s easier to hope it just goes away, rather than confronting the snorting pachyderm head on.
Sadly, many of us have become resigned to the loss of control of our national borders. That’s a fatal mistake, and the door of opportunity is rapidly shutting to our ability to bring some semblance of order to the crisis.
The problem began to weigh on me a few weeks back during a trip to Northern Virginia, where the inflow of illegal foreign labor is particularly acute. One morning I saw 200-300 Hispanic men hanging out in the parking lots of Seven-11 convenience stores waiting for a few hours’ work.
There were plenty of takers from landscaping, construction, roofing, moving and painting contractors on the prowl for dirt cheap day labor, who accept what they’re given, keep their mouths shut, and don’t require benefits. It’s a scene repeated every day in hundreds of cities and communities across this country.
It makes my blood run cold because of the blatant flouting of humanitarian, moral and legal considerations, and I just don’t see how we can even begin to address security issues when there are an estimated eight million undocumented aliens walking our streets. To spot a terrorist cell in this underground sea of humanity is a task of Herculean proportions.
No fair-minded, reasonable American citizen has an issue with legal immigration. After all, we’re mostly a nation of immigrants and readily welcome into our home those fleeing persecution, along with manageable numbers of those seeking a better economic life.
There’s no denying the significant contributions made by each successive wave of immigrants to our shores as they integrated into the American “melting pot.”
We take great pride in the inscription on the Statue of Liberty: “Give us tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free...”
What the inscription does not read, however, is, “Give us everyone you have, let them illegally enter the country, flout our laws, and stretch our social infrastructure to the breaking point.”
That’s pretty much what’s happening right under our noses. The face of the America we know is undergoing drastic transformation and, in a few decades, may be all but unrecognizable.
The English language is under assault, the welfare system is struggling to keep its head above water, many schools are buckling under the strain, our health care system drained of precious resources, and these illegal workers contribute to a downward pressure on wage levels and to decreased job availability in certain economic sectors.
The hot debate today is over the illegal immigrants’ fiscal costs and contributions. No shortage of opinions on the matter. Some economists contend immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in public services, while others say the dollar drain on our economy is substantial.
What the arguments fail to take into account is that regardless of which way the economic ball bounces, people have no legal right to be here and should return home and wade through the paperwork trail undertaken by millions of immigrants who preceded them here legally.
So what can be done to bring this human flood under control short of erecting an electrified, barbed-wire-topped wall along every foot of our frontier, manned by guards with shoot-to-kill orders?
Well, we can insist (make that demand!) our lawmakers come up with a coherent, humane immigration policy best serving our national interests, not the interests of some hemispheric neighbors whose economies are buoyed by the deluge of Yankee dollars sent home from abroad, along with civil libertarians and some sectors of the U.S. business community who argue the undocumented fill jobs many Americans do not want.
Frankly, there’s a lot more at stake here than finding someone willing to mow lawns or work the grill in a fast-food restaurant for lousy wages to help boost the corporate bottom-line.
The current immigration system is an often frustrating, contradictory, unfathomable patchwork quilt of largely unenforceable rules and regulations — and many short-sighted politicians are notoriously unwilling to risk alienating the growing and increasingly vocal domestic Hispanic community by legislating and insisting on the enforcement of a fair immigration system designed to salvage what’s left our multicultural national identity.
You really can’t blame undocumented workers for wanting to be here. Who wouldn’t find the land of “milk and honey” an irresistible draw? If my family were destitute and hungry, I’d also go to the ends of the earth to care for them and would probably find myself standing in a Seven-11 parking lot.
So what’s next in this unfolding drama? Social Security checks to former undocumented workers now living back home in Mexico City? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Stay tuned.
Steve Thompson, a retired Voice of America correspondent and bureau chief, recently moved to Southern Pines. You can contact him at stephenbraxton@msn.com.
