Politicians are lazy. When they are not trying to maintain the deficiencies of the status quo they are off uselessly decapitating the Lernaean Hydra of other problems. If they don’t cauterize the head stumps they are going to grow back, and very little will be accomplished.
It will take real work and inspiration to solve our country’s greatest problems, and Washington’s characteristic strategy of doing just enough to secure votes for the next election cycle has our country limping along on many fronts.
Our country’s antiquated immigration policy will likely, and certainly should, be at the top of the list of scaly, seemingly unassailable beasts for Congress and the Obama Administration to challenge this summer. My only hope is that the discourse is placed firmly in the realm of comprehensive legislation and not uninspired half measures that will guarantee the issue’s return a few years down the road. This means that the myopic xenophobia that informed decisions to build walls and crack down on immigrant workers and their families needs to be excised from the debate.
On the ground there has been a formidable groundswell of support for sweeping changes. Although the mainstream media did a fantastically terrible job covering it, the largest mass demonstration in recent years occurred just a few weeks ago. Nearly a quarter million immigrants and their allies marched on Washington last month demanding President Obama follow through with his promise to address immigration, and soon.
This came as quite a surprise to many people. Not only were the numbers unprecedented, but also the fact that unregistered immigrants were showing up in droves to demand rights after 2007’s reform meltdown and subsequent crack-down exhibited the movement’s laudable courage. The overwhelming youth of the mass demonstration — with many teens defiantly sporting UNDOCUMENTED AND UNAFRAID t-shirts — persuasively suggests the growing influence immigrants will have on our generation’s culture, economy and politics.
There is no way around that. It’s an accepted fact that white Europeans like me will be outnumbered in a few decades. Immigration will play a major role in this demographic sea change. Such a future might scare some stubborn, culturally isolated individuals. But incontrovertible as it is, there is no use fruitlessly combating the shift with draconian crackdown measures.
A better use of our time would be to accept immigrants while simultaneously addressing the root cause of the influx: Economic inequality.
Reform must include amnesty that extends to all undocumented immigrants in tandem with a safe, fair and high throughput program for those wishing to become citizens. Before the hysterical comments come marching in, let me explain why we need this.
From the democratic angle, around 10 million illegal immigrants live and work in this country — nearly 60 percent from Mexico — extending voting rights to around 3 percent of the population, most of which pays taxes, is a crucial step in making our government representative.
Morally, there is simply no way to justify placing 10 million people under constant siege by police, sheriff’s departments (i.e. Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney) or the Feds. The vast majority of these people have committed no crime other than working hard and at great personal risk to provide for their families. Their cultural and economic contribution to the nation cannot be overstated; they are exactly the kind of ambitious, dynamic people who have made this country great.
Finally, even from a dispassionate economic perspective, amnesty makes sense. Annually the government spends nearly $2 billion enforcing immigration laws, staging raids and detaining, without legal representation and sometimes erroneously, thousands of people at any given time. A report published this month by the Public Policy Institute of California concluded comprehensive immigration reform would have no negative impact on the economy. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office determined 2006’s failed immigration reform bill would have increased federal revenue by $12 billion through increased tax and Medicare payments.
Of course, merely doing justice by 10 million immigrants already in the country won’t deter many others from trying to enter in the coming years. To deal with this, the real core of the problem, policymakers will have to work outside their comfort zone and think big.
The lack of a robust economy in Mexico is the driving force for immigration into the U.S. A strong economy south of the border has long been the sought after panacea to our immigration dilemma. When NAFTA was passed in the early ’90s, its promise of developing Mexico led many to argue the invisible hand would stem the flow of labor into the U.S.
Obviously, that didn’t happen, in part because NAFTA restricted the free flow of labor across the border while devastating Mexico’s agricultural sector with cheap imports. NAFTA must be revised in such a way that Mexico might actually benefit.
Taking a page from the European Union, which successfully invested in new members with weak economies to deter major labor migration, the United States must couple immigration reform with smart and closely monitored investment in Mexico to make its job market more appealing. Such a comprehensive approach is the only way to conclusively address immigration in America.
The struggle to reform our nation’s oppressive immigration policy won’t be much easier than vanquishing a mythological water serpent, but with smarts and some passion: s?, se puede.
Sam Stevenson ([email protected]) is a graduate student in public health.
