An editorial from TX
I was born and raised in Texas. Hispanics are the largest ethnic group in my hometown. Here's what one newspaper columnist had to say about immigration reform. It asks a few interesting questions that even George W (a former TX governor) would have trouble answering right now.
Online at:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/columnists/cguerra/stories/MYSA032606.01B.Guerra.2f3d3a1.html
Carlos Guerra: Immigrants help pave the way for our comfortable lifestyles
Web Posted: 03/26/2006 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
"America does not have to choose between being a welcoming society and being a lawful society," President Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio broadcast. "We can be both at the same time."
Ironic, isn't it, that a nation of immigrants could be so bedeviled by them?
They strain our schools and health care systems, and take Americans' jobs, we are told. On the other hand, aren't affordable fruit, vegetables and wines wonderful complements for entrees that two decades ago were out of reach for so many? And how about our nice homes, whose builders may have included a foreign craftsman — or 12 — and whose manicured greenery is tended by workers we don't ask much about?
If we are living at the zenith of today's Roman Empire, thank global trade for providing us the best products at the lowest prices and for servicing what we cannot outsource at home — often, with a wink and a nod.
Yes, part of our good life is subsidized by immigrants who come here eagerly because substandard U.S. wages are still higher than those in their own countries, where low wages keep costs low on products that are exported to us.
The undocumented live with few legal protections and almost always scrape by on only a portion of their miserly earnings, sending the rest to families abroad. So significant are these remittances that today, immigrants are the primary export of literally every Latin American country.
Two weeks ago, between 150,000 and 250,000 "illegals" and their sympathizers hit Chicago's downtown to protest the Sensenbrenner bill, a draconian U.S. House-approved measure that would make felons of some 11 million undocumented immigrants and anyone who hires or helps them. More protests were held in Phoenix, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
The bill also calls for building walls along
one-third of the nation's southern border and would necessitate construction of hundreds of thousands of new prison beds to house the detainees.
Forget for a moment the impact of taking millions of workers out of our economy, or the cost of imprisoning millions, even temporarily. Don't you also wonder which well-connected contractor would build the walls and prisons, and how closely its workers' papers would be checked?
In the U.S. Senate, meanwhile, several reform proposals will be debated this week, including one by Sens. John McCain and Edward Kennedy under which 400,000 temporary worker visas would be issued to immigrants who may apply for permanent residence after working six years.
This isn't a new idea. We imported 77,000 Mexican workers during World War I and another 4.6 million between 1942 and 1965. And today, 45,000 agricultural braceros get H-2A visas to take jobs Americans don't want and another 65,000 high-tech braceros get H-1B visas for jobs Americans won't perform, at least not at America's going rate.
Clearly, uncontrolled migration is as much a threat to national security as it is to the migrants. But massive roundups, incarcerations and deportations aren't the answer if few of us will pick crops, bus tables or care for the elderly for $6 an hour or less, and fewer of us can handle the demands of sub-specialized surgery or high-end math.
So let's be realistic and use the math we can handle.
Let's first admit that we need foreign workers and then that 400,000 guest workers aren't going to replace 11 million undocumented immigrants.
To contact Carlos Guerra, call (210) 250-3545 or e-mail
cguerra@express-news.net. His column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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