The immigration debate is an unstoppable force in this election, but behind the scenes it runs up against two immovable objects — population trends and economic forces. How we vote won’t necessarily change the outcome.
Have you recently had any difficulty finding eager, competent people to do a job? If you haven’t, lucky you. Many of us have. And when we do find someone, we don’t necessarily ask about their citizenship. Have I hired illegal immigrants? You won’t know if you don’t ask.
Why are many industries experiencing a shortage of workers even as politicians claim we are exporting jobs to other countries? Well, the United States’ fertility rate has been bouncing around 1.8 births per woman, but it takes about 2.1 to maintain a stable population.
That’s not just in the United States. The same thing happens in other industrialized countries, and also in the many countries moving up from poverty to moderate comfort. When couples feel stable, they no longer worry about child labor or replacing children who die from hunger or disease. Most want a few children (usually two) that they can pamper.
That’s not the only reason we have moderate employment but unfilled jobs. Many articles explore how this happened during and after the pandemic, and I may discuss it in a future column. The bottom line is that we need some immigrants — preferably the kind who start new business and create jobs. Many of us prefer them like Steve Jobs rather than like Elon Musk.
Of course, not all immigrants are job creators. Some just do the jobs we need, such as building affordable houses. One estimate is that more than a quarter of construction workers, skilled and unskilled, are immigrants, many of them undocumented. Is that true in Grant County? You won’t know if you don’t ask.
So when politicians talk about deporting all the illegal immigrants, they aren’t talking about the unintended economic consequences. One of those consequences is that we would have fewer people paying into Medicare and Social Security.
Immigrants working for companies get deductions from their checks just like the rest of us, but they don’t get any benefits. We hear about Social Security and Medicare running out of funds. It will happen sooner without undocumented immigrants.
Many of us are familiar with the cash economy in Grant County — no deductions, no checks, just wads of bills. But in my experience, people requesting cash are usually American citizens. Do they just not like paying taxes? You won’t know if you don’t ask, and they don’t ask much at the bank, either.
It would be easy to stop illegal immigration if you really wanted — no jobs; no immigrants. If employers went to prison for hiring illegal immigrants, the jobs would dry up and, eventually, so would the immigrants. But a lot of big employers (not in Grant County, of course) like hiring immigrants. You don’t have to worry about union organizers. If you get troublemakers, just call immigration authorities.
So regardless of political mayhem, we need some immigrants. It would be better if we controlled our borders, rather than letting the immigrants (and possibly the cartels) control them. But it’s difficult to control borders when we have laws such as the Refugee Act of 1980, passed long before the current crisis. The president can’t just let in those he or she wants, although the law does have some executive flexibility. Still, judges, not the president, have the final say on what’s legal.
Most of us remember when immigrants illegally crossing the Mexican border were looking for a better economic life. Now many want legal asylum from oppressive governments. The primary current example is Venezuela, which recently had an election recognized by many countries as completely corrupt and invalid. Shouldn’t we help people fleeing from repression who can’t go back?
But what about Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Cuba, Ukraine, China and more? If they’re all coming at once, how can we distinguish economic refugees from political refugees — if there is a difference?
Fortunately, a year ago a bipartisan group of legislators negotiated a bill to reform immigration laws to better match the unusual circumstances on our southern border. It was like time travel back to when Democrats and Republicans compromised to pass imperfect legislation that gave both sides much of what they wanted.
What!? Are you crazy? You want to improve the border situation during an election year, when the other party is in power and can be blamed for the crisis? Former President Donald Trump put a quick end to that nonsense. No compromise. It’s all immigrants or no immigrants.
Was that a good decision? You won’t know if you don’t ask, and you won’t have a say if you don’t vote.
