Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Immigration: An Integral View

This morning I posted a piece on the teachers and students who skipped school to march in the protests here in Tucson. I've had two very impassioned replies from regular readers of my site -- from people I respect.

Immigration has become a very sensitive issue, especially here in Arizona where, as Erica mentions in her comment, many Mexican-Americans know how this land was stolen from Mexico much in the same way the U.S. stole so much land from the tribal peoples who had lived here for thousands of years.

There are no easy answers. We cannot deport 12 million people as Jon Kyl and John Cornyn would like to do, or build a big fence as Kyl has proposed. We cannot criminalize them as the House would like to do. We cannot charge them with criminal trespass as the AZ House wants to do.

So what do we do?

I think the first step is to take an honest -- and integral -- look at the situation to see what really is happening.

For many people, the bottom line is that millions of people are trying to illegally enter the United States through Mexico each year. They feel we need to stop this from happening by whatever means necessary (a wall, military presence, citizen militia, killing them, and so on). They want to address illegal immigration solely as a behavior, and solely from their own values position.

Most of what we talk about in this country treats illegal immigration as a behavior and offers punishment for that behavior without looking at what prompts it in the first place. This is why we have not solved the problem. Taking this view, we never will.

Many people do come here legally. Those who can afford the paperwork and lawyers (and some might say the bribes) jump through the hoops and come to the U.S. to work and send money back to their families. Many others don't have access to the help they need to come here legally, so they pay a coyote or they take their chances with crossing the unforgiving desert. Many hundreds die each year of dehydration or exposure.

Still others, especially women, try to sneak across the border to have their child born in the U.S. so that the child will be a citizen. Mothers are rarely sent back with their newborns, so the current U.S. laws reward the behavior of sneaking across the border.

Those who oppose having people come here illegally patrol the border with guns to scare the migrants away or with phones to notify the border patrol. Others advocate for better government security to keep migrants out.

But if we look closely at the exterior behavior, we also have to look at the interior motivation behind the behavior. Why would people leave their families and risk their lives to come here and be treated like dirt? What is the intention that inspires a willingness to risk so much?

Obviously, for most who come here illegally, even the low wages they get paid as illegals is better than what they might get in Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala. So there is certainly a monetary reward for the risk.

But there is also the despair that they feel in their homeland when they cannot provide for their families and feed their children. Added to the despair is the risk of illness from poverty and a fear for the lives of those they love. What would you do in such circumstances? Probably whatever it took.

Many have family who have already found their way here legally or illegally, so they have the motivation of being with family -- of shared struggle. This is a strong motivation among a people who are strongly rooted in family. America's political right talks about "family values," but Hispanic cultures place a huge emphasis on family.

This is one of the cultural components. There are others. In Hispanic culture a man is not a man if he cannot provide for his family. This is a powerful motivator -- it will push a man to risk his life to come here to make money he can send back. This is also what makes many of these men outstanding workers (and I have worked with many illegals here and in Oregon).

Another of the cultural values is one we have created ourselves: America is seen as the land of opportunity. This is a belief shared by many around the world. It has only been during the last five years that our reputation around the world has been shaped by torture, wars, racism, and arrogance. Still, many see America as a place to create a better life. We worked hard to create that belief around the world.

On the other hand, our culture looks at immigrants who come here illegally as criminals, not as brave people doing their best to survive. We see them as "wetbacks" who cross the Rio Grande to get to America. We pay them to tend our gardens and clean our pools or houses, but we look down on them.

In other parts of the country, they pick our fruit and vegetables. They work on Forest Service land planting trees or picking weeds on tree farms. They are hired as temps through agencies who don't ask and the immigrants don't tell.

And we despise them. There is an unspoken racism in this country that targets brown-skinned people, whether they are Indian (from India), Arab, or Hispanic. Otherwise liberal people I know are afraid of South Tucson (where the population is largely Hispanic). I have seen unqualified white people get hired over qualified Hispanic people.

We somehow believe that brown skin means terrorist (Arabs) or ignorant (Hispanic). We have a cultural bias against Hispanic peoples in particular. The cliche used to be that Hispanics were lazy and unproductive (remember the Speedy Gonzales cartoons?), although that has changed as more Hispanics have risen to positions of power and own their own businesses.

Still, our society depends on immigrants -- legal and otherwise. There are twelve million illegals here and most of them are working. Among those here legally, unemployment is lower among immigrants than non-immigrants for the first time ever.

As mentioned above, immigrants take jobs many of us would not want. They fill a crucial role in our economy. Without them our economy would crash. Yet our laws are set up to make it as hard as possible for people to come here legally to work.

This may be the hardest issue to overcome. We have divided our economic need from our legal system. We need these workers, but we want to make it legally impossible for many of them to come here.

Meanwhile, the Mexican and Central American economies still struggle to create jobs -- even after NAFTA and CAFTA. Things are better than they were, but there is much more need than there are jobs.

If we take into account the behavioral, the intentional, the cultural, and the social elements of this issue, as I have tried to do in these preliminary observations, we will have a much better idea of how to confront this problem in a responsible way.

There are no easy answers. We must attempt to see this from all sides and try to come up with an approach that is fair to all involved. We cannot become so entrenched in an us-versus-them mentality that we fail to have compassion in our hearts or justice in our actions.

Possible Solutions

Provide easier work visas. We need to make it easier for immigrants to get work visas to come her legally. And we need to build into those visas a way for those people to become citizens. This country needs immigrant labor, so why not make it easier to get these people here legally.

Decriminalize those who have been here for five years and hold jobs. Many people see this as amnesty. Maybe it is. So what? They're here, they're working, and we can't afford to send them back to wherever they came from. (Note: there are many illegal Europeans and Asians in this country, as well.)

For those who have not been here for five years, give them the option of paying fines (over time) or going home. Most will stay. If they stay they can apply for a work visa and get in line for citizenship after five years.

Help Mexico (and other Latin American countries) build more stable and productive economies/ This seems like a no-brainer, but we have done little to help them, only to plunder a low-wage work force. This will reduce the need for many to come here for work.

Change immigration laws to make it easier to come to America legally on the way to citizenship, especially for students. We can't let everyone come here, but we can handle more than we are allowing now.

Strengthen border security patrols. There is already a push to do this, and last year more than a million people were caught coming into Arizona alone. So we know that border security works when there is enough of it.

Increase inspection and fines for hiring illegal migrants. But we should not be targeting small businesses, we should be targeting those larger businesses that hire a lot of illegals from temp agencies and pay them low wages.

Target coyotes and drug runners (this may include the Mexican military if recent reports from Texas are true) who bring illegals into this country. These people are taking advantage of needy people and treating them horribly.

And maybe most importantly, we need to provide humanitarian aid for the many citizens of Mexico and Latin American who do not have clean water, enough food, or sufficient housing. It will be a lot cheaper to help these people where they live than to arrest them and send them back when they come here illegally.

What do you think?

This is a tough issue, and I am only beginning to think about the possibility of an integral approach to this. What am I missing? What would you do differently? Let's start a dialogue.

We have many incredible and creative minds in the integral community. Let's try to be part of the solution to this tough problem.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I am not as expert on the integral view as most of your readers, but I would like to offer my two cents.

I think the most important component of an 'integral view' begins with what you have stated so very well. Caucasian America needs to see the struggle to work and raise a family through the eyes of the Mexicans who are so very eager to come here.

There are many things that need to be achieved that are so very wrong with the way things are now. We cannot be continuing to create an underclass in this country. We cannot continue to promote an underground economy of paying brown-skinned workers under-the-table below-minimum wage and have circumstances where workers are in fear of being turned in to the authorities and being hauled away.

Plus, I have some sympathy for the idea of being better able to control the borders -- preferably using sophisticated technology.

A lot of these problems are at odds with one another, but here is the fix that I see best meeting everyone's needs:

(1) The idea that 'native Americans don't want these jobs' and 'without the Mexican farm workers, a Avacado would cost ten dollars' is hooey. We must enforce the minimum wage and impose fines on violations by employers for paying less than minium wages. If people don't want to work on farms, or change sheets in hotels, then the wages for those jobs will go up, as they should, until employees are found.

(2) Generally, we should allow illegal immigrants who are here to remain. And the US should put in place a guest worker program that can lead to American citizenship. There should, as well, be other ways for people from Mexico to have documented stays in America. It should not be made hard for a Mexican to come to America and have documentation.

(3) We should set a date -- say 1/1/08 -- and put a law in place that says that illegal and undocumented people found in America after that date will be photographed and fingerprinted, sent back to their country of origin and disallowed citizenship forevermore. Thus, we must attempt to do two things: Allow people to come here, AND have our country have some control with enforced and effective laws.

{4} Give Mexico and other Latin American countries the vast majority of the immigration quota and generally enlarge the number of legal immigration.

(5) Generally, America should be One Culture. The bad examples in Europe should teach us something. In France, young Arabs -- because of their ethnicity -- are commonly disallowed employment. In Britain, Germany and Denmark, there are ghettos of angry, unemployed youths from other continents. America should continue to try to be more of a melding pot, not so much a sanctuary for pluralism.

(6) Ultimately, we have to find ways that create tighter border control and better opportunities for people south of the border. The Statue of Liberty will need to be dismantled. America is no longer a vast unclaimed frontier. People yearning to be free will need to change things, and themselves, where they are.

Sorry, William to be using so many of your electrons.

Anonymous said...

I left a longer comment on yesterdays post, but I would just like to put my two cents in here. I think that the comments here all have some goods thoughts and I am going to use some of them in the future. Bill thanks for the post it was thoughtful and well written, the two reasons I love reading your blog. See you soon.

Erica

Unknown said...

Forgive me for eating another helping of electrons, but...

I disagree with kind ebuddha re his words, "In the long term, [allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens is] a net win in terms of youger citizens supporting the retirement system."

Our retirement system is a Ponzi scheme, as it is. We need to get away from the idea of ever-greater numbers of young supporting the old. For the long-term health of our planet, we need to reverse the population boom, somehow. But THAT is another kettle of fish.

Steve said...

Bill, thank you for your integral analysis of this issue. I agree with you that it has behavioral, intentional, cultural, and social dimensions that need to be understood and addressed. Unfortunately, it seems that people on both sides are failing to do this adequately. Those against illegal immigration rail against illegal immigrants and propose simplistic and draconian measures to deter and punish them, while those on the other side show no regard for the concerns of the American people and argue that past injustices, alleged and actual, committed against the countries and peoples of Latin America, especially Mexico, gives people from these countries carte blanche to settle here in defiance of our immigration laws and to disrupt public school and other functions to demonstrate against our government's efforts to curtail illegal immigration.

I believe that people on both sides of the issue need to take a more integral look at both sides and to listen to one another and work together to achieve reasonable and compassionate compromise. Otherwise, tensions are likely to mount, and life for people living here illegally or trying to come here illegally may grow more difficult and dangerous.

You, I (here and in my blog), and other Americans have made preliminary suggestions here for compromise. Now I'd like to see Erica and others who believe as she does join us in genuine dialogue rather than diatribe. For instance, I asked Erica in another thread if she thinks our nation should have no immigration laws and allow everyone to live and work here who wants to, and whether anyone should be able to leave school or work at any time to join any demonstration they wish (including, for instance, demonstrations against illegal immigration). I'd really like to hear what she has to say.

Namaste,
Steve

william harryman said...

I want to thank all of you, and anyone who comes after this post, for your comments. On this post and the other one, there have been a lot of passionate views from both sides of the argument. This just points out to me the depth with which this issue resonates for many of us.

My family, no both sides, came to this country to escape bad conditions in their homelands (one side from Germany around 1900 give or take, the other from Ireland and Scotland in the 1780s), and I'm guessing that neither of them had much in the way of documentation. Maybe because of this, I am sympathetic to the plight of the migrants who come here from Mexico and Central America (and other places, as well).

I really don't think our politicians want to solve this problem in any way that considers the people whose lives will be impacted. They are concerned with appeasing corporate need for low wage workers. They are also concerned with looking tough on national security, which now includes the border patrol.

The real problem, as many have pointed out, is that many businesses knowingly hire illegals so that they can pay them low wages.

Here is what I have seen in Tucson: some temp agencies don't ask and the illegals (who have fake/stolen documents) don't tell. Then a company will hire the temps for a one week contract, for which they might pay $6.50/hr (the worker gets $5.15, which is the federal minimum wage). After a week, the temp is hired as a full-time employee, but the documentation burden is on the temp agency, not the company. So a company may have dozens of illegals hired through temp agencies for which they can claim complete ignorance of their illegal status.

If we want to solve the problem, we must raise the federal minimum wage to at least $7.50 an hour to make the jobs more appealing to Americans (who currently can not afford housing anywhere in the nation working full-time for minimum wage). We then must go after the people who allow illegals to work here without proper documentation, but it is not morally correct to punish people for taking a job when that is what they need to stay alive.

This is about survival for the immigrants, and most of us can't fathom that. Have you ever been a paycheck away from homelessness or starvation? If you haven't, you have no idea what these people are facing and why they would risk their lives to come here for a poorly paying job.

The other side of this is that we must force the Mexican government to improve their economy. Mexico is still a third world nation and that has to end if we want to stop the flow of illegal entrants into this country.

Okay, I'll get off of my soapbox now.

Please continue to be involved in this issue in any way you can. Work for a politician you believe in or find some other way to be involved. But we must make this a participatory democracy again.

~Bill

Unknown said...

I think that we have to be careful about clamping down on businesses who hire illegals, simply because this would hurt the immigrants more than anyone and would cause a panic in various industries than have to have a steady flow of workers to meet urgent needs.

Clamping down on businesses should have happened long ago, and needs to happen, but it cannot be the first thing that happens, imho.

We would need to first give illegals who are here a generous, safe opportunity to have some sort of quasi-legal status [effectively a Guest Worker program] to get legal employment.

I also don't buy the logic of "we must raise the federal minimum wage to at least $7.50 an hour to make the jobs more appealing to Americans." We need to raise the minimum wage for the other reason you mention -- because it is not enough to live on. Pay for the jobs that illegal immigrants are doing would rise, naturally, if the positions competed with other employment on a level playing field. Farmwork is backbreaking and should pay what a fair employment market would bear -- but no less that the minimum wage, of course.

A Guest Worker program ought not to be job specific. Guest workers ought to be able to seek any employment. Otherwise, we are sustaining an underclass (ie, slavelike) situation like what we have now.

Anonymous said...

I left a longer post explaining my views that did not get stick for some reason. But as people seem to be responding to my earlier post I should say a few things.

1. Laws can be racist. Just because it is a law doesn't mean that it was handed down from god. Laws are created by people. People can be racist. There are so many examples of this I could create a blog on this alone.

2. I believe that teachers should be leaders. Punishing them for helping their students become more engaged, whatever the cause, is wrong.

3. There are many economists that state in very clear terms, that in order for the US to survive it needs a huge influx of cash. We are currently borrowing billions of dollars from china. Throwing money at creating a police state does absolutely nothing for the US. We can't keep our heads in the sand any longer.

4. Of course the Southwest is not going back to mexico. I'm not stupid. What I am saying is that Mexicans have a strong cultural affinity to this area. It is part of our homeland. Borders are a fallacy.

5. Mexico has had problems in the past in terms of governmental corruption. But do we really want to be pointing fingers right now? Mexico is rich in resources, both natural (oil, etc.) and human. Since when has the US decided that it wants to turn away from the city on the hill ideal to the I am not my brothers keeper mantra. Mexico shares a long border with the US. Mexican, and latinos in general, are going to be huge portion of the population, and I mean legal people. Dealing with this in a human and fair way is in the best interests of the US and ALL its citizens.

I have much more to say but would rather leave it for now.

Erica