The Ming Report

THE EL PASO WALL

May 23, 2006 - There are, the Bush Administration tells us, 11.5 million foreigners living in the United States who are here in violation of our immigration laws. They either crossed our border without permission or, if they had the necessary paperwork to temporarily enter the country, they stayed beyond their welcome. That is the dimension of what the politicians are decrying as a crisis. That number is, of course, an estimate. By definitions these illegal immigrants are without documentation, are not counted in our census, and we can only guess at their number. They have come to work, earn money and realize their economic dreams. We say that they are taking opportunity from hard working Americans. If we guess that 1/3rd of these illegal residents are children that means that about 7 million of them are working within our economy.

At the same time the Bush Administration points proudly to what it says is a booming economy. The economy is so hot that the Federal Reserve is repeatedly raising interest rates to cool it down and avoid the resumption of the runaway inflation of the 70s and 80s. The unemployment rate has fallen below 5%. Practitioners of the dismal science consider any unemployment rate from 4.7% to 7.3% to be full employment. That is that the unemployed are either between positions or unemployable and everybody who wants to work can find a job. According to the Bush Administration’s figures our economy is at full employment. Those 7 million or so Americans on the unemployment rolls represent what the economists call structural unemployment – the number of workers temporarily without work.

When you put these two propositions together it is clear that the so called “immigration crisis” is a convenient political fiction around which politicians of every stripe and hue can posture and demagogue. No American who wants a job has been displaced by a Mexican father who crossed the border to find the means to feed and house his children. Every Mexican worker in that situation has a job because an American business is willing to exploit the worker’s lack of legal status and pay substandard wages to men and women working under conditions that we won’t tolerate for American workers.

If there were a crisis of immigration the solution does not lie in building a wall; making felons of men and women who only want to get a day’s pay for a day’s work; or rounding up and confining every Mexican worker we can find. It does not lie in sending the military to the border. The solution is closer to home and is as obvious as the nose on your face. Arrest, try and imprison those American business people who illegally exploit the undocumented workers. If we were not willing to break the law to save a buck then there would be no jobs for illegal immigrants to take. We are the source of the crisis if there is one but hypocrisy is easier than doing something about it. The solution is not an El Paso Wall.