Our View

The possibility that terrorists could sneak across our borders is a
legitimate fear; witness the ability of the 9/11 attackers to live and
plan in the US, undiscovered for years, and, more recently, the
security tests in which radioactive material readily passed inspection
as it arrived from Canada.

Securing our borders demands better procedures for inspecting container
freight, more control over shipments by plane, and increased
cooperation with other nations to prevent illicit shipments from their
point of origin. A strong case can be made as well for more thorough
investigation of immigrants, students, and other visitors from nations
with a history of radical Islamic activism. Many other improvements
could and should be made, including appointing leaders of proven
competence to run the Homeland Security Department.

The other problems that advocates of immigration reform cite — that
illegal immigrants take jobs from Americans, strain social services,
don\’t pay taxes, lower living standards, depress wages, etc. — have
little to do with illegal immigration per se but a lot to do with our
national economic structure.

Corporate mega-farms and other conglomerates rarely, if ever, face any
consequences — except improved profits — when they exploit immigrant
labor. But it\’s the exploitation, not the hiring, that hurts American
citizens. While such businesses insist that their employment practices
keep prices low, they deny that they also force wages down. But in fact
they use a simple, but sharp, two-edged sword: first, it\’s made clear
to anyone who won\’t accept wages depressed by immigrants that they can
be replaced by someone who will; second, competing businesses quickly
learn to cut wages and benefits or go under.

For a full decade Congress has refused to raise the minimum wage,
reform the health care system, or improve unemployment benefits. It has
increased the tax burden on working people while drastically reducing
taxes for the wealthiest citizens and businesses: the percentage of
national tax revenue paid by business (17%) is now the lowest in
generations.

NAFTA has taken millions of jobs overseas, where sweatshops thrive, and
corporations are rewarded, not punished, for setting up shell companies
in tax-avoidance havens. Their CEOs are further rewarded with huge
salaries, bonuses, and stock options, while employee pay has stagnated
or fallen.

A century ago Henry Ford paid his employees $5.00 per day so they could
afford the cars they produced. The result was an increase in the
standard of living for entire communities, states, and, ultimately, the
nation. Thirty years later Franklin Roosevelt created Social Security
to help protect America\’s elderly, and at the end of World War II the
G.I. Bill enabled millions of veterans to attend college — and earn
incomes that led to a long-lasting nationwide boom in purchases of
homes, cars, consumer goods, insurance policies — in other words,
widespread prosperity.

Medicare, Medicaid, minimum wage scales, union-based pensions, and a
host of other federally mandated or supported programs made America an
international beacon for equality, opportunity, and fairness. That
prosperity allowed us not only to lead the world for the fifty years
after World War II but also to win the Cold War and establish a network
of alliances with like-minded nations that kept us strong and at peace.

That social safety net, indeed the entire underlying concept of “the
common good,” has been shredded during the past dozen years or so.
Under the social Darwinism that has replaced them, a rising tide no
longer lifts all boats; instead, yacht-owners make sure that smaller
boats are anchored to the bottom, where they swamp and capsize as the
tide flows in.

It is not immigration law but the larger system that needs reform,
through an improved minimum wage, national health care, affordable
childcare for working parents, and a strengthened overall safety net.
Unfortunately, but predictably, this Congress has no interest in those
issues; it\’s too busy exploiting the public\’s fear of terrorism in
hopes of gaining votes next November. We need leaders who will remember
that this nation was built on the labor of citizens and immigrants
alike, not on corporate takeovers and 25% annual returns for
stockholders.