Si me voy

[cyrano]

I am once again exposing my White Privelege. Because I need somebody to explain in small words something about the immigration issue. I understand why many in labor feel that the guest worker plan is a bad one--the idea that a corporation can basically blackmail employees by threatening to fire them and get them deported if they do anything inconvenient. But in an article I read today, UNITE HERE president Bruce Raynor says "There are 12 million undocumented people living here, who are important to the economy." So far, so good. I understand that. "They have a right to seek employement, and employers have a right to hire them." This is where I get confused. 'Undocumented' often means that they're in the country illegally, which I think would restrict some of their rights.
I don't understand the idea that somebody has gained entry to the country by breaking the law and therefore should be allowed to stay because they're already here. As a left wing socialist, I feel like I'm missing something.

Comments

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

Like others on this page, as well as most USAmericans, I expect, I don't have what I feel is a "right" answer, just more questions.

Laws are there for a reason, and people shouldn't break them, and shouldn't be rewarded for doing so. Employers who hire illegal immigrants knowingly, or look the other way if someone has fake papers, are definitely part of the problem. In certain industries where illegal workers are common, those who play by the book are probably paying too much for labor and will get priced out of the market by less-than-fair competition.

Unfortunately, UsAmericans still want our cheap goods, and we will buy from the lowest bidder, happily buy ridiculously cheap produce, etc. Not only do we want the best deal, we really don't care if there's illegal labor making it or bringing it to us. We can't be bothered to check, anyway. That means no penalties for those employers breaking the rules, who can't be shunned or shamed into complying with the law.

This gets to my other concern, which is that the laws are rarely and selectively enforced, which means instead of being effective at stopping the illegal behavior we want to stop, it's instead just punitive and can be used to control and coerce people to work in crappy or even dangerous conditions. If someone complains about unfair or unsafe practices, they can simply be deported, and chances are the next guy to come along won't complain. It's almost like we're outsourcing those jobs to someone in a third-world country but we still get our produce picked here and our hotel rooms cleaned.

I think there's a large segment of business owners who like this shadow-system, where they can claim they're following the law and as long as the workers go to the *good* forgery guy, they can always say later that they were fooled. Yeah, um, my bad, but it looked real at the time. What else should we have done?

Now back to the top where I said "There's a reason for the laws we have" -- what might that reason be? Protectionism, plain and simple. Our country is the richest in the world and we don't want to share. Is that our "right" for having been born, as you say, into Privilege (white or not)? Right or wrong, we protect our borders and repel all boarders for the sake of keeping our riches to ourselves. At least, nominally we do. Practically speaking, someone has to pick the cabbage, and we want it done for less than a poverty-level wage, if you please. As long as the people doing the picking can be controlled and don't get to live in our suburbs, everything must be working OK, right?

Anyway, the liberal/socialist in me would like to see not only a fair wage paid to everyone, but more effort made to "share the wealth" with other countries. Maybe not to the point of allowing totally unchecked immigration with no limits, but I think we should at least be mindful of how crappy the conditions are in other parts of the world... to the extent that people can come here (illegally or not) and live in what we would consider abject poverty, and still be better off than at home AND have enough extra to SEND some money home.