There are two sides fervently in favor of illegal immigration: The Bush Administration and some conservatives, and many Democrats and open-border progressives. Throughout his administration, Dubya has consistently spoken in favor of various guest worker programs, has undermined border enforcement programs, and punishes any Republican who goes off the reservation by not supporting his immigration policy. Here in California, when a Republican officeholder recently endorsed a strong independent anti-illegal immigration candidate, another congressman, Darryl Issa, suggested that the officeholder be drummed out of the party. Other California Republicans blatantly lie about their immigration stance, or softpedal anything that is not open border.

The Wall Street Journal and various conservative think tanks are all for allowing illegal labor under the guise of promoting free markets, even though this creates a dangerous asymmetry since Mexico strictly enforces its immigration policies and also restricts the flow of non-Mexican capital and labor into the country (for example, non citizens can lease homes, but not own them outright, and there are similar barriers against non citizen businesses and investment). Meanwhile, banks make big money on the remittance business ($5 billion outflow to Mexico annually), S&Ls and mortgage companies willingly sell homes to illegals, making it less likely that they will return to their home country, and the construction industry lives on illegal immigrant skilled and semi-skilled labor, where a $20 an hour average wage, paid under the table without employment taxes or worker’s comp contributions, still beats out having to pay union wages – and unions look the other way because this scheme protects more senior members.

But to answer the question, why is it easier now than in the past: corruption and oligarchic practices chokes off employment and economic development in Mexico, but there are millions of working age adults who want to work. Border enforcement is extremely lax. Employers, from corporations to small business owners to middle class women looking for housekeepers, are eager to hire illegals at a lower wage. Progressives are willing to subsidize illegals by making sure that social services, education, and health care are easily available even if taxes on everyone else are higher. The existence of strong, stable citizen and legal resident Latino communities makes it easier to absorb illegals, and a kind of tipping point has been reached where there is a de facto open border, with many moving fairly easily back and forth between Mexico and the US.

Any discussion about eliminating the minimum wage to ameliorate illegal immigration is largely a dodge. Except for some unskilled jobs like the car wash industry, some seasonal agricultural work, and the fashion industry, most illegals make more than the minimum wage. The benefit to business is in employment and insurance taxes, workers comp, overtime and other amounts that would have to be paid by the employer on behalf of citizens and legal residents. In some coffee shops and restaurants, almost all the workers, from the wait staff to the busboys to the cooks, are illegal. But whereas a cook formerly made about $15 an hour, an illegal cook will work for $9 an hour, which puts citizen job applicants at a permanent disadvantage. An informal network exists, so that when an illegal moves up or on, another illegal takes his or her place, and some jobs are never advertised to the larger workforce. Some Asian businesses, which formerly employed family members or friends from the same village or province, increasingly employ illegals, and recently there have been news stories about a new phenomenon, bi-lingual workers whose second language is another non-English language (e.g., Korean and Spanish) to accommodate these new employment realities.

Posted by: Alec on October 2, 2005 6:03 PM

As a Mexican who lives in the U.S., I never cease to be amazed misconceptions most non-Hispanic white Americans have about my fellow countrymen who also live in this country. A few pointers:

1. DON'T WORRY about Mexicans eventually developing Quebec-style separatists ambitions. After all, like all previous immigrants, they're grateful for receiving an opportunity to vastly improve their living conditions and understand that to prosper they have to assimimilate. The fact that they are proud of their culture and traditions, just like the Irish or Italians that came before, does not change this one bit.

2. DON'T WORRY about hearing Spanish everywhere. Remember that most Hispanic immigrants came here during the last 20 years. Focus on their US-born children: nearly all speak English fine (or want to do so). In my case, I mostly worry about my two sons forgetting Spanish (for some reason Americans have a hard time understanding that individuals can be perfectly bilingual or that, perish the very thought, this is even desirable).

3. DO WORRY about the immigrants' lack of skills. The gap between the education level of the average Mexican and the average American has kept on growing, which certainly has negative consequences. Since the educational success of children often depends in part on their parent's educational level, this implies that Mexican immigrants will take three or four generations to fully catch-up to the mainstream, making it likely that those living in areas with poor shcools will end up in perpetual poverty traps.

4. DO WORRY about U.S. policy in Latin America. For the last three decades, U.S. policy towards Latin America has been dictated by loony, far-right Cuban exiles and the DEA. These people don't give a rat's ass about economic assistance, the promotion of democracy/human rights, efforts to assist civil society, etc., which could really make a difference in the long run and thus reduce emigration. In fact, the U.S.-led war on drugs is the biggest destabilizing force in Latin America, while American's remaining diplomatic efforts in the region usually focus on getting LA countries to sign onto some meaningless UN resultion condemming Cuba (not that I'm in favor of Castro, but there are far nastier and more dangerous people in this world).

Posted by: Andres on October 3, 2005 1:40 AM

Andres --

Your post implies that you believe that Mexicans should have an absolute, unqualified right of entry to the United States to work and to live. If so, this gets to the heart of the current immigration issue.

I have no problem with legal immigration, and certainly do not fear Mexicans, Mexican language or Spanish language culture, nor do most people who want to eliminate or restrict illegal immigration. But as I noted, there is a curious assymetry here. I might support open borders if there were a North American federation in which all people could freely travel between the United States, Canada and Mexico in order to work, live and start businesses, and there were uniform labor laws and reasonable tax laws to support this. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.

Also, I think that US foreign policy is less an issue than the rampant oligarchic cronyism and corruption that still infects the Mexican government and that nation's economy. And the idea that the US should offer economic assistance to Mexico is just not acceptable. Mexico is a rich country with abundant natural and human resources, including substantial oil wealth. I find it frustrating that Mexico is not more productive, and has not provided more opportunities for its people.

Posted by: Alec on October 3, 2005 12:15 PM

If we got rid of minimum wages, eliminated barriers to entry for immigrants, and counted on the free market to end illegal immigration the logical end result would be the equalization of wages and working conditions for unskilled labor between the U.S. and Mexico.

Well, yes, I think that's another way of phrasing my point about artificial price barriers for labor. So where do we disagree?

There would still be differences, based upon local supply and demand of labor, cost of travel, other factors governing cost of living, and the like, just as there are across the U.S. today. I believe that a job at Starbucks pays quite differently in San Francisco versus Redding. But, in general, yes, some of the people in the lower two-thirds of North America would not have pieces of paper granting them the right to supply an artificially restricted quantity of labor at a higher price, while the rest have to fight for those pieces of paper while simultaneously rectifying the artificial restriction in an extralegal manner. This situation would be called a pernicious monopoly if it concerned any commodity other than labor.

Posted by: J. Goard on October 3, 2005 8:03 PM

Mr. Goard:

If eliminating a 'pernicious monopoly' on labor by permitting free movement of labor were all there was to it, then the matter would be simple. However, over here in the real world, we have a large number of income redistribution mechanisms in place, designed generally to benefit the same class of citizens currently enjoying that pernicious monopoloy. If those redistribution programs are not eliminated, that redistribution will occur not merely to the current recipients of transfer payments but with the large majority of people on Earth. Are you really prepared to pay that bill?

Likewise, free movement of labor into this country puts no pressure at all on the truly pernicious monopolists (i.e., the political elites of the Third World) who currently mismanage the economies of most of the earth for their own fun and profit. In fact the movement of labor into the U.S. that currently exists, as best I can tell, makes the lives of this elite (check out Mexico's governing class) more happy and prosperous. Is this an end you approve of?

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on October 4, 2005 2:00 PM






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