|
|
|
Jewish World Review April 6, 2005 / 26 Adar II, 5765 Minutemen should refocus their efforts — border isn't source of immigration problems By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I've got news for the Minutemen tracking illegal aliens in
southern Arizona. If you really want to control illegal immigration, you are
in the wrong place. The place to go is Washington. And the people to
confront are President Bush and Congress, not the Mexican peasants sneaking
into the United States.
The Bush administration is using you.
The Minutemen are volunteers who patrol the border in search of
illegal immigrants. Their work is utterly futile.
Everyone knows that on the first or 10th try, the illegal alien
will get past the circus at the border. From there, it's on to Los Angeles,
Chicago or Anytown USA, where he's home free.
Illegal immigrants come for jobs. Were it not for the jobs, 98
percent of them would not be here. It also happens to be against federal law
to hire illegal aliens.
How well has the Bush administration enforced that law? Here's
the simple answer: There are an estimated 11 million illegal aliens in the
United States. Only 124 employers were fined in 2003 for hiring them. That
number comes from the Department of Homeland Security, and there are no
missing zeros.
Illegal aliens depress the wages of low-skilled citizens and
legal immigrants. This situation suits Bush just fine. Bush loves nothing
more than cheap labor. For all we know, he may regard illegal workers as a
kind of tax break for business.
So the cheap-labor crowd finds great value in keeping the
immigration system broken. But there's the political problem. Because
illegal immigration angers most Americans, Bush must appear to be doing
something about it.
Hence, the big show at the border. In response to the Minutemen
publicity, he sent 500 additional Border Patrol agents to the Arizona
border. (Actually, they're not new agents. He just stripped them from San
Diego and other border areas.)
Elsewhere, Bush throws out the welcome mat to illegal
immigrants. For example, his proposed temporary-worker program. Everyone
correctly read it as a big amnesty plan. Border Patrol agents say the
announcement itself set off the recent wave in illegal crossings. They
report picking up illegal immigrants who ask where they can sign onto the
program.
Despite the new chaos unleashed at the border, the president has
said nothing since to clarify his earlier remarks. As far as the world is
concerned, the U.S. labor market is open for international business.
Some in Congress demand Bush do something real about illegal
immigration. He has a response. It's a Tony Soprano deal: If Congress gives
him the big amnesty and guest-worker program, he'll seriously start
enforcing the employer sanctions. Not before.
Of course, most immigration experts don't believe for a minute
that Bush would do anything to cut the flow of cheap labor. "If they were
serious, they'd be enforcing the law now, so they would have credibility
with Congress," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for
Immigration Studies.
What could the president and Congress do now to enforce the law?
For one thing, they could require employers to electronically check the
Social Security numbers and work eligibility status of prospective hires.
This simple process would weed out people with counterfeit documents. The
program is already up and running, but is voluntary.
Every year, the Internal Revenue Service gets over a million tax
returns on which the taxpayer ID number does not match the Social Security
number on the W-2 form. The most likely reason is that the Social Security
number was fake or stolen.
In years past, the Social Security Administration would send out
"no match" letters to employers. That helped honest companies weed out
undocumented workers. In 2003, however, that program was deemed "too
effective," according to Krikorian, and dramatically scaled back. It could
be restored.
It should be obvious. The only place to control most illegal
immigration is in the federal bureaucracies and their computers. Citizens
who get into confrontations with illegal immigrants are playing sucker in a
fixed game.
The Minutemen now rail at Bush for calling them "vigilantes."
But by drawing the spotlight to the border, they are playing into his hands.
If the volunteers want to be effective, they should turn their SUVs in a
northeasterly direction and head to Washington. Now that might make an impression.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
