A Sane Approach to Illegal Immigration and the Democratic Party

[Neil Lisst]

I hold these truths to be self-evident

1. Illegal immigrants may be violating the law, but their plight and their desire to have decent, paying work is understandable, even admirable.

2. Illegal immigrants are driven primarily by the poor economies from their native countries, which poor economies result, not from lack of resources, but due to greed, corruption, and the inherent deficiencies of their own governments, economic systems, and their social systems.

3. The primary beneficiaries in America of illegal workers are large corporations and wealthy individuals, who exploit cheap labor for additional profit, and use illegal workers to drive down pay and benefits to American workers.

4. The primary victims of illegal workers in America are the blue collar workers whose wages are driven down, whose jobs are taken, and whose lives are forever diminished.

5. Some who oppose illegal immigration do so because they are racists, others are mere nationalists, others do so because their jobs and income are threatened, and some do so because they have greater devotion to the American citizens who are hurt by illegal competition.

6. One can oppose illegal immigration without supporting deportation of long term illegal immigrants.

7. The Democratic party cannot expect to have the votes of American blue collar workers if it fails to protect their interests.

8. Illegal workers, whatever their qualities, cannot vote, but those who feel strongly about illegal immigration who are Americans do vote.

9. Bush is pushing a guest worker/amnesty program which is surely going be a loser among American voters.

10. If Democrats fail to come down on the side of the American worker, we will lose again in November.

[meti57b]

1. I agree with you.

[Neil Lisst]

2. Cool. When all is said and done, we have to win in November.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. The way to enhance the Democratic vote is to grant amnesty.

Make the "illegals" citizens and give them the vote. 12 million is a lot of votes.

The Democrats, speaking in purely political terms, is battling the Republicans for the Hispanic vote. If they fail to back the immigrants there is a very real possibility that millions of Hispanic voters will sit on their hands or form a third party.

Other than the political considerations, amnesty is the right thing to do.

[Neil Lisst]

5. even if there is such an amnesty, they wouldn't vote in 2006

The question is how the issue impacts the American hispanic, black, white, and asian vote in 2006.

[meti57b]

7. He included that.

"6. One can oppose illegal immigration without supporting deportation of long term illegal immigrants."

I would say "amnesty" would be a more clear word to use, though.

[Inland]

11. Why would they vote democratic? Or vote at all?

Frankly, we don't know anything about the illegal aliens aside from the fact they want to be here. We presume they are motivated by the hope for work, but we know nothing else, and certainly don't know their politics. We can guess, but we don't know.

All you do is take the one fact you know, that they want to be here, say "democrats wanted you to be here", and assume that we will be rewarded. It doesn't surprise me that republicans see immigrants from rural, heavily christian areas run by an institutional established pro business and pro elite party as natural republican consituents. The political effect of giving twelve million people full citizenship in a stroke of a pen when we know nothing about them is, of course, unknown and part of a gamble.

[nonconformist]

13. I don't think we can assume they will vote, or how they will vote

Do you really think that 12 million people, many who can't speak English, will suddenly start voting if they're allowed?

The 2004 elections had the largest voter turnout since 1968 - and even so it was only 60.7%

I think it would be ambitious to even assume half will vote, and there's no way to know where their votes will go. They are, mostly, uneducated and devoutly Catholic. Following historical trends, I think it's safe to assume that at least a third will vote Republican on social issues.

[HereSince1628]

4. The democrats need to think beyond history, way beyond 2006 and 2008

I am not at all sure if Democrats returning to their historic roots is their salvation or any assistance to the nation. The labor party that they were was largely supported by unions involved with major durable goods, and textiles manufacturing. Those industries and opportunities are gone or ever shrinking parts of a post-industrial economy.

The activities that are slated to maintain employment or grow in the next decade are health, service (as in janitorial/maintenance) and retailing. These areas are where the mass of American labor will ultimately find jobs.

The Democrats need to position themselves to help the nation make the transition to living in an economy with little in the way of a generally educated, well paid, benefits bearing middleclass.

A very major rethink is needed.

Service sector and clerking in retail are not going to provide the incomes necessary to have nice homes in the suburbs, advanced technical educations, and whatever the 20-teens offer as the replacement to the SUV and mini-van. These jobs are not going to provide benefits that will keep root canals and appendectomies from wiping out a family's hard earned efforts to save for a home, a car, initial and continuing educations, and retirement.

We are on a path to becoming a nation where quality housing, healthcare, diet and technical education, family priorities well before Union dues, are going to beyond the of reach for the majority of people. We are transitioning to be a country full of people who will work longer hours for less equivalent wage, eat poorer diets, live in smaller poorer quality dwellings and have no health benefits.

Just consider where the race to the bottom is taking us in healthcare. Without intervention this country will become a nation of unimmunized children. It will be a country where epidemics of measles, mumps, whooping cough, and tuberculosis kill more people than car accidents--tens of times more people will die for lack of an immunization than illegal imperialistic invasions (Think that is over the top? We are currently having a mumps epidemic in Iowa. We just ended an epidemic of whooping cough in Arkansas...both entirely preventable with immunization). We are on a path to become a country even more dismissive than it currently is of the health of the young, the old and the unfortunate.

IMHO the intellectual hot properties of the Democrats shouldn't really be focused on battling about labor or immigration in 2006 or 2008. They should be looking 10 or more years into the future and directing the party to become THE PARTY that facilitates a socially responsible soft-landing to the economic transition to a society with lower earnings in general and a minimal middleclass. IMHO the Democrats should be thinking about how they lead the nation to protecting itself from the ravages of selfish capitalism while not destroying what enterprises remain on-shore.

[Toots]

17. I say unionize the service industries

I agree with everything you wrote and the only way to aid those low paying careers is unionization. They must be able to bargain for health care or else the government must be able to provide it. That is the main goal IMO is to have single payer health care for every American. If that main factor were taken care of people could afford to save a little for a new car or a home some day. Unless we get really serious about National health care we must unionize the service industry. All retail clerks should have the same security as a factory worker once had. If these jobs were unionized there may not be such an illegal immigration problem. Want to hire someone to trim your lawn, contact the union hall. We must though fight for National Health Care because it is the killer for all families. There is no reason in hell why an employer should pay for a person's health care especially in these times of escalating costs. Every couple of months my wife's insurance goes up a bit more. I don't even have insurance, can't afford it. That has to be our major battle or all else is lost.

[KharmaTrain]

6. Which "Illegal Immigrants"

Now let's be even more specific here. This isn't a problem with Chinese illegals or Polish illegals...it's Hispanic and primarily Mexicans who are being targeted here. Yes, they are the largest group, but also the ones that have been the most exploited and again find themselves as a pinata in a economic game played by the big money players on both sides of the border.

Until there's some kind of proposal that deals with bringing accountability to those who hire the illegals...and some laws that not only have teeth, but are enforced. Then there has to be an examination of the cross-border practices of American corporations who exploit the Mexican labor. Our factories that used to pay union wages now pay in a day in Mexico what they would pay in an hour here.

As Erica Jong pointed out last night, there are two things that drive people to travel that far and take the chances they do...hunger and fear. American corporates now can pick and choose how they pay and what they pay. They can manufacture offshore for cheap, then import those goods here at full price and pay their illegal employees minimum wages. Now who'd want to give up something that good? Better to pick on the brown-skinned people...that always works for the Repugnicans.

Democrats need to stand with our Hispanic brothers and sisters...specifically the millions of legal ones who have long had their voices stiffled. There's no way to send 11 million people back across the border and you can triple the number of guards and build a fence 5 miles high, yet people will still find a way to get in...because corporates will find ways to get them in.

It's time the elephants in the room were brought out of the shadows.

[Inland]

8. I agree. Any *liberal* discussion has to accept this.

They are just facts derived from the meta-issue that not everyone can have everything, that the real world is not and cannot, in or outside of America, deliver unlimited wealth and opportunity to everyone, and that doesn't change with open borders.

Given one through four, five is a given, because with limits a choice has to be made. Many posters comes to the conclusion that racism is the ONLY reason to oppose immigration, because they don't accept (or just don't acknowledge) one through four. If I really believed that unlimited immigration would create its own jobs, that wealth and income were available simply because someone is inside the borders and wants it, I too would think that Americans were just being spiteful. But I don't, because one through four are true.

As to the political effects, those too are a meta-issue. I'm not sure that there's a basis for progressive politics if one dodges the issue of who benefits from policy choices, and from turning the social compact into no more than an opportunity to bid on employment. The entire question of what it means to be an American, about what we owe each other, is diluted when someone who wants to earn money is just as much part of "my community" as someone who is here to stay and has hitched his future and the future of his family to the US, and to me.

A conservative sees the US as a big producer of goods and services to put inside your home, and of the government as a vendor of services and pensions in return for your taxes: a conservative, not a liberal, sees relationships between Americans as market relationships: a conservative, not a liberal, sees american as nothing more than what you can profit from it. Or at least, a certain type of conservative.

That the liberals have picked up on the conservative concept of a good citizen as someone who wants to make money, nothing more, isn't going to be lost on the blue collar and no collar. The problem isn't just going to be that they are mad about an open borders policy. The problem is that a liberal society can't be premised on a view that wanting money or wanting a job is the sine qua non of community. Liberal policy initiatives re going to fail again and again because they are premised that as americans, we owe each other something other than an opportunity to compete in a free market. The US isn't going to be a liberal paradise if all we are to each other is a free trade zone inside the borders. Just saying.

[Cobalt Violet]

9. K & R.

10 very self-evident truths.

[Eurobabe]

10. The real travesty here is businesses hiring illegals

why is no one going after them? I unfortunately work for a builder (thankfully not for much longer) that uses subcontractors, and I KNOW of their "employees" are illegal. Do you know what this has done? It has undercut the wages of local bricklayers, frame carpenters, drywallers. It's sickening.

I have a real problem with this WHOLE immigration issue -- and my husband is an immigrant!! He waited 5 freaking years for a green card, he speaks fluent English and has assimilated into our culture. He came in the LEGAL way with a VISA.

What's with this amnesty bullshit? I don't get it, and neither do most Americans. Why do we reward those who broke the law in the first place, the employers and the employees?

[Neil Lisst]

15. Honestly, I don't care if they become citizens.

What I want is the economic submarining of American workers to end and the subsidization of large corporations by govt providing social services to their illegal workers to end.

I want to see everyone paid a respectable minimum wage, and for there to be no economic advantage for those who hire illegal workers instead of citizens.

[Neil Lisst]

28. Agreed on the employers who undercut the trades.

I think some Americans really don't understand how severely illegal workers have undercut the trades that have been a part of blue collar workers lives for decades. Unfortunately, the guys who have lost their jobs to illegal workers tend to blame the workers, instead of the companies doing the hiring and the feds who basically have let it happen.

I can remember when the typical home construction crew was about 50% white, about 25% black, and about 25% hispanic citizens. That was 25 years ago, and we made a nice profit on the houses we built. Now that's all gone. There will a few anglo bosses, and an army of illegal workers.

I empathize with the little guy construction outfits, because they really have no choice if they're to compete with others. Only the government can change the policies, and the government is the concubine of big business.

[KittyWampus]

12. Note: Unskilled v. Skilled immigrants & Voting v. Non-Voting Workers

these are important points Paul Krugman made in recent columns.

Guest workers? More like workers who have no vote or real voice in what the conditions they'll be working in are like.

[Neil Lisst]

14. I am not an advocate of deportation, especially long timers.

I think the term AMNESTY is political poison.

I also think there has to be a method to put people on a citizenship track, assuming they pass criminal checks, etc. I do not think being deported before should matter.

[IronLionZion]

16. Or we can invest in Mexico...

just a thought. That's where the lion's share of illegal immigrants come from. And there's no reason to keep a trade embargo on Cuba. If they have a better economy and standard of living they won't want to come here illegally. Of course, everyone has the right to come here legally as my own grandparents and parents did.

A lot of Asian immigrants are actually going back to Asia...hmmm....I wonder what is happening over there? :think:

[QC]

19. We've already sent a big chunk of our industrial base to Mexico.

That doesn't seem to have helped matters there, though it has certainly put working people here through the ringer.

Unless there is major change in Mexico, the oligarchy that runs the place will reap the benefits of further U.S. investment there while the people continue to suffer. It is the oligarchy's ability to export Mexico's poor that enables them to stay in power. So long as Fox & Co. have that gigantic safety valve to the north, there will probably never be meaningful political change in Mexico.

[Neil Lisst]

29. I'm pleased to report some reversal of that process.

I'm aware of a business that moved a large part of its manufacturing to Mexico 5-6 years ago, and they've had to move back. Quality Control issues. I'm glad. That means about 300 jobs back to Houston.

[mzmolly]

18. Excellent summary.

I agree with those who suggest this issue will/should be tabled until after 2006.

[KittyWampus]

24. It is a great summary. And actually helps move the discussion forward

[mdmc]

20. regarding the "American worker"

when has the Dem party stood up against the corporations and FOR the working class?:shrug: I find it interesting that the Dem party will "fight for the working class" by beating on the poor.

[mopinko]

21. raising the minimum wage fixes most of this.

a real, enforced, minimum wage that you can actually feed a family on, fixes most of what is wrong with this economy.
but i will add that racism has hurt us greatly in this debate. racism kept minorities out of many unions that are now trying to figure out why their work has been taken away and given to the people that they kept out. duh, people.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

23. I agree.

America has lots of jobs. They just are not viable jobs. They pay minimum wage which is not even enough to raise a family out of the poverty level.

Illegal immigrants work for pitiful wages and horrid conditions because they face deportation if the company outs them, or if they call attention to themselves. I feel that we cannot get upset at the illegal immigrants. They are doing what any desperate people would do. However, we need to punish the corporations that hire illegals much harder.

I believe that if we could legally allow immigrants to work here, they would be more apt to report dangers and violations. Further, they would not undercut the minimum wage.

[mzmolly]

25. Unfortunately employers don't pay illegals the minimum wage.

"Enforced" I guess would be key?

We need a living wage AND national health care. :hi:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

22. But what would count as being on the side of the American worker?

I appreciate you post, I think it is a nice bit of calm in a sea of rage.

Im just curious as to what would be seen by Americans as "being on their side"

[mzmolly]

26. One solution might be to have all "guest workers" come through a union?

:shrug:

[Nutmegger]

27. Hello Neil. I've been saving these for you:

:hug::grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug::grouphug:
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:grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug:
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:grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug::grouphug::hug:

[Neil Lisst]

30. Thanks! We've been on vacation this week, and I've been ...

Posting madly, since I don't usually have time to read and make so many posts.

I wrote this thread because piecemeal discussion of one's belief's on this complicated topic usually result in constant accusations of racism, xenophobia, and nationalism.

Hell, I just want to win elections and stop big corps and wealthy Pubs from keeping down blue collar Dems by marginalizing them.