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Federal agents swarmed the factory, screaming incomprehensibly at panicked, racially segregated workers. Caucasian and African American coworkers applauded as 595 undocumented workers were shackled. Most were hauled to a detention center 200 miles away.
Agents did not provide workers with counsel or families with the location of their loved ones. The next day, fear kept many Latino-owned businesses closed and half of the town’s Latino children home from school.
These details — some of which are unconfirmed but being investigated by the American Civil Liberties Union — are tragic. They illustrate a flawed and sometimes inhumane approach to illegal immigration. But, they do not mean the government should stop enforcing laws designed to protect American workers and other immigrants.
Responses to the Laurel, Miss. raid on Aug. 25, which is the largest the country has ever conducted, were surprisingly muted.
Perhaps the relative lack of right-wingers bellowing that “Mexicans” are taking over the country and should be kicked out immediately, matched in thoughtlessness only by the left-wingers who shriek that any effort to stop illegal immigration is somehow fascist, reflects increased deliberation of the moral and practical arguments of both sides.
An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants have economically and socially tied themselves to the United States. It is logistically impossible to remove them, and more struggle to enter the country every day.
Economists estimate that immigrants, both legal and illegal, have reduced the annual wage of the average U.S.-born male citizen by an admittedly modest 4 percent, simply due to the increased labor supply. The effect is doubled for citizens who didn’t graduate from high school.
The common argument that Mexican immigrants take jobs “that not even blacks want,” most famously and offensively voiced by former Mexican President Vicente Fox, is disproved by the hundreds of laborers who applied for work at the Laurel factory after the raid.
However, few will work for less than a living wage in unhealthy or unsafe environments that desperate illegal immigrants are forced to take.
Allowing businesses to prey on immigrants’ desperation is wrong. The best way to help both legal and illegal workers is to enforce the labor laws that partially account for prosperity in the United States.
This means businesses must pay fair wages, including funds for such things as retirement and overtime. With a bottomless and expendable workforce, employers are willing to take the risk.
Managers must be held responsible in Laurel, and the lack of charges against those who hired the illegal immigrants suggests a system that attacks the defenseless and ignores the more morally liable.
Yet, it’s unrealistic to pretend that limiting the workforce to citizens, or authorized guest workers, will not have any negative effects. Prospective immigrants and their families would initially be condemned to poverty, and inflation would drastically upset the U.S. economy.
The adjustment will be rough, but a multifaceted approach is needed for immigration reform — border enforcement, a fair path to citizenship and development in the Latin American countries people are so eager to flee.
Detailed plans are vital and must be discussed. But, first, the flaws of extremist proposals and the importance of soon finding a balanced solution must be understood.
Submitted 09-04-2008
MALIBU, CA
