Free up U.S. jobs; help Mexico prosper

[ilbegone]

Free up U.S. jobs; help Mexico prosper

Opinion in Press Enterprise by Howard Hurlbut, a resident of Redlands and a member of Californians for Population Stabilization.

10:00 PM PST on Sunday, January 10, 2010

By HOWARD HURLBUT

Columnist Ruben Navarrette's analyses of "illegal immigration" are consistently fair-minded ("Word war wastes time; 'illegal immigrants' are just that" (Dec. 30). He resists dehumanizing "a whole group of people" while emphasizing that "entering the country without permission" is breaking the law.

He logically criticizes Justice Sonia Sotomayor's euphemism, "undocumented immigrant." An "immigrant" follows the legal path of immigration, whereas a "migrant" enters a foreign country regardless of laws.

"Undocumented" implies merely lacking a document -- thus downplaying a violation of national sovereignty and law. If illegal migrants use falsified documents to seek employment, a more accurate term would be "false-documented" migrants.

Most migrants are honest people who don't break laws in their own country. But that changes when they seek to enter the United States ahead of millions of legal immigrants. And aren't these industrious people greatly needed in their own developing countries?

America already has far more immigrants than any other nation, many of them recent immigrants. Coming here for more money means taking jobs from Americans -- including earlier immigrants.

Even in boom years the millions of unemployed Americans can't afford to lose jobs to illegal migrants. During lengthy recessions it's unconscionable.

President George W. Bush unjustifiably claimed that illegals only take jobs that Americans won't do. Yet recently, more illegal migrants worked in high-paying construction than in agriculture.

Throughout our history Americans have always done arduous and menial labor. What Americans resist is working for Third-World wages under sweatshop conditions; hence greedy firms illegally hire migrants, driving wages down for everyone. Rigorously enforcing hiring sanctions is the surest way to free up jobs.

By granting amnesty to 3 million illegals, President Ronald Reagan ultimately encouraged millions more to migrate. And at least a billion additional destitute people would eagerly enter the U.S. illegally if their lands bordered ours.

Navarrette criticized Democrats for delaying immigration reform, for forgetting that millions of Latino voters swung the election to President Barack Obama. Another amnesty would likely make Latinos the largest voting bloc in the U.S. So, is reform primarily about diversity or political clout?

Since there can be only one majority in a nation, all of America's other hundred-plus nationalities qualify as minorities. People assume "whites" are still the majority, but "whites" include dozens of minority nationalities from Norwegians to New Zealanders.

As our neighbor, Mexico should be far more important to us than most other nations, including Iraq. Instead of insurrectionists, Mexican society and its economy are plagued by gangs, crime and corruption.

To empower the millions of migrants from Mexico, America should offer them extensive training as skilled police officers, soldiers and leaders to go take their homeland back from the drug lords and corrupt officials. Then its ambitious citizens can prosper rather than migrate.

Howard Hurlbut is a resident of Redlands and a member of Californians for Population Stabilization.