“America’s Immigration system is outdated, unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country. We should not be content with the laws that punish hard-working people and deny businesses willing workers and invite chaos at our borders.” George W. Bush, February 02, 2005.
My parents came to the US from Mexico, and I recall very vividly they would work day and night to provide food and shelter for my sibling and I. Up till today, the turmoil of being threaten by employers and being caught by ICE at work for having fake documents is my worst nightmare. My parents are noble people, but everyday they have to make sacrifices of working for us. Just like my parents, there is 12 million undocumented families in the US, who are not authorize to work and can be an easy target by the Government.
In his article, “The Economics and Policy of Illegal Immigration in the United States,” Gordon H. Hanson explains thoroughly how policymakers across the political spectrum agree that illegal immigration is an ‘indictment’ in current immigration policy regimes, but won’t change their regulation because cheap labor from unauthorized workers generates inflows to the US economy.
By tacitly permitting these people to come into the US illegally, the Government becomes overwhelmed with amounts of people who have no legal status and like Hanson states, “the obvious downsides of such a system include limited government control over national borders and the insecurity and abuse to which unauthorized migrants are often exposed.” Repulsively, The Government is inferior to unauthorized workers in order to financially benefit from them.
It’s upsetting to know that the American immigration system is profoundly broken, yet policy makers won’t aim for a more constructive immigration policy which both parties could benefit from. The Government is failing these people just to limit their fiscal cost and keep their spending at a limit. These people need to get equal pay and not be mistreated by their employers because they are human beings as well that need to be able to make a living for themselves and their families.
Hanson suggests more profitable policies that I believe the US economy can benefit from and effectively give unauthorized workers a way to work without being underpaid and mistreated. He states that the these policies would be designed to:
- provide sufficient legal channels of entry to low-skilled workers by expanding legal options for immigration while maintaining reasonable enforcement of immigration laws;
- allow inflows to rise and fall in the economy;
- create incentives for both employers and immigrants to play by the rules by ensuring meaningful enforcement at US worksites and rewarding workers for their compliance by giving them the chance to seek legal permanent residence; and
- mitigate the fiscal impact of low-skilled immigration by charging a fee for legal entry or taxing employers.
These policies right here are fair game and justice in order for this capitalist country to stop exploiting undocumented citizens for their financial gain.
Since 2001, America’s immigration system has made it their mission to target unauthorized workers within the country. Coming from a predominant hispanic community, I see many people getting caught by ICE at work. Since undocumented people are not authorized to work, they use fake documents to apply for jobs to provide for their families. Our current administration sees the problem and is trying to find a different way to run potential hires through an internet portal that checks and distinguishes those who are actually able to work and those who use fake documents. (source) While this can help prevent people from lying, I believe this is not the right solution to stop immigrants from coming and can possibly hurt the economy.
It’s time for American immigration to reconstruct their policies for the benefit of the 12 millions of individuals who have come to the United States looking for an opportunity to work. It’s a complex situation that the Government made for themselves because they have been exploiting these workers yet they have made policies to prevent unauthorized workers from working in order to keep inflow coming in. It’s time for them to let go of their ideas as a capitalist country and reinvent themselves.
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