- by Alan Adaschik

During his campaign, President Bush promised Hispanic voters that if re-elected he would “reform” immigration, which means he would provide three-year work visas for an undetermined number of the millions of illegal immigrants that presently reside in the United States. These so called guest workers could then apply for permanent legal status provided their employers assure government officials that the jobs the guest workers held could not be filled by Americans.

Labor unions and conservatives oppose the proposed reform because they believe it would encourage illegal immigration, take jobs away from American workers, give employers too much say in deciding the fate of the illegal immigrants, and because it essentially is an amnesty program for undocumented workers. President Bush declared that he was not swayed or deterred by these arguments because the only jobs affected will be those that Americans are unwilling to fill and because his proposal is a worker program, not an amnesty program. President Bush also maintains that legalizing the flow of worker immigrants into this country would free up the Border Patrol and allow them to concentrate on drug smuggling and other security concerns.

First of all, it is acknowledged that there are millions of illegal immigrants presently in this country. If the Border Patrol is presently preoccupied with stemming their flow at the expense of addressing drug smuggling or other security concerns, then they aren’t doing any aspect of their job very well. The Border Patrol’s primary job is to prevent illegal entry into our country. You do not enhance one aspect of this job by ignoring another. The opposite is true, if you improve your performance at interdicting one kind of illegal interloper, you necessarily improve your performance at interdicting all kinds of illegal interlopers whatever their reason for crossing the border. To put this another way, if I were a terrorist intent upon entering the United States to do mayhem and I knew that illegal immigrant workers were not being intercepted by the Border Patrol, then I would enter the country posing as an illegal immigrant worker.

President Bush is also dreadfully wrong when he argues that the only jobs affected will be those that Americans are unwilling to fill. To be sure, there are many undesirable jobs in this Nation, but they are undesirable for two reasons; the nature of the work and the level of associated pay. Therefore, the problem of unfillable jobs is one more of compensation than the nature of the work performed and from this, it should be clear that if the level of pay of any job is raised high enough it will always be possible to find workers to fill it. This is especially true when so many people are presently unemployed because of the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. The converse is also true. If you have a job where the nature of the work is acceptable or desirable, the job will become unfillable if the pay offered is lowered enough. This truth is being ignored by George Bush.

The real problem with letting illegal workers legally fill jobs is that employers will be able to offer far less money for existing jobs across the employment spectrum and this will dissuade Americans from applying for these jobs thus qualifying them for an illegal immigrant. Therefore, pay scales for unskilled and semi-skilled work will decline in all sectors of our economy as more and more jobs are filled by peasant labor willing to work for lower pay. The end result of this is that to stay employed, Americans workers will be forced to accept less and less pay for the work they do until, pay wise, they are on par with the illegal immigrants. Thus, American workers will inevitably become low paid peasant workers. Basic economics and the law of supply and demand deem that this is so.

President Bush maintains that his proposal is a worker program and not an amnesty program. Here again the President uses half-truths and inappropriate language to make his proposal seem more palatable. First of all, the fundamental aspect of his proposal is to ignore the illegal status of illegal immigrant workers. Beyond doubt, this constitutes amnesty for employed illegal immigrants and future illegal immigrants who find jobs when they get here. As a result, the number of immigrants who would legally enter this country would depend strictly upon the wiles of those who are able to illegally come here and the resourcefulness of businessmen seeking to reduce the cost of their labor force. Congress, national policy, and the Border Patrol will no longer be a part of this all important equation.

President Bush is essentially correct when he describes his proposal as being a “worker program”, but he ignores the fact that he is not talking about American workers, but instead, foreign workers who broke our laws to get here. He also fails to clarify that what he really means by his “foreign worker program” is an “employer program” that delivers cheap foreign labor to American businesses at the expense of American workers. Of course, President Bush could counter these points by pointing out that cheaper labor will mean cheaper goods and services for American consumers. But by doing so, he conveniently ignores the fact that American consumers without jobs cannot afford to buy most goods and services no matter how cheap they are.

In conclusion, the critics of George Bush’s immigration reform proposal are woefully correct in their concerns. The President’s proposal is first and foremost an amnesty program for those who broke the law to get here. Furthermore, his proposal will greatly encourage illegal immigration and take away a substantial number of jobs from American workers. However, left unsaid by the proposal’s critics is that it will also result in lower pay scales and reduced benefit packages for workers in all sectors of our struggling economy. This being the case, Bush’s proposal is anything but immigration reform. Instead, it is an immigration free for all and another example of a President who cares nothing for the people who pay his salary and one who thinks nothing of helping outsiders plunder this Nation’s wealth and heritage.