Immigration

There is, at the train station in Cudahy, Wisconsin, a new brick plaza with a recently commissioned set of statues, called the “Immigrant Family Monument.” It is not unknown that people driving past the sign which advertises this memorial remark “Immigrants? Oh, no, I don’t support that.”

Of course, the immigrants portrayed by the monument appear to be Polish, or German, Slovenian or Serbian, the kind of immigrants most local residents are descended from. These are the people who made Cudahy the industrial powerhouse it once was.

When the United States of American ratified a constitution creating a federal government, the right of free travel between these previously independent states was guaranteed to citizens of any state. But it can still be a federal offense to cross state lines for the purpose of committing a crime. And when it comes to national borders... they ARE borders. Nations retain the right to control who enters or leaves their jurisdiction.

Immigration throughout our history started with some industry offering people jobs if they would only come here to work. Workmen who were already here complained that this would undermine their wage scales and standard of living. It did. Captains of industry didn’t care. They were making money. The immigrants came anyway. Their children joined unions and pushed the wage scales back up.

It is true that if millions of average Joes, desperately seeking a job, can get across our borders without going through customs, then sophisticated drug smuggling networks and ruthlessly trained terrorists can also do so with ease. In that sense, it is important to get control of our national borders. It is also true that when millions are crossing the border out of necessity, those with a more ominous purpose have plenty of cover for their own itinerary.

Most people do not cross borders for the purpose of invasion or subversion. They are motivated by necessity. They are hungry, displaced, unemployed, and they hear if you go to American, and work very hard, you can make enough money to get by. Its true, they can. Somehow, there are jobs they can get when they arrive. As long as that is true, little will be accomplished by building walls and mounting patrols. The key to immigration policy is:

(1) Conducting our commerce, foreign policy, and global trade in a way that leaves people options for survival in their nations of origin. People immigrate because people have to “follow the money.” If we don’t want the whole world coming here, we have to be sure the money flows through the countries people are immigrating from. It will flow back here too. Money doesn’t sit still. We have to be sure all our neighbors are in the loop.

(2) A cold, hard look at the jobs immigrants are attracted by: are there American citizens out of work who would take those jobs? Why aren’t they being hired? Are they applying? Is the rate of pay unconscionably low? Are our labor protection laws being enforced in that industry? If there really is nobody to do those jobs, what orderly process will allow them to be filled legally, without undermining anyone else’s job or standard of living?

Vigorous enforcement of our laws, all of them, and fair trade policies, are the key. As for physically securing the borders, walls are not the key. We don’t want someone coming to our border with a Ronald Reagan mask crying out “Tear down this wall.” Information, rapidly relayed, and mobile border patrols trained to move swiftly, are the key to secure borders.

Yes, sometimes we may be up against paramilitary narcotices smugglers with automatic weapons. We need strike forces trained and equipped to take them out, successfully. Other times we may be up against two young men chasing stray cows. We don’t need to be sending combat troops with automatic weapons to apprehend them. Intelligence and rapid response, the right response for the real situation on the ground, will get the job done.

Oh, and let’s remember what the French colonel said when he took command of a deteriorating military situation in The Battle of Algiers: “You can forget about those checkpoints to ask everyone for I.D. If anyone has their I.D. in order, it is the terrorists.”