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Illegal Immigration and the Redistribution of Wealth
On the CNN Video News site, the Business video has a great interview with Professor George Borjas of Harvard (he is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government). He calls attention to the failure of the Federal Government to even try to enforce Federal law. After all, it is ILLEGAL for American companies to hire illegal immigrants, but they get away with it because our politicians are apparently influenced by the lobbying wealth of companies benefiting from cheap labor (or by pressure from the Left to bring in more people likely to vote - legally or not - for them). The result, Professor Borjas explains, is redistribution of wealth away from American workers. Salaries for those in the meat packing industry, for example, have dropped by 50% since 1990 due to the rising and illegal use of illegal immigrants.
President Bush gives a positive spin to the law-breakers who enter our nation illegally, calling them guest workers who come here to help out our country by taking jobs that Americans just won't take. This is deceptive. Sure, Americans might not want to take a job for $10 a day, but Americans are losing jobs that they had and jobs that they want when fair market wages are offered. Competing against illegal immigrants (or slave labor in some foreign countries) isn't fair. It's bad enough that the Bush Administration is offering amnesty to illegals and justifying their breaking of Federal law and their theft of American jobs. But the harm being done is more than just economic harm to American citizens: there is the huge security threat that comes from leaving the borders largely open and making it easy for enemies to enter this country at will. Americans can't fly from Des Moines to Minneapolis without being tracked, searched, probed, and even groped by TSA workers in the name of Fatherland Security, but enemies of this country can walk across the border without even being asked for ID. What kind of war is this we're fighting?
Time to bust the companies that break Federal law. And while we're at it, it's time to secure our borders.