Jan 23 2008
Color Me Skeptical
(Cross-posted at BlogHer)
I don’t get it. I must be missing something, some critical piece of information that would help me understand how a wall is going to solve our illegal immigration problem.
Forgive my ignorance—I’m no expert on immigration, but what about complicated counter-wall tactics like ladders and tunnels? How will we handle the “to hell with it, let’s drive a pickup into that mo-fo and see if we can bust on through” approach? What if people just go around it? Since when has a wall ever stopped a determined human from getting where he or she wants to be?
There are an estimated 10-20 million (yes, the numbers really do vary that much) illegal immigrants in the United States. Most of them break their backs doing menial jobs (harvesting crops, working construction, serving as domestic labor) for ridiculously low wages. Are they breaking the law by being here? Yes. But they’re also a crucial part of the underpinning of our economy. Our economic success was paid for in part by their blood sweat and tears. The bottom line is that we need them.
Case in point—a colleague of mine recently visited Yuma, Arizona to see an old friend. As he was showing her around town, she noticed that some of the border posts were not manned. When she asked why, her friend told her that it was lettuce season. The posts aren’t manned during lettuce season so that illegal immigrants can cross over and pick lettuce. Her friend said that the posts would be staffed again once lettuce season ends—at least, that is, until broccoli season arrives.
That’s right—we need them. And immigrants can actually be good for America in other ways, too. According to Reason Magazine, “More than 60 percent of illegals—illegals—pay income tax and two-thirds kick in to Social Security (money they, like many of us, probably will never see again); Hispanic unemployment is barely above the national average and Hispanics start their own businesses at three times the national average; immigrants are ‘generally less involved in crime than similarly situated groups’; and that crime rates in border towns ‘are lower than those of comparable nonborder cities.’”
Regardless of whether immigration if good or bad, I simply don’t think the wall is going to work. Imagine that you’re a desperate immigrant who has walked hundreds of miles through the desert to the American border. When you get there, you see a wall. Are you going to turn around and go home? Hell, no. You’re going to find a way over, under, around, or through the damn thing. In fact, the Washington Post asked the sheriff of Maverick County, Texas how he thought illegal immigrants would deal with the wall. His response: “They will get ladders made out of mesquite and climb it.”
A wise man, that Sheriff Herrera.
So let’s not spend billions of dollars on a border defense that can be defeated by three hungry immigrants and a pile of driftwood. Surely we can do better than that.
