The Real Immigration Debate

By Hilary Van Hoose on August 14, 2013

Every year, politicians and pundits fill up the airwaves with debates about immigration laws and attempts at so-called reforms thereof. In recent years, the pro-immigration argument by self-labeled ‘liberals’ and ‘moderates’ has been that immigrants only take jobs that legal citizens don’t want. Meanwhile, anti-immigrationists hold on to the same old claim that immigrants sneak in and steal enough jobs to be a primary cause of the country’s unemployment rates. Having an opinion is all well and good. The problem is that the arguments from both sides are completely mindless and ignore the real debate about immigration and labor issues. The real issue isn’t whether or not to let people into the country. The real issue is that gutting important jobs of living wages and necessary benefits makes only the most desperate work in them (qualified or not, legal or not), and gives workers harsh and inhumane lives.

To put it as concisely as possible, the U.S labor system has documented patterns when it comes to using international labor. First, corporations cut the pay and benefits of a certain industries’ workers enough where they can no longer support themselves and they begin to look for second jobs, or different jobs altogether. Then, claiming that this job market is mysteriously falling away or that the expense of hiring native workers is too high to stay in business, they either outsource or insource the jobs.

Outsourcing is what happened when various corporations exported a lot of the technological jobs to India, Japan, etc. and factory jobs to Mexico, China, and so on, so that they could pay the foreign workers a mere pittance of what the jobs are really worth without having to mind safety regulations or provide employee benefits. Insourcing is what happens when the jobs in question are non-exportable like farm workers, nurses or grade school teachers. They import foreign workers in massive numbers to displace native workers at, again, a mere pittance of what the job is really worth. “Now, wait a minute,” you must be saying, “did you say teachers and nurses?” Yes indeed, among the so-called jobs that are too undesirable for Americans are some of the most honored professions available. By siphoning trained (sometimes just barely) professionals from other countries to work in the U.S. for much less than they’re actually worth, we’re not only helping to destroy foreign healthcare and education systems and diminishing the quality of our own, but undermining domestic educators’ and nurses’ rights with non-union scabs as well.

A lot of this is due to NAFTA and  GATT agreements, but not all of it. And to us younger folks this may look like a new practice, but look back. It’s just the newest version of what began in the 1960’s when our factory workers in the garment industry were displaced by the waves of sweatshops that started up in the U.S., hiring many legal and illegal immigrants to work long hours for slave wages and no health benefits. Before that, we have the more extreme example of when the U.S began shipping in millions of African slaves to replace their own underpaid labor (or domestic slave labor) with completely unpaid foreign slave labor.

Again, the issue is not whether immigrants come to the U.S. to live and/or work. Once they get here they’re Americans, just like us, and everyone here other than Native Americans are immigrants anyway so that bird has seriously flown. If all workers (immigrant and native born alike) are provided safe working conditions, living wages, and the respect they deserve, the best candidates will compete for the most necessary jobs (nursing, teaching, farming, factory work) and there is no reason to insource. Everything else is meaningless distraction.

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