Bush's big border problem by Clarence Page
Bush's big border problem by Clarence Page
Published May 18, 2006
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON -- President Bush hates leaks, unless he authorizes them. And the White House leaked like a sieve days before Bush delivered his prime-time immigration speech from the Oval Office on Monday. The scoop: He wants to beef up our borders with National Guard troops.
Why bother to give the speech at all? Because in the TV age, a president's speech is not delivered to make news as much as the news of it is used as hype. In fact, Bush probably hopes his immigration speech will help boost his approval ratings, which have been in the cellar of late.
By pegging his speech to the theme that "we do not yet have full control of the border" between the United States and Mexico, he was acknowledging a rising consensus on the volatile issue of immigration.
And if we Americans are to agree on anything about immigration, it appears to be regarding our need to have secure borders and some semblance of order on the number of immigrants admitted into the U.S. annually.
Many of us, including me, detest the sight of walls or fences between nations or tribes of people. Yet, even fence-haters have a hard time arguing against the fundamental right of every country to protect its borders. Mexico's President Vicente Fox may feel miffed by the growing network of fences, walls and border patrols along America's southern border. But his government similarly guards Mexico's southern border, holding back a potential flood of Central American immigrants for whom Mexico would be an economic bonanza-land.
But border control is only the first leg of this debate on immigration. Even if we sealed off all 2,000 miles of our border with Mexico with two parallel 15-foot walls separated by large Florida alligators, it would not stop more than half of the current growth of illegal immigrants. The rest, according to government studies, come from all over the world with student, tourist or some other temporary visa and just simply overstay their visit.
Contrary to the wishes of some extremists, there's little chance that the federal government is going to launch a national roundup of illegal immigrants who are otherwise obeying laws, working jobs, buying cars, buying homes and paying taxes.
With that in mind, I was gratified to hear Bush change the course of his usual rhetoric. His proposed "temporary-worker program," he said, would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for "jobs Americans are not doing."
That's a switch. In the past he has referred to such jobs as "jobs Americans won't do," which implies that Americans are just too lazy or snobbish to work the sort of jobs that our immigrant or enslaved ancestors worked.
Yet Bush avoided any specifics on how he will make sure that those taking advantage of his proposed temporary-worker program will actually leave the U.S. when their work visas expire. Nor did he offer any details on the touchy topic of sanctions against employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. Plugging up the holes in the border is one thing. Reducing the attraction of employers seeking cheap, compliant labor is quite another.
And even though the White House has labeled the temporary-worker jobs as "jobs Americans are not doing," the description is not necessarily evidence of an unwillingness of Americans to work. Quite the contrary, there's no job that Americans would not do, if the job paid well enough.
Ask legal workers why they are not doing the jobs employers hope guest-workers will fill and you probably will hear something about how the jobs don't pay enough to compensate for the hours or hazards.
During past labor shortages, some innovative employers were known to raise pay without passing on crippling costs to consumers. Some have been known to improve working conditions and even provide carpools to shuttle workers from job-poor neighborhoods to work in job-rich suburbs.
That's the kind of immigration debate I'd like to see. After all, the real issue is not just about immigration. It's also about jobs.
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Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board. E-mail: cptime@aol.com
Published May 18, 2006
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON -- President Bush hates leaks, unless he authorizes them. And the White House leaked like a sieve days before Bush delivered his prime-time immigration speech from the Oval Office on Monday. The scoop: He wants to beef up our borders with National Guard troops.
Why bother to give the speech at all? Because in the TV age, a president's speech is not delivered to make news as much as the news of it is used as hype. In fact, Bush probably hopes his immigration speech will help boost his approval ratings, which have been in the cellar of late.
By pegging his speech to the theme that "we do not yet have full control of the border" between the United States and Mexico, he was acknowledging a rising consensus on the volatile issue of immigration.
And if we Americans are to agree on anything about immigration, it appears to be regarding our need to have secure borders and some semblance of order on the number of immigrants admitted into the U.S. annually.
Many of us, including me, detest the sight of walls or fences between nations or tribes of people. Yet, even fence-haters have a hard time arguing against the fundamental right of every country to protect its borders. Mexico's President Vicente Fox may feel miffed by the growing network of fences, walls and border patrols along America's southern border. But his government similarly guards Mexico's southern border, holding back a potential flood of Central American immigrants for whom Mexico would be an economic bonanza-land.
But border control is only the first leg of this debate on immigration. Even if we sealed off all 2,000 miles of our border with Mexico with two parallel 15-foot walls separated by large Florida alligators, it would not stop more than half of the current growth of illegal immigrants. The rest, according to government studies, come from all over the world with student, tourist or some other temporary visa and just simply overstay their visit.
Contrary to the wishes of some extremists, there's little chance that the federal government is going to launch a national roundup of illegal immigrants who are otherwise obeying laws, working jobs, buying cars, buying homes and paying taxes.
With that in mind, I was gratified to hear Bush change the course of his usual rhetoric. His proposed "temporary-worker program," he said, would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for "jobs Americans are not doing."
That's a switch. In the past he has referred to such jobs as "jobs Americans won't do," which implies that Americans are just too lazy or snobbish to work the sort of jobs that our immigrant or enslaved ancestors worked.
Yet Bush avoided any specifics on how he will make sure that those taking advantage of his proposed temporary-worker program will actually leave the U.S. when their work visas expire. Nor did he offer any details on the touchy topic of sanctions against employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. Plugging up the holes in the border is one thing. Reducing the attraction of employers seeking cheap, compliant labor is quite another.
And even though the White House has labeled the temporary-worker jobs as "jobs Americans are not doing," the description is not necessarily evidence of an unwillingness of Americans to work. Quite the contrary, there's no job that Americans would not do, if the job paid well enough.
Ask legal workers why they are not doing the jobs employers hope guest-workers will fill and you probably will hear something about how the jobs don't pay enough to compensate for the hours or hazards.
During past labor shortages, some innovative employers were known to raise pay without passing on crippling costs to consumers. Some have been known to improve working conditions and even provide carpools to shuttle workers from job-poor neighborhoods to work in job-rich suburbs.
That's the kind of immigration debate I'd like to see. After all, the real issue is not just about immigration. It's also about jobs.
----------
Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board. E-mail: cptime@aol.com
posted by Carlos T Mock at 11:11 AM
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