What Would We Do if All the Illegal Immigrants Went Home?
Could we afford to live here if they all left?
There are several proposals for immigration reform being
discussed now. They say they will solve the problem of so many
illegal immigrants coming to and staying in this country. Some
are offering amnesty, others guest worker cards, others
temporary visas.
Some people are talking about rounding them up and sending them
all back to where ever they came from.
How would we do that? First, how would we find all of them? If
we were able to find them, who would do the processing and
paperwork to organize the deportation? Would we hire planes and
buses and buy them tickets to go home? It sounds like it would
be impossible and also impossibly expensive to do this for the
millions who are here, some for many years.
If the roads were filled with buses and the skies with planes
taking all these people out of this country, what would happen
then? Who would do the work they were doing here? There would be
a huge shortage of workers for farming, construction,
landscaping, restaurants and tourism. Last season, growers could
not get enough workers to harvest their crops and this year is
worse. Prices of everything would rise dramatically and some
produce would not be available at all, because it would be
rotting in the fields.
These people take jobs that most other residents won't take.
The pay is low, the hours are long, the work is very hard and
often dangerous, the benefits are non-existent. They often are
housed in bunkhouses or sharing trailers, away from their
families, living in conditions few of us would tolerate.
Assuming they make about $6.00 an hour, what would the wage have
to be raised to for any of us to accept the work and conditions?
$12? $20? If growers had to pay two or three or four times the
present wage just to harvest, how much would lettuce and apples
and tomatoes cost in the stores?
If landscaping companies, contractors and restaurants had to
pay top wages to get the work done, how much would we have to
pay to buy or repair a house or get the lawn cut or buy a meal?
If motel and hotel maids and janitors were paid more, would we
be able to afford a room?
If these workers were allowed to work legally, with a guest
worker card or temporary worker visa, or whatever the different
proposals call them, they would have to be paid at least the
minimum wage and would be paying taxes. Paying the minimum wage
or the prevailing wage would probably raise prices a little, but
not as much as raising wages so the rest of us would do the
work. An added bonus might be discovering that some of these
workers are highly educated and skilled and are taking these
manual labor jobs because they can't legally get a better job.
If companies can't find enough workers who are here legally,
they should be able to offer these jobs to others willing and
able to do them. But these people should have some type of
document; they have to be paying taxes, have to be able to work
and live safely, have to be able to be located when the
immigration department wants to know where they are.
Undocumented workers are exploited by unscrupulous employers.
They are exploited precisely because they are undocumented.
These employers know they can do almost anything to them and
won't be reported. If these employers were made to follow the
laws, it would also help solve the problem.
If people needed these temporary visas to work here, the ones
that are crossing the border illegally would probably stop
coming. It would be impossible to send all the illegal people
back home now, we have to find a better way to deal with this
problem.
We beg for immigration reform and complain about illegal
immigrants, but are we willing to pay more for almost everything
we need and use in our lives if they are deported?