Borders, Markets and Common Sense

In all the recent debate about "immigration reform" there is one thing that seems to be the "elephant in the room" that doesn’t get mentioned: the fact that there is a multi-billion dollar market that is the engine behind this whole phenomenon. Here in the US we have a tremendous and diverse demand for relatively cheap labor and in Mexico and Central America there is an abundant supply of people who would like to provide that labor. This situation has not changed for decades but our political system has been unable to get its act together to create a legal and regulatory framework to legitimize this thriving market.

Now just because you have a demand and a supply doesn’t automatically mean that you want the market to exist. There are obviously strong market forces around drugs and prostitution and we don't really want to put those on a legitimate footing (except of course in Nevada). Of course it is abundantly clear that it is very very hard to shut down a robust market like that for drugs or sex. But if there are the conditions to foster a market and its not a bad thing, doesn’t it make sense to try to make it function well?

Now clearly some people think of "illegal immigration" as a bad thing, but that is because we have always tended to mix together completely different but sometimes overlapping activities. Maybe if we can talk about them separately we could make some progress.

Seasonal Labor:

The agricultural sector and to a lesser extent the construction industry have very significant needs for labor during certain peak periods of the year. It is really difficult to supply this labor from any local population because the supply of people isn't adequate and besides there are not that many people interested (or able) to do the picking, pruning, hoeing, hod carrying or whatever that is needed. This very real labor demand fits extremely well with an individual who really wants to live in his/her home country but who can greatly enhance the family income by spending part of the year as a "migrant" worker. The fact that we bogged down this sub-market in the divisive politics of immigration is really dumb, but its also morally reprehensible that we all depend for our excellent, low cost food supply on a system that forces these highly legitimate market participants to risk death so sneak into the country and feed us. We are also in the business of disrupting their family lives by making the risk of going home and back so high. We should solve this one by itself and get a guest worker program going that protects the workers from the abuses of the old Brucero program and yet which isn't something that can be gamed for other goals on the part of the worker. Anyone who thinks this is "taking jobs away from Americans" hasn't spent a day in the field and probably couldn't anyway.

Domestic Services:

When anti-immigration spokespeople talk about "cracking down on employers" I often wonder where they live and whether their neighbors are like mine here in Southern California where the thriving market for "immigrant" labor is for suburban homeowners. We have nannies, house cleaners, gardeners and day laborers who essentially make our lifestyles possible. You can argue that the double wage earner family, commuter, single family dwelling society isn't good if you like, but does it really make sense to make felons out of some huge proportion of our taxpayer base (often ironically including anti-immigration politicians like Peter Wilson)? Now in these categories you have a little stronger argument that immigrant/guest workers depress the wages for these jobs and make them unattractive for citizens. I think it is highly unlikely that you could ever fill all these roles without outside labor, but do we really want to do that experiment? Now, because these jobs are not mainly seasonal and because they often involve long-term and friendly relationships this sector is not as clearly suited to a guest worker program designed to attract people intent on remaining citizens of their own countries. It could work that way, but inevitably people will be long-term US employees and desire to live here with a full family etc and to integrate into our society and even become citizens. The trick is that we can't have it both ways and avoid a moral and political quagmire. Either we have to tell vast numbers of ordinary (and also many rich) Americans that they have to pay a great deal more to maintain their life style or we have to try to craft a system that has a place for this part of the labor market. Remember, we are talking about everything from the aged widow who hires a gardener to the Yuppie couple that has six employees who make their fast-paced life possible (BTW they are probably also financially contributing Republicans...)

Minimum and Low Wage Jobs: There is not a single American citizen today who does not enjoy lower cost restaurant food, hotel accommodations, construction, or retail shopping because of immigrant labor. Yes, the wages in those industries are lower because of the supply of labor from South of the border and thus unattractive for many American citizens. Now if people really want to "clamp down" on undocumented workers this is the place where it would be easiest and in some cases politically possible to do it. You can do enforcement activities against large companies fairly efficiently without the drawbacks of going after Joe Citizen. I just think we have to ask ourselves if we want to pay for it in higher prices. Of course now we have the best of both worlds because we can get people who have no hope of citizenship to live here and be part of this illegal market and take all the risk. Once again, there is no moral defense for this situation, particularly when it goes on for decades. These are the jobs that have served as the entrance mechanism for generations of US immigrants whose children and grandchildren then moved into being lawyers and doctors and artists and business people and computer programmers and all the other, easier and more lucrative or fulfilling careers. Nations around the world that have tried to shut-off this process have run into big problems. Like it or not, we cannot pretend that there are not extremely powerful market forces driving this part of the market. We could feasibly shut this part down, but we better know what we are talking about in terms of economic impact before we do it.

Criminal Enterprises:

There is one last sub-market functioning as part of the "immigration" scene that is also quite powerful on an economic level but clearly one that we don't want. Part of it is about that hugely powerful market for drugs. We've got the demand and the supply is going to come. We try to shut it down and a very ugly part of humanity comes in to get around the system and get the vast sums of money that are at stake. Part of the criminal market is also an artifact of our failure to do anything rational for a very long time. The Coyotes that "help" the people who participate in our more rational labor markets (Seasonal, Domestic Services, Low Wage) get around our fences and border patrols and vigilantes extract high prices and give no guarantees in the deadly game. The lowlifes that provide the prostitutes for lonely migrants also flourish in our lack-of-a -solution environment.

These are the strong markets that are driving this situation going forward. We need, as a society, to talk rationally about how we want to regulate and manage these markets. Pretending that they don't exist, as we have been on a political level, is NOT WORKING!!! Then, as a separate issue we have to wrestle with the moral, practical and political question of what to do about the millions of people that have become integrated into our society over decades because we have never rationally dealt with these questions before. That is certainly a thorny question, but it is really quite distinct from how we decide to acknowledge and deal with powerful and largely legitimate market forces that just keep going even when someone doesn’t need an issue to "rally the base" for a mid-term election.

So what am I recommending? Break this debate down into its logically distinct segments and act on them. Don’t fail to do the right thing about seasonal labor because of an argument about “amnesty” for someone who has been living here for 20 years. Don’t keep failing to do ANYTHING except to build fences, drive people to die in the dessert, enjoy cheap products and services and then pretend that this all has something to do with National Security.