Why Immigration Reform Is Doomed to Failure

© Dr. Gary D. Lemmons, May 21, 2006

The President’s announcement last Monday of steps to address the issue of illegal immigrants to the United States has met with mixed reaction.  The liberals insist that the act of securing the borders of the United States should be coupled with a guest worker program or, better yet, some sort of full amnesty for the 12-20 millions (who knows for sure) of illegals who are already here.  The conservatives insist on closing the borders, forthwith, and the most ardent among them are for rounding up the masses and sending them back.

The President, wisely, understands that the effort to arrest a massive number of individuals, such as the illegals that have entered over the past 20 years, would not only be disruptive to the lives of those families, many of whom have grown children and nearly grown grandchildren who are natural born citizens of the United States, but such an act would have devastating effects upon the American economy.

It is precisely because of the economic value of illegal aliens that the President’s efforts and the legislation now in the Congress are going to fail.

Over the past 20 years since the last amnesty program sponsored by the Reagan Administration, American businesses, ranging from the neighborhood small operators to the corporate giants have made millions of dollars by using cheap foreign labor.  While most businesses, either by inefficiency or by intention, have only violated the law against hiring illegal aliens, others have paid less than minimum wage, defrauded their employees of usual and customary worker benefits, and failed to deduct income taxes and social security.

In all fairness to the business community, they have been compelled to turn to this source of labor because of the lack of Americans willing to do these jobs, many of which are less than attractive, for slave wages and no benefits.

Just how important the pool of illegal immigrants is to the economy is demonstrated by a recent Legislative Alert sent out to its members by the National Association of Homebuilders.  In this document, the NAHB is encouraging its members to support passage of Senate Bill 2611 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act.  In particular, the NAHB wants its members to contact their Senators and tell them NOT to allow the guest worker provisions and the provisions that would allow current illegal immigrants to remain in this country, receive a work visa, and ultimately to receive a green card to be removed from the law.  Said the NAHB:

Opponents trying to strip these provisions out of the legislation are putting the industry in danger of losing a significant portion of its labor force, making labor shortages a greater concern and leading to production delays.  The industry must have the contributions of immigrant labor to meet the demand for housing!

The Alert went on to call for Senate Bill 2611 to retain language that would:

…ensure general contractors are not held accountable for the employment decisions made by subcontractors on a jobsite.  Employers must be responsible for their own direct employees. The primary burden of enforcing our immigration laws should not fall on employers.

This Legislative Alert by the National Association of Homebuilders is indicative of the attitude of the business community to the issue of illegal aliens.  Accessories after the fact, at the very least, or more likely co-conspirators, the business community, en masse, is engaging in the facilitation of the importation to and use of illegal alien labor in the United States.  We can’t build enough prisons to house the numbers of the business community that should go there, and, in all likelihood, we wouldn't want to send Uncle Arbuckle to jail just because he hired an illegal Mexican worker to cut his grass or to lock Aunt Mildred up because she has Conchita, an undocumented Guatemalan, to do her ironing once a week.

The Immigration Reform Movement consists of "lots of sound, but not much fury."