It’s important to take a moment to appreciate that everyone and/or their ancestors were at one time immigrants/emigrants. Yes, inclusive of indigenous Native Americans who can be traced back 16,000 years as having migrated from Asia. Many, if not most of your early populations were mobile nomadic peoples responding to the push/pull factors of the economic dynamics that governed their survival. Whether it was the mobility of their food source, the seasonal shifts in weather or escaping the encroachment of conquerors. Many of these reasons are biblical and continue to influence migration to this day. Case in point, many people to this day migrate to the South because of the weather.
There is one immutable fact, that immigrants have never been the affluent from their place of origin. They were most likely to be the least desirable, considered expendable, of the societies from which they emanated. Disposables in the pursuit of settling unknown lands in the interest of generating wealth for the crowns that sent them. For all intents and purposes, let us understand that there is no difference between migrant and refugee, as every migrant is seeking refuge from something.
It’s still about jobs and the human capital to fill them. Human capital is the fuel that drives our economic engine. There are several issues attached to this fundamental topic that need to be addressed. First and foremost, the baseless erroneous assertion that immigrants, specifically Mexican, are TAKING jobs from American citizens. Someone please tell me how you TAKE a job in America. There are a lot of unemployed citizens that would like to know. This issue is being used to foster divisiveness between Brown and Black communities. To my knowledge, there should be nothing precluding unemployed citizens from seeking and accepting the same jobs they assert others are TAKING. I do not accept that foreign born nationals with little to no education and no command of our language are somehow more qualified than our citizens who have at their disposable educational and training resources to prepare them for work.
The Trump proposal to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is absurd and plays to the willingness and gullibility of certain segments to embrace the scapegoat tactics and feed their fear of something that’s already happened. To put a finer point on it, about 30 years ago, there was a movie titled “A Day Without a Mexican”. It was described as a mockumentary and can be found on You Tube. It is set in California, the 9th largest economy in the world. The premise was, with the then 33% Mexican population (today over 50%), they would awaken to all of these essential workers gone. The economy would implode. Who is going to fill the millions of jobs that these incredibly resourceful people have figured out how to TAKE? Not to mention the millions of jobs presently unfulfilled due to labor shortages. My plea to everyone voting, please do not buy into this nonsense, and here’s why.
Our entire governmental structure is in some way complicit in our unwillingness to engage the issue of immigration in any meaningful way. The primary accomplices are the leadership in Congress. Let’s go back to 1986, the Simpson-Mazzoli bill which was basically an amnesty bill that at the same time made it illegal to hire undocumented workers. Ten years later, they came up with e-verify, a voluntary participation system of validating citizenship to secure employment which was unenforceable. Fast forward to 2013, S. 744, the Obama administration’s attempt at overhauling the system. It was an extraordinary, comprehensive piece of legislation. Both times, the Senate passed it, the House killed it. Sound familiar? Just this year, a decade later, same thing. Both houses were then and are today under Republican leadership. And they are the ones screaming loudest about what they themselves refuse to fund and do. This is the epitome of hypocrisy. When our Congressional representatives like Lauren Boebert paint an entire people with the broad brush of everyone being rapists and murderers and its tolerated, it’s time they be held to account. And Trump doubling down by perpetuating the mischaracterization of those seeking only the opportunity to work.
This is targeted discriminatory Mexican immigration reform. For reform to be meaningful it must be applicable to all borders, all ports of entry and all sources of immigrants. Over 50% of the undocumented problem is from, or through, Canada. How about we treat Mexicans like we treat Canadians? Now that’s an open border that shines a glaring light on our double standard regarding border policy.
This same targeting has found its way into Trump’s economic policies as relates to tariffs. At 100%, they are punitive and serve no purpose except to undermine someone else’s economy, in this case Mexico’s and China’s, once again. If these tariffs are so great, they should be applied to goods and services from all countries. These policies will only serve to slow down economies, increasing the pressure to migrate to our border in search of work lost to the economic slowdowns caused by tariffs. These tariffs will negatively manifest themselves in numerous ways, none of them good nor acceptable, on the American citizen and consumer.
Bottom line:
Trump immigration policy is an empty exercise in social irresponsibility. Vice President Harris’ immigration policy is realistic, actionable and provides for long-term sustainability. What is the genuine difference? Vice President Harris with Congressional support WILL FUND ENFORCEMENT provisions that have here-to-fore gone unfunded for the past 40 years.
