Immigration reform

Today I'm hosting an article written by my dear husband. He is very concerned and these thoughts are his 2 cents on this topic.

Much has been discussed lately about the need to deal with illegal immigration in this country. We heard the proposal of guest worker visa program. We heard about the proposals to make entering USA illegally a felony. Some politicians even wanted to make criminals out of anyone who lends a helping hand to fellow human being who is here illegally.

As I drive through my neighborhood everyday on my way to work, I am able to pinpoint with 90% accuracy those of my neighbors who live here illegally. Be it from their faces, license plates from other states with more relaxed DMV regulations or simply by hanging around certain places. I see them everywhere, not only where I live. As a contractor I spend a lot of time where the urban sprawl is happening, and where one can see them building our subdivisions, landscaping them and maintaining them.

No one today disputes that they do the kinds of work that very few Americans are willing to do. When I came to the US ten years ago, it was still quite usual to see a high school drop out, or person with CHJ (can’t hold a job) syndrome run around with a grass cutter. But as the subdivisions multiplied and grew larger, simple rules of supply and demand created a big vacuum that sucked in all willing to trek through the countries that stood between them and our southern border to become the part of the great economical machine called the USA.

Knowing some of these people personally, I listened to the details of their gruel some trips from as far as Peru and Ecuador. For some it took 4 months to reach the US under the harshest conditions imaginable. These trips are especially risky to women, who are in many cases raped by the guides or even locked up in whore houses in Mexico.

But if they did reach the US, whole new world opened up to them. They quickly found their place in American society (on the bottom) and after they spent their first year working hard to pay their trafficking fee, they were already accustomed to the reality of their new life.

Most people either borrow the money to pay the traffickers from family or friends or have to pay the traffickers from their paychecks once they start working here.

Imagine coming to a country, not knowing the language, not being able to work legally and having to pay a $15,000 debt. You’d take any job under any conditions.

As the 90’s brought a lot more of spending money into the pockets of Americans, they started to look for ways to spend it, and spend it they did. There is hardly any farmland left in New Jersey that wasn’t developed. In ground swimming pools that one could see only in shows like “Dallas” are nothing uncommon. When the money is for grabs, both parents go to work and babysitters and housekeepers are in high demand.

People in towns sold their homes and moved to the subdivisions for quieter life. The people who made equity on the 3000 sq. ft homes, moved to 4000 sq. ft. homes, those who had equity built up on the 4000 sq. ft. homes moved to the 5000 + sq. ft. homes. As this madness continued and houses sprouted like mushrooms after rain, our new lowest class kept on building, cutting grass, cooking, picking and packing our food and so on.

Many Americans ended up in houses they would’ve never dreamed of, while those who build them sleep on mattresses without bed frames, five people in a room.

Our immigration system is broken, but not where the politicians claim it to be. There clearly was and is demand for carpenters, landscapers, housekeepers and so on, but we don’t seem to admit it. It seems to me, that certain business groups want the immigrants to stay illegal, because the more desperate you are the cheaper you are willing to work.

For example, a contractor who uses undocumented migrants will be able to put a lower bid on framing a house then one whose workers are American or legal migrants. That in turn saves money to the builder.

We need to remember when passing any new immigration laws that these people are part of our community, and they create a lot of wealth for very little compensation. They are filling in positions which we’ve created and for which there are no other candidates. We can’t look at them with clear conscience as subhuman, as people undeserving the basic rights and still use their cheap services.